Gimpy Cooking

Since I'm not going to be able to cook for a while, I had to plan for a way for boyfriend to make meals for the three of us. I'd been wanting to try "freezer cooking" for a while -- you spend an afternoon putting together meals, throw them in the freezer, and then pull them out in the morning and put them in the crockpot. So I spent some time choosing meals that were somewhat healthy and seemed edible. Here's what I came up with.

1. Honey Garlic Chicken

I took the basic idea of this recipe and modified it for my purposes. I put two chicken breasts, 1/2 cup ketchup, 1/2 cup light soy sauce, 1/2 cup honey and a big spoonful of minced garlic in a big Ziploc. In the morning, boyfriend threw it into the crockpot on low. It was done in about 6 hours. I chopped up in the chicken in tiny pieces and put it in soft tacos, but there are lots of other ways you could eat this chicken. It had a good taste but wasn't very tender.

2. Slow Cooker BBQ Spareribs

I left out the liquid smoke. These were dry, and I wasn't a huge fan. I may just not like spareribs much.

3. Chicken Cacciatore

This was okay. I was in a painkiller-haze, so I wasn't very hungry, but both guys ate it.

4. Weight Watchers Cheeseburger Soup

I modified this to make it freezer-friendly. Basically, I took all the ingredients and threw them into a Ziploc bag. They cooked just fine in the crockpot. We cooked it on high for 3-4 hours and then on low for 1-2 hours. We needed to take a half cup of the broth and a tablespoon of flour and mix them together, stirring them into the soup, and cooking for 15 minutes at the end. This thickened it right up.

Next time, though, I would cook the hamburger first, draining off the grease, and then adding it into the soup and continuing.

5. Chicken Dinner

This was great! The two soups (I used Healthy Choice) made the chicken fall apart.

6. Black Bean and Corn Salsa Chicken

This was soooo good. The chicken was tender and it tasted amazing. I had it with a tortilla, a little cheese and some sour cream. Boyfriend ate it in a bowl, just the chicken and beans and corn. It makes a LOT of the "sauce", so next time, I may cut the liquid in half.


7. Poor Man's Beef Stroganoff

I browned the hamburger, combined all ingredients except sour cream, and froze. The day we ate it, I put it in the crockpot, and 30 minutes before it was time to eat, I mixed in the sour cream. We ate it over noodles. It was good, but kind of bland. I will play with seasoning the next time I make this.


8. Creamy ranch pork chops and potatoes

I'm not a big pork chops fan, but this was good -- a nice flavor. I don't know that I would make it again, but that's because I try not to eat pork chops.


After we ate all of this meals, the one that got the highest marks was the Black Bean and Corn Salsa Chicken. I just bought more ingredients to make it this week!

Are there any freezer or make-ahead meals that work for you?