30 meals in 1 day

I have been trying a bunch of new recipes as I am attempting to make my life a little easier. Friday, I made 30 meals to put in the freezer. It was a LONG day, but I am so pleased with my freezer being stocked with fabulous meals. We had our first one yesterday for dinner and it was so nice to pull a homemade meal out of the freezer and in the oven and be done. Very nice. I had a book recommended to me-- Dinner is Ready 30 meals in 1 day-- and it has 150 recipes, as well as walk you through what you need to do to make that many meals in 1 day. I should have read it more carefully, because they had a lot of great tips and ideas to make it go faster. I read the first 8 chapters and when it go to the chapter on the benefits of the different types of freezers, I skipped to the recipes. They had a lot of good ideas, like thaw your meat ahead of time and cook your chicken the day before and in the process, make your own chicken broth-- would have saved me a lot of time! Oh, well. At least I will know it for next time!

Anyways, I have had a several people ask me to share the recipes that I use, so I thought that as we try them and determine if they are good enough to make again, I will post them to my blog.

Here is last night's meal:


Ham and Chicken Roll-Ups
Dinner Is Ready
Assemble
Dinner - Main Dish
1 cup rice, uncooked
1/4 cup onion, minced
1/4 cup celery, minced
1/4 cup mushrooms, chopped
3 Tbl butter
1 1/2 cups boneless skinless chicken breast, cooked, chopped
1 10.75 oz can cream of chicken soup
6 slices cooked ham
1/2 cup sour cream
1/4 cup milk
1/4 tsp pepper
1 cup Swiss cheese, shredded
1 cup French fried onions
Cook rice according to package directions. Arrange rice on bottom of greased foil baking pan. Cook onion, celery and mushrooms in butter until soft. Combine onion, celery and mushrooms, chicken and one third of the soup. Divide among the slices of ham. Roll up and place seam side down on top of rice. Combine sour cream, milk, pepper and remaining soup. Pour over roll-ups. Cover with extra heavy foil. Label and freeze.
To serve: Thaw. Bake uncovered, 45 minutes at 350บ. Top with cheese and French fried onions. Bake 10 minutes.
6 Servings


My kids LOVED this and we at every last bit of it. I would probably double the recipe and make a whole casserole dish of it, as opposed to a 9x9 pan. Also, I would add more rice and more sauce to make it go farther.

This next recipe is not one of my freezer meals, but one I came across and thought sounded good. We made it for breakfast yesterday with my sister and will have to make again when Derrick comes home.


Amazing Apple Pancakes

2 apples, peeled and sliced
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
5 Tbls butter/margarine
6 eggs
1 1/2 cups milk
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
powdered sugar

Lower rack in your oven so that it is closer to the bottom of the oven than to the top. This rises, so you probably will just want 1 rack in the oven. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. In a small bowl, mix the apple slices with the two sugars and cinnamon; set aside. Chop the butter/margarine and scatter it in a 9x13 glass baking dish, then place the dish in the oven. While the butter/margarine melts, beat the eggs, then stir int he milk, flour, and salt. As soon as the butter starts to bubble, remove the baking dish fromt he oven and pour in the sugar/apple mixture. Without stirring, pour the egg/milk/flour mixture on top. Carefully return the baking dish to the oven and bake for 20-22 minutes. Cut the pancake into squares and sprinkle powdered sugar on top. Makes 6 servings.

This does rise while cooking, but I didn't think there was a need to remove the top rack, just make sure it is at the top setting and the bottom is at the lowest setting and you should be good. These are REALLY good!


If anyone has some good recipes they would like to share, I would love for you to send them to me. The book has what looks to be good recipes, but you know how that goes-- sometimes they don't turn out as well as they sound. I would love some tried and true recipes to throw into the mix!