Kitchen Adventures

I recently had the opportunity to try Dream Dinners at a fraction of the price thanks to Groupon.  I had such a fun time going in and assembling our meals--I made 6 meals in just over an hour.  Usually, it takes me about an hour to make dinner once you include all the vegetable chopping, so to make SIX dinners in that time frame was awesome.  All of the chopping was done for me.  All I had to do was measure out ingredients and assemble them in freezer bags.  It was SO easy--and fun! They set out soft drinks, coffee and leftover goodies like chocolate chip cookies nad cupcakes.  so, I was in heaven.   

Over the next couple of weeks, we enjoyed our meals.  A typical meal needs to be defrosted in the refrigerator first.  Then, you cook the meat, add the pre-assembled sauce/glaze/vegetable medley and serve.  It took so much stress out of my evening.  I love to cook, but it's difficult with a toddler crawl-running everywhere and a husband who just came home from work and is tired.  I was falling into the spaghetti/chili/frozen pizza (eek!) rut and really needed some new ideas to spice things up. 

Going there and seeing how the whole make-ahead-meal world operates was eye opening and inspired me to do a little freezer cooking on my own.  Over the past few days, I doubled the recipe of a few of our favorites and froze the leftovers.  I have recently been cooking out of Deceptively Deliscious, and from there made and froze taco filling, bolognese sauce, and sloppy joe filling.  I also pre-assembled a new to us recipe I found through allrecipes.com for Chicken Teriyaki in orange ginger garlic sauce.  I can't wait to try it!

So, in case you are wondering what I mean by 'pre-assemble', I will break it down for you.  I did all of the prepwork for this recipe and froze it in a ready-to-cook state.  I bought some chicken breast tenderloins and threw a little over a pound in a freezer bag.  Then I took another gallon size bag and stuffed it down in a bread crumb container, folding the edges over the top.  This way, the bag doesn't fall over spilling my ingredients everywhere. I dumped all of the ingredients for the orange ginger garlic sauce in and then sealed the bag.  I even included a small freezer bag of brown rice (uncooked) just so that everything is together when I need it.  I can't wait to try it--it sounds so good, doesn't it?

Freezer cooking on my own definitely takes more time that going to Dream Dinners, but is also less expensive.  That said, Dream Dinners is still a great option for the busy family--most of their meals come in at under $4 a serving.  I just prefer to eat for much less!