Freezer Cooking List for January (With links)

I decided it would be a good idea to catch up on back blogging before I moved onto the recent events, so I figured I might as well start off big and share the massive list of things I started out freezer cooking with for January and into February.  This list might seem overwhelming, but trust me, a bunch of stuff on the list is really easy to put together (like the marinated meats) and others are as involved as simmering some hamburger in some seasonings for a bit or putting a bunch of ingredients into a bowl, mixing them up and shaping them (like the hamburgers) to freeze and use later.

One big thing that comes in handy with doing recipes like this is clearing a flat space in your freezer where you can put even a sheet of folded up cardboard on top of things to make a flat surface to freeze things on a cookie sheet or something.  I used my small block freezer in my kitchen and froze things flat on my jelly roll pan for the most part, as it fits perfectly in my freezer from end to end so it gave me a nice, even surface to freeze on AND it didn't take up a ridiculous amount of room.  Experiment and do what you can, but freezing things as flat as you can when it comes to meats and things will save you a bunch of room in your freezer later as you can stack them or turn them up on end and you can store them vertically like file folders in your freezer.  

So, here you go folks.  Some of the recipes are from old cookbooks my husband got me (or new cookbooks with no links available), but I'll work on sharing recipes from the old cookbooks in later posts so you can make them yourself if you want :).

Enjoy!

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Freezer Cooking List for January and February 

