Freezer cooking- Meal 4- Chicken Casserole

This is a recipe my mother in law makes all the time, and we all LOVE it! So why not make 4 of them! One for dinner tonight and 3 for the freezer.

Here is the recipe:

3 cups diced cooked chicken
1 medium onion, chopped (I omitted, I hate hate hate onions)
1 cup mayonaise
2 cans French style green beans
1 can cream of mushroom or cream of celery soup
1 cup sour cream
1 medium size jar of pimentos
1 package white and wild rice, cooked according to package
1 can sliced water chesnuts

Combine all. Cook at 350 degrees for 45 minutes

If freezing, simply freeze before cooking.

Freezer cooking- Meal 3- Thanksgiving Pot Pie

This was an easy one!! Thanks to Dad for making me get a giant turkey and having tons of leftovers. I held one of these out for dinner this week too :)

Recipe-
Leftover Turkey
Leftover green bean casserole
One can mixed veggies
2 cans Cream of Chicken with Herbs
3 premade pie crusts

Freezer cooking- meal swap!

Tomorrow there are 5 of us getting together to swap freezer meals. So I will have 4 new ones! My contribution has about 25 pounds of dairy, and a good bit of bacon and butter. So we should all be happy :) Except I didn't make any for myself!! Dumb!! But I do have the stuff to make more.

Needless to say, I am about over freezer cooking for the next few days. Maybe Thursday when O is in school. Maybe next week :)

 Based upon this recipe, changes as follows.

Added bacon. Deleted onion. Used random Mexican shredded cheese. Omitted parsley.

Cranberry bread. I have been craving it since I saw cranberries at Publix the other day. I used this Martha Stewart recipe, loosely.

Things I changed:

Used a whole bag of cranberries for 2 loaves, vs one. Would have been crazy tart if I used the whole bag for one loaf. Added cinnamon and a little orange zest.

Though I am burnt out, this was super easy. I will probably make 2 more loaves this week, as I have another bag of cranberries. Rumor has it, Sams' Club has a huge bag for super cheap. So I may well go get one for the freezer, or make my mother in law's amaaaaazing cranberry/apple bake. Mmmmmmmmmmmmm

And yes, that one loaf has already been cut into. I'm just saying. I'm 28 weeks pregnant, and I have wanted this stuff all week! Can't wait til tomorrow am with my coffee....

Freezer cooking- Meal 2- Chicken Noodle Soup

No recipe for this one, as it was just thrown together from what I had! Thanks Nanny for the Tupperware :) When she moved here she thinned down her kitchen stuff, and I got these bowls. Pretty great for this soup!

Freezer cooking- Meal 1- Skillet lasagna

So on the spur of the moment, I decided to make this recipe for dinner tonight. On another spur of the moment, I decided to make 6 of them... well, I actually tripled the recipe, and made 6 meals for us. One for tonight, 5 for the freezer. 

Changes I made to the recipe- used 2 lbs ground beef, 1 pound mild Italian sausage. I sauteed them in garlic as well. I also used mostly cottage cheese instead of sour cream. I don't know why, I just did. I also added a bit more seasoning than the recipe called for.

Thank goodness for my Food Saver! See the finished product in the 2nd picture. It won't take up much room in my deep freezer!

I also did this for SUPER CHEAP! I figure on 4 servings per meal. (Actually, I know it will be more than that, but for the sake of argument here.)

The total cost is $.99 cents a serving!

I also did use the "healthier" stuff when making this, as I always try to do. Veggie sauce (no funky ingredients in this brand. No corn syrup, or dyes). I used Laura's Lean Beef. I used the Target brand of their multi grain pasta. I was happy and surprised to see that it even had flax in it! And nothing else weird either. Otherwise, there is a good bit of cheese..... :)

And it only took about 45 minutes to put the whole thing together. Olivia spent most of that time doing this:

Stay tuned for more! I am going to try to do a couple every now and again. For those lazy nights as I get into my 3rd trimester, and it's cold outside. Then hopefully I will still have stuff left when Ava comes. Cause we all know how much cooking will get done with a newborn and a 2 year old....