I love to spend time in the kitchen. I just do. It doesn’t matter to me if I am baking, cooking, prepping.. I find it so relaxing..until something goes horribly wrong and ends up in the garbage instead of in my mouth! Thankfully, this was not the case when I set out to prepare a whole wack of slow cooker meals in under 2 hours! I am a big ,huge fan of the good ol slow cooker. I love being able to toss something in on my way out the door, go about my day without giving one worry to what I will eat for dinner, or having to stop at the store on my way home, and walking back through the door to dish up, and enjoy my evening.
The meals that I was prepping for this time though were not for us.. they were a gift! A Christmas gift to be exact, for my brother-in-law (and my sister).. They also have a love for a slow cooked meal and the slow cooker that they had was on it’s last leg.. So for Christmas I got them a new slow cooker (bigger, and with bells and whistles!), and I prepared for them a whole whack of slow cooker meals (more portions of the ones I know they would love!) that were all portioned out into freezer bags, labelled, and ready to just pop in and go. They absolutely adored the idea! It’s the gift that just keeps giving!
When I came up with this idea, I got really into it, and was excited to have an extra excuse to spend more time in the kitchen! I set out to make a list of all different types of meals, especially ones that would hold up in the freezer, and after a lot of Google searches, Pinterest-ing, and looking through all my cookbooks, I had my list and was off to the store! Giving myself a timer of 2 hours to get it all done.. just to see if I could! I am the type of shopper that I start at one end of the store, and work my way around the outside, and then I go back to the aisles if there may be some items I need from there to fill in the gaps. Also, I love having a list. I make myself a list whether I am going to the store for two items, or fifty because half the time I am there I get distracted by something else, and end up forgetting why I was there in the first place!
Once I got back home it was time to prep. I started with labelling all the bags with the recipe name, the main ingredients (I can’t give away all my secrets!), and cooking instructions. I also included some tips on ideas to serve as side dishes. Once that was all complete I began chopping, and dicing, and measuring, and portioning my little heart out. It was so relaxing!! After that it was as simple as grabbing a bag, and tossing in the ingredients! We didn’t have room in our freezer for them all to fit but thankfully during the winter it’s cold enough to just toss them in a box outside on our patio and they were frozen solid by the following morning! I suppose that is one of the perks of living here in the winter… you never run out of freezer space!
Take a gander through the list of meals that I made! I will do separate posts (or this would go on for WAY to long!) with the recipes and detailed instructions, but in the mean time, if there are any recipes that you would like to have right away please feel free to let me know and I will shoot it over to you!
Recipe List:
Cilantro and Lime Chicken
Creamy Italian Chicken with Green beans
Meatballs w/ Homemade BBQ Sauce
Chicken Tortilla Soup
Pork Chops with Apples & Sweet Potatoes
Chicken with Apples & Rosemary
Sweet Potato Chicken Curry
Sausage, Peppers, & Onions
BBQ Chicken & Potatoes
Hope you are all having a wonderful week!!
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