more freezer meal recipes

Picking up where I left off with my weekend cooking saga, Saturday, after completing my Labor Countdown WOD at the gym, I came home at lunchtime to tackle two more recipes.

First up, I trimmed, cooked and shredded 12 chicken breasts. Then, I turned to my Paleo Comfort Foods cookbook for an adaptation of its Chicken Tomatillo Stew, only mine turned out more red than green, as I used red bell peppers and red chiles.

After James ate both our portions of Beef Stew for lunch, he managed to eat a huge bowl of this stew as his mid-afternoon meal before I could get the containers into the freezer. I can't complain though, he's not a picky eater and eats whatever is in front of him. Hopefully our son will be the same!

Next up on the list was a Buffalo Chicken Soup recipe I found online. I doubled the recipe and adapted it quite a bit, adding more celery and onions and less cheese, swapping hot sauce for an extra helping of buffalo sauce and subbing coconut flour and a bit of xanthan gum for wheat flour.

Exhausted, but happy with my progress, we spent a couple hours Saturday night at Johnny's Pizza enjoying a 'slice' of doughless meat deluxe pizza while bidding farewell to friend and gym member Jef Fearless. James stunned the attendees with his choice of attire--no longer are tacky Christmas sweaters reserved for parties of the same name. James is bringing back the 80s!

I'm not sure if it was the noise, food or time of night, but it felt like the baby was trying to bust out and escape. No contractions, just continuous kicks and prods. Hoping to hear more new of progressing at my doctor's appointment this morning.

Oh, and stay tuned for my final two freezer meal recipes: Texas Chili and Jambalya!

weekend of cooking....beef stew

Until now, I feel like the weekends have flown by and I've barely had a chance to make regular meals, let alone meals to freeze for after the baby arrives. So last weekend, I decided that I would take this past Friday off work to make sure I get some things done--even if it is relatively last-minute.

My goal was to make six different batches of freezer meals (two a day), and I'm happy to report that as of Sunday morning, batch No. 5 is simmering away.

On Friday, after researching what meals to make, getting my list of ingredients together and spending $170 in food, I came home and made a pot of Maple Bacon Butternut Squash Soup that my friend Lauren had recently sent my way.

(As robust as this list looks, I had to go to the store again on Saturday. And I had four packs of chicken breasts in the freezer, which I bought on sale a few weeks ago that helped to keep the cost down. I'd say that overall, these freezer meals would have totaled about $200.)

I had one bowl of the butternut squash soup for lunch, and froze the rest. It was quite tasty, making me wish I had doubled the recipe.

After tackling this first easy soup, I moved on to creating my own version of beef stew. I thought it was quite good--like pot roast but more flavorful. I'm pretty sure James agreed, as he managed to eat both portions I had saved for our lunch on Saturday.


Beef Stew

Ingredients:

• 3 cups celery
• 3 cups yellow onion
• 6 carrots
• 3 garlic cloves
• 2 to 3 tbsp coconut oil (or olive oil) 
• 2 lbs beef stew meat
• 4 bacon strips
• 2 sweet potatoes
• 8 oz. can of no salt added tomato sauce
• 2 cans no salt added diced tomatoes
• 1 cup red wine
• 1 cup chicken broth
• 2 cans beef broth
• 1 tsp thyme
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 tsp rosemary
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp black pepper

1. Dice celery, onions and carrots, mince garlic, then sauté in coconut oil roughly 10 minutes until onions are translucent.

2. Sauté stew meat and chopped bacon in skillet until slightly browned.

3. Add beef and remaining ingredients to sautéed veggies in pot.

4. Simmer for roughly 2 hours, until sauce thickens, sweet potatoes are soft and meat falls apart.

So simple, yet so tasty!