• Freezer Friendly "Korean" Beef. Haven't eaten this yet, but the meat tasted great before I threw it into the freezer, so I'm hopeful the final dish will be delicious.
• Cuban seasoned, pork or turkey for melts/fancy sloppy Joes I made this with ground pork and simmered it in the sauce for a while.  It came our powerful tasting, but I'm hoping that once I defrost it and simmer it with some added water to reheat it, it will make some yummy sliders for dinner.  Here's hoping!
• Ground beef sauce (German)/stroganoff base (from German Meals at Omas Cookbook, Affiliate Link).  I couldn't find a good equivalent recipe online, so I linked to the cookbook I used.  
• Hamburg hamburgers I froze these after shaping them into 6 patties and then when I prepared them I baked them in the oven covered with marinara sauce at 375 degrees for about 40 minutes.  They were SPECTACULAR!  I did not cover them with the breadcrumbs before baking, though :).
• Meat sauce for Italian dishes (just winged this one with stuff I had around the house)
• Chili (made and froze the entire recipe.  Works well).
• Sweet and sour chicken Just mix up marinade ingredients for the pork and pour over chicken chunks instead.  I used boneless, skinless, chicken thighs and used 6 of them to make the marinade.  Put in freezer and then when you go to make it, defrost overnight in fridge.  I then did the rest of the recipe as written but used a can of pineapple, a can of carrots and some green bell peppers I had cut up and put into the freezer for later use...those I eyeballed.  Came out better with the chicken than it had with the pork the recipe called for.  Will DEFINITELY be making this again!
• Teriyaki chicken (I made the marinade, poured over chicken pieces and froze.  After it was defrosted I fried it in a skillet and made the terriyaki sauce to go over the top as well.  It came out wonderfully...we had it a few nights ago.  Will put this on the freezer rotation as well).
• Hawaiian chicken.  This has quickly become one of our favorite recipes.  Just mix up the marinade, throw it in with the chicken thighs and freeze.  Once defrosted you can bake it or grill it.  It is great grilled, but it bakes up awesome as well (to bake I just dump it in marinade and all and bake it like that....works great).  I like to serve it with a can of tropical fruit and some rice I've cooked in coconut milk for a really fancy dinner.
• Schnitzel chicken (pounded chicken thighs flat in gallon sized freezer bags and then just put those freezer bags into another gallon sized freezer bag.  Labeled said bag and froze so I have a really easy way to make schnitzel for dinner...or chicken piccata if I have the urge.  Just did this when I was making schnitzel for dinner one night.
• Cream/white sauce (this is from a freezer cooking cookbook my husband bought for me at a used store for Christmas that is from the 70's.  I'll share the recipe in a later post if it turns out when defrosted).
• Baked nine grain cereal (I just looked up a freezer friendly baked oatmeal recipe and I made it with my 9 grain cereal mix instead.  I'll let you know how it turns out when I bake it).
• Process oranges into orange juice (made some of the oranges into cranberry relish and others I just juiced and froze in ice cube trays.  I then put the cubes into some quart mason jars in the freezer so I have small amounts of orange juice should I need it for glazes or something).
• Cranberry relish (made a bunch of this out of frozen cranberries I dug out of the depths of my freezers and the oranges in the fridge.  I am going to serve it with roast chicken and things throughout the year).
• Process picante sauce (had a huge jar of picante sauce I got super cheap on Amazon a while back and it was approaching its expiration date.  I put it into freezer containers and froze it in about 1 1/2 cup to 2 cup portions to serve with chips and things.
• Oreo cookies/monster cookies. I bought some black cocoa powder to make into oreo cookie applications to try and get Alvah to eat more home made food.  I tried these because they had good reviews, but I have to say I was underwhelmed.  My daughter liked them, Alvah wouldn't even try them, but to me they just didn't have the depth of flavor I was expecting and they did not taste like oreos.  Back to the recipe drawing board.
• Chocolate chip cookies.  These sourdough chocolate chip cookies are awesome.  I didn't make the recipe as written, though.  I just made the recipe like you would a traditional cookie recipe (cream together butter and sugar, add eggs...and sourdough starter.  Then add your dry ingredients and mix again and then stir in chocolate chips...and I added the typical bag of chocolate chips to the recipe.  I DID refrigerate some dough and froze some dough and both ways turned out great.  Will definitely make these again.
• Thumbprint cookies. Made some and just kept at the frozen stage.  Baked from frozen after putting the jam in them and they turned out great.  Got a ton of jams and jellies to use up, so am putting this one into rotation.
• Chocolate ice cream (easy no cook recipe).  This is AWESOME, so easy and scoops so easily!  My family loves it.
• Strawberry ice cream (easy, no cook and no eggs).  Another awesome recipe I found.  Definitely a keeper.
• Applesauce bread.  We have found we really like applesauce bread.  I had tried Jessica's Recipe at Three River's Homestead, but wanted to try another recipe.  I actually think I like Jessica's better, but this one wasn't bad.
• Carrot cake bread. We are eating this right now, actually.  I made a cream cheese frosting to go on top of it and we are eating it for desserts.  I had a bunch of carrots that were going floppy in the fridge so this was a great way to use them.  I didn't want to make a huge cake, so I looked up if there was a sweet bread I could make instead and this popped up.  It is tasty, so I'll keep it in mind if I need to use up carrots again.
• Sourdough Cranberry scones. I used the basic scone recipe, but added some canned cranberries I had in the pantry to them.  I'm going to make an orange glaze to go on top of them to serve.  
• Freezer slaw. I had some coleslaw mix in the fridge.  I was planning to make fried chicken and make cole slaw and use the other bag to make egg rolls in a bowl for dinner one night.  And then we all got sick and took forever to get well and I could not figure out what to do with the coleslaw before it went bad.  So, I looked up freezer coleslaw and this popped up.  We have eaten one bag of it.  It IS good!  Don't get me wrong.  It just does not taste like coleslaw and I don't think adding mayo to it would make it taste like coleslaw either.  But, it IS a REALLY good pickled cabbage.  I am putting it onto my "make it again" list because it is tasty.
