I did a little freezer “cooking” a few weeks ago. I made up a few meatloaves for the freezer, as well as one for dinner. It really is easy to make extra (double, triple, etc.) of something that you’re already going to make anyway. It takes very little extra time, and the bonus is that you have meals already prepped & ready to go in the freezer. All that really needs to be done is to pull it out the evening/night before & let it thaw in the refrigerator overnight, and then it’s ready to go the next day. This goes for any meal, whether you need to cook in the slow cooker, bake in the over, cook on the stove top, or grill. This particular day, I was planning meatloaf, so I planned to make extra. Here’s what I bought/used:
- 5 lb ground beef
- 5 cups old fashioned rolled oats
- 5 eggs
- 2 large onions, chopped
- 2 bell peppers, chopped
- 2 large carrots, shredded
- 1 medium zucchini, shredded
- 8 oz baby bella mushrooms, chopped
- 10 slices bacon, cooked crisp
- 2 packets onion soup mix
- seasonings to taste ( this time, I used smoked paprika, roasted garlic powder, onion powder, salt, & pepper)
- 1 1/2 – 2 cups BBQ sauce
Mix everything together very well & divide into gallon freezer bags.
At this point, you can either shape it into a loaf or you can flatten it in the bag & freeze. I like to flatten it out when I’m freezing it for a couple of reasons: (1) It takes up less space in my freezer & (2) it takes a lot less time to thaw out because it’s not a large mass. I use my rolling pill to lightly press it flat in the freezer bag, which also helps me to get out as much air as possible.
The above ingredients netted me 4 meatloaves at 2.22 lbs each with 3 cups of extra veggies that I will use to make some more meatloaves. The veggies were divided into 2 quart bags & placed in the freezer along with 3 of the meatloaves.
I also wrote the cooking instructions on the bag so that anyone in my family can prepare this meal. To cook your meatloaf in the slow cooker: Shape & place your meatloaf in a foil-lined slow cooker & cook on high for 4 hours, or on low for 6-8 hours, depending on your slow cooker. Top with BBQ sauce in the last 30 minutes or so.
This meatloaf is enough to feed my family of 5 for 1 meal. There may or may not be leftovers. It will depend on what sides we have & how hungry everyone is.
I had also purchased a whole cut up chicken & 2 packages of split chicken breasts that were marked down, so I placed all of that in the slow cooker the night before with about 1 cup of water. I deboned & shredded all of this meat & will divide it up into meal-size portions for the freezer to help make last minute meals go much quicker. This really helps to cut down my cooking/baking time since the meat is already cooked & ready to go. I leave out any seasonings so that I can season it up as I go, depending on what dishes I am making.
I also try to keep precooked ground beef on hand, but that’s a post for another day!
I hope you have enjoyed this post, & that it helps you make your meal planning, dinner preparations go a little more quickly & smoothly!
On June 30th, she gave birth to 11 little ones. We lost one due to mom laying on him, and then we lost another one the other day when he somehow managed to get into mom’s water bucket & drown. But, we have not lost any due to any health issues, and we pray that we do not lose any more. Soon, we will have a few for sale. We plan to slaughter the mom in a couple months, but we will be keeping a couple of the females to raise for breeding in the future. We’ve got our eye on a little male Red Wattle that’s just a little older than our piglets that we’re planning to purchase & raise to breed with our females. We will be keeping at least one other one for meat for us. We originally planned to keep two, but since we have lost two, we haven’t decided yet about keeping the second one. We shall see.
Another big change going on here at MCH, we are also in the process now of doing lots of demolition on our property! We have moved a storage building that we have to a new location and are building a new garage where the building once stood. But, that’s not all we’re doing! We’re also going to be demolishing our current home & bringing in a new modular home!!! Stay tuned to see what all we are doing! I’ve been taking pics & short videos as we’ve been working, so I’ll be sharing some of those with you as I have time.
My Country Haven 