Squirrel It Away

Sometimes I lose myself in flights of fancy while performing tedious jobs around the house. Sometimes it's just easier imagining the freezer is a hollowed out log that holds food for winter. Sometimes I'm an Irish maid working for a Socialite family in Manhattan in the early part of the 20th century...or a mobster's wife in 1920's Chicago...or I'm sweeping the dirt floor of my dugout on the banks of Plum Creek. And sometimes I get called weird. It's ok. I've learned to embrace my quirks. Thank you, Mama, for teaching me these coping mechanisms!

The past couple years of homeschooling has taught me a valuable lesson in preparedness. Each year I've regretted not having a meal plan to fall back on when we're busy with school. Too many times I've looked up from lessons to a little guy's voice pleading yet again that he's hungry. (Are they really ever full?) I always realize with shock that it's lunch time again and I have no idea what we're eating. This produces a frenzied dig-through of the freezer and can cupboard to see what can be heated up the quickest. What it doesn't produce is good, healthy brain food.

Last year's solution to this problem was to cook multiple meals on the weekends after we had finished school for the week, stocking the fridge with leftovers. However, by Wednesday the reserves were running low and we were back to square one. While I'm sure I'll still take advantage of the weekends to cook extra, I decided to plan ahead this year and make freezer meals.

I've felt a lot like a squirrel lately, having frozen multiple bags of sweet corn, rhubarb, zucchini, and tomatoes for enjoying this winter.

2-1/2 gallons of rhubarb

The boys helping me husk corn

What we had leftover after eating piles of corn: 22 cups put away.

14 cups of zucchini

And then I ran across a Pinterest pin that made the old cerebral light bulb click on. You can find the site here.

Genius! We had everything I could see in the bags...why not pre-mix everything and put it in the freezer so all I have to do is dump it in the Crockpot when we need a quick meal solution? Companies make a killing on freezer meals! 

So I embarked on a mission to get as many meals frozen as possible before school starts. (This is why my house resembles Hiroshima post WWII, people.) It's super easy when you can simply make double of what you're already making. The first meal frozen was a lasagna. Assembled just like I normally do, I just skipped the final step of baking it and wrapped it in cling-wrap and foil before putting the lid on and slipping it in the deep freeze.

Next I made a triple batch of banana bread...a very simple breakfast around here. Two of the loaves went into the freezer. They may last a couple days when thawed. So I made a batch of Rhubarb Streusel Bread (click for recipe!) to freeze for when that runs out. This delicious bread tastes even better after it's been frozen, believe it or not! Everything I've frozen is stored in gallon-size freezer bags.

Rhubarb Streusel Bread

Eli cleared a lot of the tomatoes off the vines recently, so I've been boiling them to remove their skins and freezing what I can to be used in goulash and chili.

Bowls and bowls of tomatoes. The bag is buried in the freezer somewhere, but I ended up putting away a gallon of frozen tomatoes.

I decided to save myself a step and just make a double batch of chili to freeze while I already had tomato stuff slopped all over the kitchen. No one was in the mood for chili so both batches are now in the freezer. I'll be able to whip up a pan of cornbread muffins in a "Jiffy" (hehe) and have another complete meal ready in minutes. 

Before beginning any freezing ventures, make sure you have good quality freezer bags. The bag on the right is a cheap store-brand that says "for freezer" right on it. A couple scoops into filling this bag and the side seem was already slowly leaking, drip by drip. After double bagging them I'm not ahead any money by buying the cheap ones. The chili looks prettier in the cheapies though because the plastic is so thin....

The day after the chili marathon I decided to make a double batch of Creamy Chicken Tortilla Soup (click for recipe!) to freeze. This is my favorite, and it is so so good! Eli has already asked if we can thaw one of these out. :)

I better take it easy on the soup making now so I don't burn anyone out! The last double batch I made was Tomato Turkey Veggie Soup (click for recipe). This I simply mixed up in a large bowl, only browning the ground turkey before stirring it in with the rest of the ingredients, and it'll all cook in a Crockpot later. So I have no idea how it tastes, but it smelled delicious. I imagine a nice crusty bread would pair beautifully with the soup...like my dilly bread.

A while ago a friend of mine cleared her pantry of everything containing gluten and gave it to us. I have a really hard time throwing any kind of food away, even when expired, knowing there are starving children in the world. And in a quest to use more of the food on hand, creativity is essential. I recently found multiple (6 or 7) pouches of chicken Rice-A-Roni stashed in a cupboard. I turned them into fried rice by sauteing onions, garlic, diced carrots, and frozen peas, then adding the already cooked Rice-A-Roni to this and frying it all up with about half a dozen eggs. I froze the leftovers for a side dish to enjoy during school. (Gavin ate three platefuls of it before he claimed he was full.)

Lastly, the boys have been hungry for pancakes for quite a while now, so I made a quadruple (eek) batch of them this morning. I was frying pancakes for over two hours. I took the easy route at least and used the old tried-and-true Bisquick. The boys devoured a good quarter of the stack before I could snap a photo. The remainder were bagged and tagged and stuffed into the freezer. Yes, that does sound bad. At this point in my freezer-stocking project I do feel more like a mortician than a squirrel.

Now that it's Thursday, with four short days left until school starts, I don't have a lot of time left for cooking marathons. Instead, I need to focus on the lesson plans that are so-close-but-not-quite finished. Time to switch to little schoolhouse on the prairie mode....

At least I have several breakfasts and even more lunches ready to go so I can focus on starting the school year off right!