Saturday, March 6, 2010

OAMC Recap and Recipe Match-Ups...

Man I am WIPED today.  I worked hard the last three days though, and then to top it all off winter gets long this time of year, so I think we're all tired by about this time :).

I WAS going to take a picture of everything I made (and I still might and add to this post later on), but darn  I have this very intricate system of stacking in the freezer right now and I REALLY don't want to put everything on my table and then try to put it all back into the freezer again *laugh*.  I have to dig out a corned beef brisket for dinner tommorrow, though, so I might have to try it anyway.  We'll see how it goes. 

Anyway, I promised recipe match-ups and that's what you are going to get.  The fruits of my labor in all of their glory for the last three days are below.  Enjoy!

BAKING DAY MASTER LIST

Chicken Lo Mein x 1

Sweet and Sour Pork x 2 (the meat turned out AWESOME, but I'd buy prepared Sweet and Sour Sauce if you are looking for some real flavor for your sauce...it was sort of bland)

Rice x 1 (just steam your rice as normal, stick into a freezer bag, freeze flat and then break off "pieces" as needed.  Very easy and a real time saver).

1 Thing Chicken Thighs (just cooked the chicken thighs in some chicken broth on the stove with a decent amount of grill seasoning, we like flavorfull meat around here, and then stuck it into a freezer bag for a quick dinner or addition to a dinner later on)

Balsamic Pork x 1 (calls for 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar, a couple of tablespoons of honey, a couple tablespoons of Dijon style mustard and 2 tablespoons fresh thyme in the marinade...thanks Robin Miller for that...I just use dried thyme, eyeball the rest of the ingredients and mix until the marinade tastes good and then dump in my pork...works pretty DARN good I have to say).

Taco Meat x 2 (hamburger browned on stove with taco seasoning.  Easy peazy!  Just throw into freezer bags when done and freeze flat, reheat when you want tacos and your dinner is done in, literally, like five minutes :).

Mini-Meatloaves

Freezer Chicken Kiev Piccatta.  I linked to the original Alton Brown chicken Kiev recipe since that's the recipe that inspired me to make this.

Pizza Crust x 2  People compared this pizza crust to Pizza Hut style.  I'm hoping it tastes that good =).

Halibut fillet cut into manageable pieces, lamb chops cut into managable hunks, half thawed and refrozen

Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies x 1  These do come out nice and moist, although I didn't really notice too much extra "chewy" to them.

Breakfast Cookies, kids recipe x 1.  This recipe is made with Cheerios, peanut butter and other good for you things.  I halved the recipe so I didn't end up with like four dozen regular sized cookies.

Breakfast Cookies, husband recipe x 1.  Made with bacon and corn flakes.  Believe it or not, it sounds gross but these actually DO taste good.

Farmhouse Chicken x 2   We love this casserole, although I add a LOT of grill seasoning and Italian Seasoning to the "gravy"...it's seriously bland otherwise.

Beef Terriyaki (steaks cup up and marinated) x2  (store bought terriyaki merrinade dumped in with cut up steak and frozen...how much more simple is that?  Just defrost and stirfry the meat when ready and serve with steamed rice and brocoli.  Yummy!

White Bread (breadmaker) x 1  (recipe from my owners manual)

German Black Bread (non-bread maker) x 1

Peach Pie x 1 (refrigerated pie crust and canned peaches.  What could be simpler?)

Refrigerator Pie/Quiche x 1  I just made this with bacon and cheese since I couldn't find my spinach to save my life.  It'll taste just fine though, I'm sure.

1 Recipe Master Mix

1 thing home made freezer french fries  Two cookie sheets worth filled the ice cream bucket, so that was cool.  I think this'll last us for a little bit anyway.

2 racks baby back ribs, BBQ

1 rack "Mesquite and cajun flavored baby back ribs"...t's a Frankenstein of flavors I put together.  I'll let you know if it comes out tasting okay or not.

3 comments:

BEFFY! said...

excellent job! i so wish i had room in my freezer (carr's frozen food month deals has filled it up)!
thanks for the recipe links. i might try the farmhouse chicken except with turkey (chicken allergy) and the breakfast cookies with all the cherrios we got on major sale a while back.
thanks so much! glad you got a lot done!

Erika, "The Make Do Homemaker" said...

Yeah, with me it was a judgement call. To cook or to buy the prepared foods cheap. For some insane reason I had this "Gee, I really want my family to eat healthier, so I'll cook it all" moment. Boy was I nuts *laugh*. Oh well, at least it's over and I have a LOT of meals in the freezer (and at least we'll be guaranteed that we'll like them :).

The ribs I made turned out awesome by the way. I just took some Mesquite marinade (I bought seriously like 20 bottles of different types of marinades when Target switched to their new packaging for like 1.00 a bottle...I still have a few left *laugh*), put in some liquid smoke (since for some odd reason the Mesquite marinade didn't taste very smoky) and rubbed the meat down with cajun seasoning and let it sit in the fridge overnight before adding the marinade. WOW! Talk about yum! I'm so happy to add that to the pile of things in my freezer =).

Thanks for the congrats on a job well done too. I do the posting of the baking days and stuff to see if maybe I can inspire people when they are having a "what the heck do I cook today" type of day. The breakfast cookies with the cheerios turned out tasting like peanut butter cookies with a LITTLE extra crunch (at least to me :). I added some chocolate chips and some dried cranberries to the mix instead of raisins (kids don't like them), and they seemed to go over well (like you I have a TON of Cheerios from the cereal sales :).

BEFFY! said...

i made the cereal cookies today and added all the little bags of leftover chips i had stashed in the freezer-peanut butter chips, butterscotch chips and chocolate chips! they are super yummy! thanks so much for the recipe link!