Bargain!

I found these at Walmart today. Two sesame french bread rolls for 1.37 on clearance. I took them home....buttered, sliced and repackaged. Viola! Perfect to add to any meal! I even added sprinkled parmesean to one of them. When I want bread for a meal I grab these out of the freezer, toss on a cookie sheet butter side up and heat up for just a few mintues. I can even put them on broil on low and toast them up quite nicely. Love it!

Meatball Subs

Yes..very very simple recipe, but another one that everyone in my family will eat. Even the little ones will eat the meatballs in sauce and dip their bun.

Scene 1
Frozen Turkey meatballs - 4.95 for the bag
2 spaghetti sauces - .89 each @ Winco
1 package sub rolls - 1.50 on sale!
Dried Onion - .10?
Dried Garlic - .10?
Parmesean cheese - .50

Yeah..I'm kind of a Costco nut...but it is good and inexpensive so I don't care! :)
Scene 2
Divide the meatballs into two seperate freezer bags. Dump one can of sauce in each along with however much onion and garlic sound good to you.

Scene 3
Take the hoagie rolls and cut them in half. I suppose you don't have to do this step, but they are just easier to handle when they are smaller. Take 1/2 cup of parmesean cheese and put it in a small baggie.


Scene 4
That's all folks! Freeze one bag of meatballs and a bag full of hoagies with the little baggie of cheese thrown in. Ta-Da! For dinner - thaw. Cook meatballs in a pot on the stove until bubbly and hot. Toast the rolls if you like. Fill hoagies with meatballs and top with parmesean cheese. If I'd had it I would have also thrown in some mozz. cheese, but hey...I can only cook with what I have! Enjoy!

So final totals...8.93 for two meals. TWO MEALS! $4.47 a meal! Toss in a salad and you have a perfect meal! (Get it...toss a salad...LOL)

Brag!

Yeah...two posts in a row that have nothing to do with the actual cooking, but this is important stuff!

I went to Albertson's today to get a few things I knew were on sale there, and it was a great shopping trip!

I wish I had a pic of the receipt to show you, but my total was 115.96 before coupons. Any guesses as to what I actually paid after coupons???

$53.02!!

AND..I got a kick back coupons for 5.00 of my next purchase. Excellent!

My bargains!

So I know this blog is about freezer food, but I had some good bargains lately and I wanted to share! Mac and Cheese - Total family favorite over here. Yes, even myself! I can't help it, I love Mac and cheese in any form. I love homemade the best, but it is always good to have some boxes of these around for when wild child decides he is starving, or I'm not quite home yet.


With coupon at Fred Meyers - .50 a box. Love it!

And these crackers. We love crackers around here. We eat them alot..yeah, way too much. Anyway, I had a whole handful of these coupons for buy one get one free as they were a new item. At 3.79 or so a box, I wasn't going to do that. It just wasn't worth it to me. However...last night at Fred Meyer's they were on sale 2 for 4.00. Yep...do the math. I paid a dollar a box! LOVE IT!

"Stuffy Noodles"

I'm not sure where my 13 year old came up with the name for this one, but it stuck and these alfredo chicken and broccoli noodles became the now famous "Stuffy Noodles" in our house. This one really is a family favorite. Without further ado...the yummiest noodles that all my children love!

Scene 1
4 Chicken Breasts @ $1.88 a pound - $5.00
Frozen chopped broccoli - $1.25
Box of large shells - $2.50
Box of manicotti noodles - 1.00 (many were broken)
2 jars of alfredo sauce - $1.49 each
4 cups shredded cheddar cheese - approx $1.00
Parmesean cheese - $.50

Scene 2 - Staples (not counted in final costs)
Chopped Dried Onion, Olive oil, Smoked Paprika and Salt and Pepper

(Smoked Paprika...who would have thought but it is YUMMY! I got this bottle in my stocking at Christmas, yes..for Christmas and I love it. My sister gave this to me and we use it all the time now. Trust me, you won't be sorry you tried it!)

Scene 3
First cook the chicken and chop or shred. I cooked all four chicken breasts with the onion, but decided that it was just too much chicken. I scooped out a quarter of it to freeze for something else later. So really, these meals just got cheaper! $3.75 worth of chicken instead of $5.00!

Scene 4
Cook the large shells and the manicotti noodles to Al Dente (not quite fully cooked). I would normally use two boxes of shells, but I had these manicotti noodles in the pantry and they needed to be used. It also made the meals costs less because they were on clearance. Gotta love sales!

Scene 5
Add the bag of chopped frozen broccoli, 1 jar of alfredo sauce and 2 cups of the shredded cheddar. I also dump in probably 1/4 cup of shredded parmesean. I just guess on this one. Stir well. I had planned on using 2 jars of sauce, but in reality I only used 1/2 of the second one. I put the rest of it in a freezer bag to add to another dish. Once again..saved me money!

Scene 6
These are my "molds" I line these with foil and build my dishes. Once they are frozen I take the casserole dishes out of the molds and stack them in the freezer. This way I can make other casserole dishes without having to buy more of these foil pans or use my good pans in the freezer. Cool eh?

Scene 7
Now the fun part...stuff the noodles! Go ahead, use your hands...stuff away! Line the pans with the noodles and cover with the remaining cheese. I also dump some more parmesean on top..we like cheese around here!

Scene 8
I stick these in the freezer until they are partially frozen or totally frozen, depends on how much time I have. After they are frozen I take them out of the molds and I package them up and put in the directions. They get stacked in the chest freezer in the garage for use later! Tonight however, one pan went right into the oven for dinner! 350 degrees until heated through. This is normally around 30 minutes if you do it from a thawed casserole. 20 minutes if you are making it fresh. Hint, when you thaw these kinds of casseroles, thaw them in the pan they are going to cook in. That way they don't fall apart while thawing because you didn't freeze them in the pan...the mold system. Does that make sense?


Scene 9
Now what does a good cook do after all that hard work?

Scene 10
And what does slave child, aka Kyle do? The dishes! (by the way, he offered to pay me not to put this pic on the internet..hehe)

Scene 11
Here is what our fantastic dinner looks like! YUMMO!!



So for a total of three dinners $12.00. This is $4.00 a dinner! Gotta love it! I partnered it with $1.00 worth of lettuce and a 1/2 a loaf of french bread (.75)tonight for a grand one dinner total of $5.75 Isn't that awesome?? And even better...I have two more dinners and 1/2 a loaf of sliced french bread ready for another time. I love freezer cooking! :)

Welcome!

Welcome to Freezer Fun! I'm going to show you some of my favorite freezable recipes and how I make them. I tried cooking for a whole weekend and stocking my freezer, but it was just difficult to manage all that cooking while dealing with two little ones running around. What I found that worked for me was to just make double or triple recipes of our favorites and keep them in the freezer. This way there is always something in the freezer when needed. I love it! I'll show you a few of my favorites and you show me yours! :)