I just had a cooking and baking day last week, but I need more meal starters in the freezer. It makes meals so much easier when you can pull out parts of the meal that have already been cooked.

I often make completed meals for the freezer also. Lasagna, meatloaf and the like. I like having the meal parts frozen separately so I can mix them up to make different meals.

Here’s what I’m going to make today:

Brown rice
White rice
Kidney beans
Great northern beans
package up chicken broth that I made on Tuesday
debone and package chicken that I cooked on Tuesday

Yesterday, when I was cooking the meat for spaghetti, I cooked extra and put it in the freezer.

One 3 cup bag
One 4 cup bag

I will be happy to have all these in the freezer, just waiting for meal times.

UPDATE 4:30 – the brown rice, white rice, kidney beans and great northern beans, are all cooked and bagged. I’m going to debone the chicken now, then get it and the broth bagged.

I’ll be back later with a final count and pictures.

UPDATE 7:45 – I ended up using some of the chicken and broth to make soup for supper. Frozen veggies, and cut up leftover baked potatoes make a quick soup.

Here’s the count:
3 – 2 cup bags of Great northern beans
3 – 2 cup bags of kidney beans
2 – 2 cup bags of brown rice
2 – 3 cup bags of brown rice
2 – 4 cup bags of brown rice
1 – 2 cup bag of white rice
4 – 3 cup bags of white rice
3 – 4 cup bags of white rice

1 – 4 cup bag of diced chicken
2 – 3 cup bags of diced chicken
1 – 4 cup bag of chicken broth
1 – 8 cup bag of chicken broth

I’m glad to have those in the freezer. Next week, I think I’ll try to get some assembled meals in the freezer.

Today is going to be a cooking and baking day for me. Since I’ve been sick, my families nutrition has really suffered. The kids haven’t been eating enough fruits and veggies, and have been eating more store bought snacks. I normally try not to buy snacks that I can make myself. I need to get our family meals and snacks back on track. Homemade snacks, even though they still have sugar in them, are much better than store bought with all the artificial colors, flavors and preservatives.

I got a head start last night by making banana muffins. We ate a few for breakfast, but I still have 18 to put in the freezer.

Here’s what I’m going with today.

brownies – quad recipe in a very large pan
no bake cookies – double recipe
french toast – 39 pieces done
oatmeal raisin cookies – double recipe

UPDATE – 12:30 Brownies and no bake cookies are cooling, and I’m taking a lunch break. 🙂

UPDATE – 3:00 I made 39 pieces of french toast. And the Oatmeal Raisin cookie dough mixed. I’m off to bake that. I also need to start packaging all this food for the freezer.

UPDATE – 6:00 A double recipe of oatmeal raisin cookies made 11 dozen and 4 cookies. I put 3 dozen in the cookie jar and the rest are going in the freezer. The double no bake cookie recipe made over 100. People were eating them before I got an exact count.

Here’s a picture of everything thats going in the freezer, including the banana muffins I made last night.

I made chicken soup for supper, but I ran out of time to make biscuits, so we had crackers with it. I cooked the chicken on Monday. I like to do it at least a day ahead of time. I like to skim all the fat of the top of the broth. There’s enough soup left for another meal.

I did have some chicken helpers to get the meat off the bones. I hate that job. Unfortunately, so do they.

I had a very successful cooking and baking day. I need to do meal starters another day. I need to cook and freeze a few different kinds of beans, and get some cooked meat in meal sized packages.

No Bake Cookies

2 cups sugar
1/2 cup cocoa
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup butter
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 cups oatmeal
3/4 cup peanut butter
1/4 tsp salt

Put first four ingredients in pan. Boil for 1 and 1/2 minutes. Remove from heat, then add the remaining ingredients. drop by spoonfuls on waxed paper and cool.