I have heard about the beans for years.  Yes, years!  And I can’t believe I had never tried them.  I first heard about them on the Sonlight forums, where they were made famous by Bethany of For the Love of Grub.

Bethany loves these beans and makes them often and tells the rest of us that we need to be making them.  Everyone who has tried them raves about them.

Do I take the hint and give them a try?  No, I wait 5 or 7 years before it finally hits me that I need to see what the fuss is about.  I mean, it’s just beans, right? They can’t be that much better than canned, right?

Call me a crazy bean lover!  These things are fabulous!

They aren’t spicy, and yet they’re flavorful.  They make a quick dinner, can be mashed or left whole and they’re great for stocking your freezer.

Bethany gives a lot of variations on her blog, but this is how I made them: 

Please ignore the slow cooker that needs to be scrubbed.  It’s okay, Mom.  I promise I scrubbed it and it’s clean now.

You can use these beans in tacos, enchiladas, burritos, etc.  Or eat them as a side dish.

Last February, we did a Virtual Freezer Cooking Day together via Facebook.  It was loads of fun and I got my freezer stocked up in the process.  I loved chatting with the others who were participating.

I’m so excited to tell you that tomorrow night, we get to have a live chat, right here on the blog!  The chat is part of the International Delight Coffee Community.  It’s being hosted by Liz, from Hoosier Homemade and me.  We’re going to be talking about all things that have to do with freezer cooking:

• Recipes that freeze well
• Organizing your freezer
• Doing a big freezer cooking day
• Batch cooking
• Using the freezer for “Friends in Need” meals
• Anything else we think of!

We’ll start at 9pm Eastern time, tomorrow 2/15.  Just come back to this post (you can also enter the chat via the International Delight Coffee Talk Community or through Hoosier Homemade).  If you’re around tomorrow night, I’d love to chat with you!

Until then, here are a few links to posts I’ve written about freezer cooking.  

• Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Storing Foods in the Freezer
• Freezer Cooking February: Tips and Recipe Round Up
• The Freezer Cooking Category for lots of freezable recipes and more

I hope you’ll be able to join us here tomorrow!

Maybe someone can give me ideas about organizing my messy freezer.

And yes, those are icicles in the door on the left.

I think there’s also a tiny snowman in there somewhere.

Please tell me I’m not the only one with odd things in the freezer.

See you tomorrow night, right here!

Disclosure: I am compensated for my involvement with the International Delight Coffee Talk Community.

And there’s the satisfaction of knowing you’ve got mealtime covered (or at least a head start).

I want to introduce you to 2 resources for freezer cooking from Once a Month Mom. (And there’s a limited number available at a discount! Keep reading for the code.)

Both books have plans, instructions, grocery lists and even labels.  Everything you need to get the freezer stocked is here (except the food, of course!) 

First up is Survive Before 5: Toddler Meals for Your Busy Days – The cool thing about this book is that even though the recipes are toddler friendly, it’s all real food.  Older kids and even adults will enjoy the recipes.  And I love the idea of being able to pull a healthy meal or snack from the freezer to feed a hungry, fussy little person.  Oh how that would have come in handy a few years ago!

You’ll find recipes for:

• individual mac & cheese cups
• fruity breakfast burritos
• individual pizzas
• peanut butter banana yogurt pops
• and lots more ~~all for the freezer!

Once a Month Mom also offers Once a Month Mom Holiday 2010 eCookbook.  It won’t be long before we’ll be sitting down to eat Thanksgiving dinner, and Christmas is right behind.

This ebook has recipes for:

• twice baked sweet potatoes
• slow cooker stuffing
• make ahead butterhorn rolls
• caramel apple pie trifle
• and lots more ~~~ all for your freezer!

Having the freezer stocked with everything you need for holiday dinners would mean getting to truly enjoy the time with family.  No stress!

You can buy Once a Month Mom Holiday 2010 eCookbook or Survive Before 5: Toddler Meals for Your Busy Days by clicking the links.

Discount code – Use the code EATHOME2OFF to save $2 on either book.  There are only 50 available discounts, so don’t wait!

This is a recipe that will be made often in my house.  My kids have been asking for it again already.

