Ground beef!

Here in AZ Albertsons has ground beef(93% lean) for 1.77$/lb. This is a great price! If you have an Albersons around you should check it out. This is my stock up price!



Here's my ground beef plan:

I will buy around 40#'s.



10 lb's into meatballs

10 lb's into meatloaves

5 lb's into taco meat

6 lb's frozen in 1 1/2 lb chunks

rest into hamburger patties





Hamburger Pattie's



Make pattie's how you normally make your burgers, adding in whatever you normally do. I mix in s&p, hamburger seasoning(I use McCormick), onion, garlic and mushrooms. Freeze in hamburger form in packages sized for your family. I freeze 8, most will have smaller packages. I throw these on the grill straight from the freezer. It is so quick & simple to make burgers this way. Just add some buns (which I already keep in my freezer) and a side or 2 and dinner is done.


Taco Meat

I brown my ground beef along with whatever seasonings I choose. I have gotten a number of seasoning packets free with coupons, so that is what I have been using. I also add garlic, onion, and bell pepper. Once cooled I place in my foodsaver bags in meal sized portions. For us it's about 3 cups ground beef, most families will have smaller portions. Freeze. When ready to use you dump into a pan and heat on the stove top or heat in microwave.


Meatballs and Meatloaf

For the most part these 2 things are the same for me. I separate them in the last step to add ketchup to the meatloaf.

Mixture for both:
hamburger
bread crumbs
eggs
Italian seasoning
or fresh herbs (I like to use them when I get them from Bountifulbaskets.org)
Onion, garlic, carrot, celery, bell pepper (all through the food processor)
S&P

I mix this all together and separate into 2 even sections.

Meatballs:

I take the first half and make it into meat balls. Make your meatballs as even as possible. I use one of those little cookie scoops, but you could just eye ball it. I cook my meatballs before freezing, but you could freeze raw. If you freeze raw make sure you freeze them laid out on a cookie sheet before placing in a bag. If you don't do this you will end up with a bunch of meatballs all frozen together. If you cook before freezing, make sure to cool before placing in the freezer.


Meatloaf:

To the second half of the meat mix I add some ketchup and mix. I make these into little meatloaf cupcakes. I fill cupcake pans with the meat mix ad then put a little ketchup on top (my kids like it when I make the ketchup a :) face). Bake. Cool and place in foodsaver bags and freeze. My kids love these and because they are so small they don't take as long to reheat. If you are going to make a big meatloaf make sure you start defrosting the night before.

I hope this helps you plan a little for your freezer. I love to cook in bulk, it makes the weekdays so much quicker!

Making Chicken pot pie and thought I would finally post the recipe

I have already boiled 6 chickens and am doing the final 3 right now. The chickens have been boiled with carrots, onion, celery, S&P and saffron.

Once the chickens are cooked, remove them and all veggies from the pot.


1. Make the dough.
Recipe:

2 c flour
½ tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
2 Tbls. Crisco
1 egg
1/3 cup water


Mix together all ingredients except water and egg to form a coarse dough.


Mix together water and egg separate.


Mix water and egg mixture into dough. Mix until a smooth dough forms.


Roll out very thin(less than ¼”) on a well floured surface. Cut into squares, I make mine about 2inX2in. Add to pot pie with potatoes.



2. Cut up carrots and potatoes(could use any veggies you like, my Gram only does potatoes, we like carrots so I add them) Other add in could be celery, sweet potatoes, onion. Add the veggies to broth along with the dough.

3. Simmer for about 1 hour until potatoes are cooked. Add S&P to taste. While this is cooking pick apart chicken.

4. Add chicken to a serving bowl and spoon broth with dough and veggies over and serve!

NOTE: If you add the chicken while still cooking it will fall apart.

I like to serve this with rye bread, but with the dough cooked into it you really don't need it.

Chicken, Chicken, Chicken

I went shopping yesterday at Fresh&Easy here in Az. They have whole chikens on sale for .57/lb, which made them around 2$ each. I bought 9 to precook and freeze. So here's the plan.

My biggest pot will only do 3 whole chickens at a time, so I will boil them 3 at a time. I boil my chickens along with onion, carrots, celery and s&p. 3 of them will get boiled with Saffron as well, this will be for my chicken pot pie.

The first 3 chickens will be shredded and mixed with spices to be used in mexican food. I make tacos, enchilada's, enchilada casserole, quesidilla's and nacho's all with chicken. This will make 3 meals, maybe more, depending.

The next 3 chickens will be picked apart and frozen just like it is. I use this many ways, chicken in gravy over mashed potatoes, in my "tuna" macaroni salad, on top of green salads, just as it is with sides, chicken salad sammies, and chicken noodle soup.

The next 3 will be the ones boiled with Saffron as well. This is for my chicken pot pie. It is an old family recipe that is not your typical pot pie(I really need to remember to post the recipe). For this I pick apart the chicken into chunks and place in a bag, then pour the broth into a bag or container(I also make the dough) and freeze all three items together. This is a huge time saver for me.

Don't forget to save your broth from boiling the chickens! It makes great soup, gravy, or to add into other recipes!