What did you do over the weekend? Besides waiting for my internet to be fixed, I spent a day making 25 freezer meals! Yes, it's that time again. Twice a year I take a day and make as many freezer meals as I possibly can! HERE is the last springs post, but I will give you some quick tips again . First and Formost, these are all made from scratch recipes and delicious! You can also make them low-cal and low-fat too, by substituting the low-fat equal , like for sour cream, cream cheese, soups, and turkey burger. Also, you can use whole grains pastas.

STEPS

Purchase Book Above! This book has all the recipes and ALL the how-tos!

But some general rules: Most everything will freeze except mashed potatoes AND when doing pasta, cook it 2 min less then it says on the box because it will continue to absorb moisture in the freeze and thaw process.

2- PICK RECIPES. The book is broken down into different cooking methods: Crock Pot, Oven, Stove Top and Assemble.

So pick 2-3 crock pot meals, 2-3 oven, 2-3 stove top and 7-10 Assemble ( assemble means any recipe that doesn't need cooking but just assembled in a pan and placed in the freezer, ie: manicotti)

Also, some of the recipes make double. So they count as 2 meals.

3- MAKE GROCERY LIST

4- PREPARATION IS THE KEY!

The more you can get done the day before the better. ie, Thaw meats, Chop Veggies, Make Labels, Sort canned goods according to recipe so if for some reason you forgot something you can make one last min. run to the store.

5- DAY OF- Have some one watch your kids! You must not be disturb (most of the time)

Your meals making goes as follows: Start with Crock pots, then oven, then stove top, then assembles.

6- I've said it before and I'll say it again, Diet Coke!

Here is my freezer after. Some meals can be stored in freezer bags and then placed in dishes or pots for warming. Most of the ones from the Assemble section you do in foil pans so you can just pop them from the freezer to the oven.

Here are a few of what I made

Crock Pot - Pulled Pork (sooo good!)

Beef Stroganoff (just the sauce, cook noodles later)

Cream Cheese Chicken

Stove top- Italian Chili

Chicken and Ham roll ups

Green Chili Chicken soup (a family favorite)

Oven- Cranberry Chicken (looked good, can't wait to eat it)

Teriyaki Chicken (sooo good too!)

Assemble- 5 Cheese Manacotti (a personal fav)

Bird Nest Pie (also one of my favs)

Taco Pie (my husbands fav)

Chicken Tortilla Casserole (the ultimate family fav!)

(pardon the spelling)

I love doing this. It's great for those days I don't have time to cook or don't want to make a big mess in my kitchen.

Dinner this week!

Anyone wondering what's for dinner?  Start this menu any day of the week.

Here's my plan from Week #1,  since I previously posted Week #2.

 You can print the shopping list, check off the items you already have in your pantry, and write your other items in the blanks and you'll be ready for the store.  Want to be stress free this week and have the family happy? Let's Make Dinner!:-)

Easter Left Over Ideas!

Easter Candy overload at our house! What about your's? I found these ideas on different websites, tried some and they are great so I wanted to share.

Disclaimer: I didn't invent any of these but I'm just sharing because they're so yummy and I love!

Cute monster eggs decorated by my son, also a monster.

Took those little eggs and turned them into an Egg Salad BLT! Um, yeah you heard me right and boy was it "tasty" (as my 3 year old would say). The recipe comes from Our Best Bites.

If have not discovered ourbestbites.com you must! It's a great website with delicious and do-able recipes. Plus they give you great healthy options too. For example, she's created a delicious dressing to mix with the eggs instead of just mayo. Check it out HERE.

I am asking for their new Recipe Book for Mother's Day.

NEXT- Who? WHO?! I ask you, does not love these?! I think we all run to the store the day after Valentines to grab the first fresh bag off the line. And once again Our Best Bites has come up with a genius way to turn them into something even more delicious (yes, it's possible).

Chop some up and..

Make them into cookies. Oh, so good! It's like gooey and crunchy at the same time!

Get the recipe HERE

note: Get use to me posting a lot of recipes from their site. I love it!
This one goes out to my "Peeps"- I love Smors, they're just about my all time favorite treat. So of course I went gaga over these at RootsAndWingsCo.blogspot.com

It goes a little something like this.

*Crush up a package (a sleeve) of Graham Crackers with 1/3 c. of brown sugar and pat down in a 9x9 pan.

*Mix 1/2 cup of melted butter and 1 tsp. of vanilla and pour over the graham crackers and pat again.

*Pour 1 1/2 cups (or however many you want) m&m's on the graham crackers

*Then top with Peeps.

Bake at 350 degrees for 15 min. Cool and cut into bars.

Say What!?

Ok, can you believe somebody actually went there? A Cadbury Creme Egg INSIDE a cupcake? I have not tried this for fear of loving them and having to run 10 miles a day just to burn off the 1000 cal. I'm sure they're worth.

I haven't been able to find the recipe again, just these pics at Zoecakes.com. But from what I remember it's basically chocolate cake batter in a cupcake than place a Creme Egg on top. The cake will cook around the egg.

I imagine that the Chocolate Cake recipe would need to be a dense and fudge like for it to be truly remarkable!

It's been topped off here with a Butter Cream frosting, and look at the way the creme solidifies! Oh man, my thighs are getting bigger just thinking about it. Add this to my list of things to try