I first saw the recipe when Mary from Giving Up on Perfect linked it for Ingredient Spotlight.  I’ve since spotted it on Pinterest several times.  This soup is fantastic!  And it’s easy too.

I made just a few minor changes to the way Mary fixed it.  I doubled the recipe, which made a lot.  It completely filled my 6 quart slow cooker.   Here’s what you’ll need: 

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 – 2 lbs. chicken tenders
• 1 red bell pepper, diced
• 1/2 large onion, diced
• 2 cans black beans, drained and rinsed
• 2 cans tomatoes with diced green chilis
• 1 can cream style corn
• 1 cup frozen corn
• 2 cans cream of chicken soup
• 2 cans enchilada sauce
• 3 cups milk

Directions

Place chicken in bottom of the slow cooker.  I used frozen chicken and did not thaw it.  Add all other ingredients except cream soup, enchilada sauce and milk.  Stir those last 3 ingredients together and pour over others in slow cooker.  Cook on high for 6 hours or low for 7-8 hours.

Top with shredded pepper jack cheese and serve with tortilla chips.

In the doubled recipe, the 2 cans of tomatoes with green chilies gave the soup a nice kick.  We liked that much heat, even the kids, but if your family doesn’t then substitute a can of diced tomatoes for 1 can of tomatoes with green chilies.

This made enough for my family of 6 to have dinner twice.  I froze the leftovers for the second meal.

This is the giant zucchini that was gifted to me the other day.  I turned part of it into Zucchini Carrot Cake.

The rest got shredded up and frozen.

Just pop the shredded zucchini into a Ziploc bag.  Don’t forget to label the bags.  I froze mine in 2 cup quantities.  I got 6 cups out of this one zucchini!

Now I can use the shreds for more cake or bread or even in soups and stews.

This post is from SnoWhite at Finding Joy in My Kitchen.  On Ingredient Spotlight: Spinach, SnoWhite mentioned that she freezes fresh spinach to use for later.  I asked if she would share her process with us and she was kind to agree.

Thanks so much for inviting me to share this kitchen tip today, Tiffany!   I am honored to have a chance to guest post at Eat at Home.

In our house, we eat a lot of spinach.  For a while, I was buying the $1 frozen spinach boxes in the grocery store.  However, I really like fresh spinach in many dishes.  I started buying organic spinach in bulk from Sam’s Club where I can get a 16 oz for just over $3.  This financially worked great for us, but we quickly realized we didn’t want to eat fresh spinach for every single meal each time we purchased the spinach, nor did we want the spinach to go to waste.

2) Divide the spinach into two piles: fresh (which I store in a plastic container with a paper towel in the fridge – the paper towel absorbs the moisture from the drained spinach), and the rest for freezing.

3) Further divide the freezing pile into individual serving sized portions; transfer them to freezer bags.

Press the air out of the bag and seal tightly.  Label with the date and pop into the freezer.

We use these bags of frozen spinach for all our recipes that call for spinach in a cooked form; I wouldn’t recommend using it in recipes that require fresh spinach. Freezing damaged the cell walls of the spinach leaves, making them loose their firmness.  The result is one soggy spinach salad.  Gross.

But, in cooked dishes — this works wonderfully; saving us both time and money.

To use, most of the time I just add the frozen spinach directly to the dish.  We do that for our Spinach Squares, Twice Baked Potatoes and even Pizza for example.  If you are adding spinach to a dish that requires simmering time — like our Italian Sausage Spinach Penne, add the spinach directly frozen without cooking and save even more time.

Other dishes, where cooked spinach is required, are easy to fix with this spinach too.  Simply open the bag, and empty the spinach into a glass container to microwave or cook on the stove top until spinach is wilted.  This is our preferred method for our Crockpot Ziti.

This is something that my husband and I have found to work out really well for us; I hope that it also might save you time and money in your kitchen while helping you to increase your consumption of leafy greens!

I’m SnoWhite and I blog at Finding Joy in My Kitchen.  Our blog emerged when my husband and I began cooking nearly everything we eat from scratch and we wanted to share our recipes with family and friends.  Our cooking philosophy is simple: we use every day ingredients and aim to make most everything we eat more nutritious for us while being easy to prepare!  Our blog houses over 800 recipes that are approved in our kitchen.  Along this journey, I’ve discovered great joy in preparing healthy and nourishing meals for my family, and it’s my hope that you too will enjoy the process of cooking foods for your family.

