I posted about the big sale at Fareway earlier, and I had some chicken and ground beef to prepare and freeze. In a little over two hours, I had meat for 9 meals prepared and in the freezer. First, I prepared the chicken breasts to bake. I used a can of Swanson's chicken broth, then seasoned the breasts with salt, pepper, and garlic and placed 4 whole breasts into a large stoneware pan. I put them in the oven at 350* for around an hour and 15 minutes.
I started them baking in the oven, then started browning the hamburger. I did two pounds with onion, garlic, salt, and pepper, then two more pounds with taco seasoning. I always start by sauteing the (one whole) onion and (2 cloves) garlic in a little bit of olive oil, then add the meat. My big skillet will do two pounds well, three pounds get crowded.
As I get the hamburger browned, I put it into my big bowl and cool it in the fridge. Once it's all cooled, I bag it flat and put it into the freezer.
In the meantime, the chicken has been in the oven for a little over an hour, so I pull it out. I freeze the broth in a bag to use later, then cut all the chicken into pieces, bag, and freeze. The four whole breasts made 5 bags with around 1 pound of meat each.
What I like about this style of cooking is that it allows me to cook more from scratch, and the work that I do saves me doing the same prep work four more times. There are many easy recipes I can put together using these already cooked items. The chicken breast is healthier than canned chicken breast and cheaper than buying pre-cooked chicken at the deli.
Need a fast meal? Pull out a bag of chicken or ground beef, throw it in with some tomato sauce while you boil a package of pasta. Throw it all together and you've got a quick pasta meal. Chicken and noodles are so much easier when you can throw the chicken in with the broth then cook some egg noodles in the broth. All of these can become quick one pot meals, or you can make something a little more time consuming without as much prep work.
I used the chicken broth tonight to make some creamy vegetable soup, and it really enhanced the flavor to use the broth I had cooked.
2 comments:
Amy, I am one of your biggest fans! Thanks for such a great blog. I wanted to pass along that at my local Target store in Ames, Iowa, they have genuine down comforters (white only) 75% off at $14.98 for full/queen. I know they have twin size as well, and not sure if they have king size, but they should only be a few dollars difference. There were 2 endcaps full of them tonight (1-8-10) and Im assuming this sale is a most Targets that have any left.
Thanks a bunch! ~Jennifer C.
whoo! awesome deal on the comforters. the great thing about them is you can always buy any color duvet set you want and not have to deal with white all the time.
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