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!