If you’re looking for a dessert you can make ahead of time, that’s full of chocolatey, coffee goodness, this is it!

I made this for our Valentine’s Day dinner.  The recipe came from The Sweets Life.  Natalie linked it up on Ingredient Spotlight, the week we focused on sweetened condensed milk. Natalie has all kinds of scrumptious recipes on her site.

I thought I might serve this with chocolate syrup or even hot fudge, but it doesn’t need any embellishment.  The smooth mocha and creamy vanilla on a chocolate cookie crust is all that’s needed.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• about 2 cups crumbled Oreos (I used about 1/2 pack)
• 3 Tbs. butter, melted
• 8 oz cream cheese, softened
• 1 can sweetened condensed milk
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 2 cups whipping cream, whipped
• 2-3 Tbs. very strong coffee (or 2 Tbs. instant coffee dissolved in 1 Tbs. hot water)
• 1/2 cup chocolate syrup

Make the crust:

Combine the cookie crumbs and butter.  Press into the bottom of a foil lined loaf pan.

Make the filling:

Beat the cream cheese with a mixer until smooth.  Add the sweetened condensed milk and vanilla.  Fold in the whipped cream.  Divide the cream filling in half.

To one half gently stir in coffee and chocolate syrup.  Spread half this mocha filling over the crust.  Top with vanilla filling.  Repeat the layers.  Wrap with foil and freeze for at least 6 hours.  The dessert is soft enough to slice straight out of the freezer.

Serves 12-15 people.

I’m gearing up for Virtual Freezer Cooking Day on Saturday.  I’ve made a list of foods I want to cook and shopped my freezer full of pork for some of the meat I’ll need.  I’ve still got to make a grocery list and go shopping.

Some of you are getting ready too and I’m so excited to get to cook with you Saturday!  It would be fun to do it in person, but cooking via Facebook will be a blast too.

Alison, an Eat at Home reader, sent me an email asking a few questions about how to store food in the freezer.  She’s going to be cooking on Saturday to help get ready for a new baby.  I thought I would answer her questions here in a post, since others may have the same questions.

Freezer Cooking Supplies

There are a few items you will want to have on hand to store foods in the freezer.

1.  Foil pans – These are handy for freezing casseroles and desserts.

2.  Foil – It’s nice to have heavy duty and regular foil for covering the foil pans and wrapping bread loaves.

3.  Plastic wrap – Some people like to cover casseroles with a layer of plastic wrap and then a layer of foil.  If you’re going to store foods for several months, this is a good idea.  You just have to be sure to remember to remove the plastic wrap before heating in the oven.

4.  Plastic containers – Plastic freezer containers are helpful for storing soups and other foods.  They stack in the freezer and minimize spills.

5.  Plastic zip top freezer bags – I use these for storing almost everything. Buy quart and gallon sizes.

6.  Freezer tape – I use this for affixing labels on casseroles.  You can also use it to secure foil wrappings.

7.  Sharpie marker – Keep your permanent marker handy for labeling everything!

Labeling

Label everything! You won’t remember what it was you wrapped so carefully in foil or how long ago the thing at the bottom of the freezer has been there.

1.  Date everything.  Always.  – We even date opened packages of lunch meat in the fridge.  No one can ever remember when it was opened if it’s not dated.  Same thing goes for items in the freezer.

2.  Include instructions – If it needs to be thawed, uncovered, plastic removed, heated at a certain temperature for a certain amount of time include it on the label.

3.  Include side dishes or other foods needed, if relevant. -  Does the dish get served with rice or pasta?  Are there certain sides that you want to serve it with?  Include that info on the label.

This may sound like a lot to put on a label, but it’s not.  For instance, the label for Chicken Lettuce Wrap Filling would read:

Chicken Lettuce Wraps 2/19/11 Thaw in fridge. Microwave to heat. Need lettuce.

It may seem obvious when you write it, but you’ll be glad it’s there 3 months later when you’ve forgotten what it is and how to fix it.