• Sausage pancake rolls. My husband found he loved the pancake sausage roll things from the gas stations and it was becoming a bit of a habit.  So, I looked up this recipe and saw how it would be pretty easy to adapt any pancake recipe so long as you made the pancakes a bit flatter/less fluffy by adding more liquid to them.  So, I actually made a batch of my favorite Classic Sourdough Pancakes and then made up a container of breakfast sausage links from the store.  I froze the wraps on my jelly roll pan and then once frozen I wrapped each one in aluminum foil and put them into a freezer bag so he could grab one easily.  His work has an air fryer available in the employee lounge so he'll reheat them in that or take them out of the foil, wrap them in some paper towels and put them in the microwave.  I was able to fit two sausages per pancake and made a total of seven wraps per package of sausages.  My husband LOVES these.  I've already had to make another batch of them.
• Pancakes. I've since actually used another recipe of these to make waffles as we are pretty much out of breakfast things in the freezer.
• Breakfast bowls. Once again for my husband.  I actually make these quite often, place individual portions in quart sized freezer bags, make them flat and place them in a gallon sized freezer bag.  This way my husband can grab one, break it up, place it in a bowl and microwave it for breakfast in the morning before the rest of us are up and about for the day.  I made these with homemade frozen hash browns that I make and put in the freezer whenever I need to use up some potatoes.  This hash brown recipe turns out great for me every time.  I put the potatoes in a single layer on a baking sheet to freezer and then put into gallon sized freezer bags.  Works great.
• Soft pretzels. I made these for a special dinner for my husband one night and it makes a ton so I froze the left overs.  These turned out GREAT and are now my favorite pretzel recipe.  On anything Farmhouse on Boone with sourdough, I end up making a highbred recipe and add some instant yeast to the recipe and skipping the long ferment periods.  I usually add 1 to 2 tsp of yeast to a recipe so I can do a short ferment instead.  It works great, still gives you a wonderful texture to your baked goods from the sourdough and works within the confines of my busy schedule.
• Breakfast sandwiches.  I make these with some home made Sourdough English Muffins and then just add ham, egg, cheese or sausage patties and cheese and then wrap in plastic wrap and freeze.  My husband will take these and microwave them at work to reheat them.  
• Ham and cheese strata, 2 (leftover ham, getting older eggs and leftover bread bits).  I made two of them since I had a ton of sourdough bits to use up and then I poured the mixture over the ham and bread and froze them.  I'll defrost them in the fridge overnight and then bake per the instructions.
• Frozen blueberry muffins. I have made these many times before.  It makes a lot, but it is a really great recipe and freezes beautifully.
• Farmer’s meatloaves.  Another recipe from my 70's freezer cookbook.  I'll definitely be sharing this recipe later.  I made one of the meatloaves (I made two and froze them raw) and we had it for dinner one night.  It was awesome and my daughter LOVES it.  It contains vegetables in the mixture even, so is a great way to sneak more of those in.
• Chicken pot pie casserole, 1. This is a recipe I ran across on YouTube and is a pour over pie crust recipe for your pot pie.  So, I made one of these to try.
• Chicken pot pie base, 1.  I made just a chicken pot pie sans the upper crust in case we don't like the pour over pie crust.  I figure I'll make a good old biscuit crust if the other recipe isn't to our liking.
• Chicken pot pie filling, 1.  This I froze in a freezer bag and will use as a quick chicken and dumplings base, or a chicken pot pie filling, or just as a creamy chicken soup when I defrost it.
• Baked beans.  I found a ham hock in the freezer and a ham bone, so I cooked those in a slow cooker all day, removed the meat from the bones and then I tasted the stock and Oh My GOSH!  It was SO wonderful!  So, I refrigerated the stock overnight.  The same night I rinsed and sorted and then soaked a bunch of pinto beans, figuring I'd make ham and beans for the freezer.  But, once the beans had cooked in the stock all the next day they were SO, SO good, I had to do something with them.  So, I made them into good old fashioned maple baked beans (a staple of my childhood in Maine :).  I just took the seasonings in the recipe I linked and added them to the beans until they tasted awesome.  I then put the beans into about 2 cup portions to use as side dishes with dinners and put them in the freezer.  We've eaten one container so far and they are SO good!  Sure pinto beans aren't traditional baked bean fair, but you know what...doesn't matter they still taste delicious!
• Chicken stock, I dug out all of the chicken carcasses I had in the freezer from rotisserie and regular chickens and made a big batch of chicken stock for the freezer.  Glad to have it in there and it turned out really well.
• Ranch style beans.  I rinsed, sorted and soaked about 6 cups of dry beans overnight in a big bowl.  I then split the beans between my big slow cooker and my electric pressure cooker.  In the pressure cooker I pressure cooked just plain pinto beans and salt and just made regular beans to freeze to add to soups and other dishes.  The rest of the beans I placed in my slow cooker and turned into ranch style beans, which I then put into the freezer in containers to use as side dishes later.  My friend in Texas turned me onto Ranch Style Beans years ago and I managed to find them and try them here and fell in love with them.  So, I decided it would be nice to have them in the meal rotation.
• Plain pinto beans (see the Ranch Style Bean explanation above).

You'll notice a bunch of beans getting cooked around here.  I got some free food storage from people who were moving a while back and then I got some gifts of beans over the years from friends and things, so I have a lot of beans in my food storage.  I finally decided it was time to start using them and making my grocery budget stretch, so that's why you'll see me using a lot of beans, especially pinto beans :).