My Very Own Pizza Lunchables

I love pizza lunchables. Like, really L-O-V-E them!

They aren't super bad for you; but, they really have very little nutritional value at all, empty calories and all that and thus, aren't filling unless I eat 2 or 3 of them. So I made my own!

First, I knew what I wanted to do for my crusts. I wanted to use Flat-Out Bread and I was going to use a large biscuit cutter to make them into crust shapes. But when I got to the store, they didn't have any so I bought Oroweat Multigrain sandwich thins Instead. They worked great, and no added work of having to cut them in the right shape!

Then I bought turkey based pepperoni, and part skim mozzarella. 

Lessons Learned from Freezer Meals Attempt # 1

So, Ya know, Freezer Meals are all the rage in the mommy blog world, and my husband and I are short on time during the week, so I decided to give it a go. I shopped Saturday and cooked most of the day Sunday.
If you are going to try the freezer meals thingys - here are my lessons I learned the hard way:

1. Use one kind of meat.
• My grocery bill came out too high for this attempt, in large part, because I needed, chicken, ground turkey, and meatballs. Buy one kind of meat that's on sale and then make all chicken dishes, or whatever meat it is. Then the next weekend you can do all pork or a different kind of meat.
2. Have a Dish Washing Plan 
• As of right now, I still have all my dirty dishes in the sink. I thought my husband would be able to do them Monday, but he had already made other plans. So Share the duty, wash them as you go, whatever, just make sure you have a plan in place for how they are gonna get done, because there will be a lot of them.
3. Spend the extra 50 ¢ on good quality bags. 
• I have cheap store brand freezer bags and the little close thingy kept ripping off as I was trying to fill the bags. This was a pain and I had to carefully place them in the freezer.
4. Make extra for eating that day.
• My family smelled food cooking all day and everyone had to taste everything, and I ended up one meal short from my crockpot because everyone had walked by all day and ate a meatball here, or a meatball there. I don't mind them eating, I just have to make sure I planned for it. 
5. Make sure every thing is completely -really completely- cooled off before bagging.
• I learned this the hard way - I let my pot pie filling sit for several hours before I bagged it, but it must have still been a little hot because the two bags are totally stuck/melted together. This may have happened on the counter before they even made it to the freezer, but next time I am going to cool things in the fridge.

So, What did I make?

•   Sweet & Spicy Meatballs
• I read on someone's blog somewhere that crockpot meatballs freeze well. These were delicious. The grocery store we went to didn't have currant jelly so it was recommended that I use apple jelly as a substitute which seemed to work just fine. 
• Stir Fry Packets
• I learned this method a long time ago, so this isn't an exact recipe. but more of a concept. I don't freeze the rice I make it on the night of the meal but I do premake my sauce and have freeze it a smaller bag inside the veggie bag. Some people also dry season their veggies before freezing.
•  Tamale Pie  (Filling)
• Martha Stewart recommends freezing these in ramekins. Not only do I not own ramekins, I didn't want to do that because then it still takes 45 minutes to cook on the night you serve it. I made just the filling, and I am going to serve it with some corn muffins.
• Pot Pie
• Same as above, rather than freezing it in a baking dish, I made just the filling that should cook quickly and will serve it with some frozen, quick cooking biscuits. (Recipe coming soon)
•  Pizza Sauce (This was for lunches but that'll be another blog entry later.)

I ended up with 7 meals, one packet of meatballs and two of each of the others.

Here is everything except the stirfry  packets, stacked up in my freezer, just after I learned lesson # 5. A quart size is best for my 2 person + roommate household, but I was out so I used gallon bags folded over. Bloggers recommend labeling everything, I didn't because I don't  have a huge inventory just yet. 

  Here are the meatballs cooking.



  If you want to get started freezer cooking, or just want some inspiration, I've posted recipes I'm exited about trying here.