How Long Can You Freeze It?

According to the USDA Freezing and Food Safety Fact Sheet, foods can be safely frozen indefinitely.  The guidelines are more for food quality than for safety.

1.  Guideline for casseroles and cooked meats is 3-4 months.  I’ve seen guidelines of up to 6 months given.  Again, the guidelines are for quality, not safety.  I’ve eaten casseroles frozen for 3 months and noticed no loss in quality.

2.  Foods stored in a deep freeze will hold their quality longer than in the freezer section of the fridge.  This is largely because the door is opened less often on a deep freeze.

3.  Wrapping foods well before freezing will help preserve their quality.  If you know something will be in the freezer for a while, double wrap it in heavy duty foil or double zip top bags.

4.  Cool foods before freezing.  This helps prevent ice crystals, which cause freezer burn and loss of quality.

Other Tips

1.  Keep an inventory.  If you’re stocking your freezer with many meals, it’s very helpful to keep a checklist of what’s in there.  It’s also helpful to list the kind of container the item is in, so you know if you’re looking for a foil lump, or zip top bag of something.

Arminta shared on Facebook that she keeps her inventory on a dry erase board hung on the freezer.  That’s genius!

2.  You can “make” your own foil pans.  Line a casserole dish with a couple layers of heavy duty foil.  Freeze the recipe in the dish.  After it’s frozen, you can pop it out of the casserole dish and it will hold it’s shape.  Pop it back in the dish to thaw and bake.

3.  Flat freeze items to save space.  Some foods that can be frozen in zip top bags, can be smooshed flat and stacked.

Foods that Freeze Well

For a list recipes that freeze well, click here.  This is a list of types of foods you can freeze, along with a few tips.

1.  Cooked meats.  I’ve covered that in this post.  You can even grill and slice chicken to freeze.

2.  Casseroles.  Almost all casseroles freeze well, including enchiladas, stuffed shells or other pasta bakes.  Thaw in the fridge.  Most casseroles will then bake about 1 hour at 350 degrees or until they are hot through.

3.  Soups and pasta sauces.  Most soup freezes great.  An exception would be those with pasta or noodles and cream soups.  Tomato based sauces and pesto freezes well.  Soup can be thawed in the fridge and heated on the stove or in the microwave.  I’ve even thawed soup enough to get it out of the container and put the slushy lump in the slow cooker to heat for the day.

4.  Cookies and cookie dough.  Freeze cookies in zip top bags.  You can also freeze cookie dough balls in a single layer on a foil lined cookie sheet.  Transfer them to a zip top bag after they’re frozen.  Fresh baked cookies are just minutes away.

5.  Cakes and brownies.  Even whole, fully iced cakes can be frozen.  9×13 cakes are easy to freeze, but be sure you have plenty of room if you’re planning to freeze a layer cake or bundt.

6.  Breads and muffins.  Yeast breads, quick breads and muffins all freeze well.

7.  Wine.  We don’t drink wine, but I like to cook with it.  I freeze it in 1/2 cup quantities.

I hope to “see” you on Saturday for the Virtual Freezer Cooking Day!  I’ll be giving away a Rada Cutlery Cook’s Knife, but you’ll need to pop in over there to find out how to win.

The filling for these lettuce wraps is perfect for making ahead and freezing.  I see this becoming one of my vacation food recipes.

The chicken is seasoned with garlic, soy sauce and some vinegar.  Water chestnuts and green onions add to the flavors.  I based the recipe on Spicy Garlic Chicken Pizza, another winning freezer recipe.

The chicken filling would also be great served over rice, but we liked the crunch of the lettuce.

Any recipe that calls for cutting raw chicken will require a sharp knife.  My favorite knife comes from Rada Cutlery.  It’s called Cook’s Knife and it costs just $9.20.  Frugal and sharp – I love it!

Here’s what you’ll need for the Chicken Lettuce Wraps:

Rada Cutlery is one of Eat at Home’s sponsors, but I would rave about their knives no matter what.  The Cook’s Knife is my favorite, everyday knife but I own many others and love them all.  Rada Cutlery mostly sells their products through fundraisers.  If you work with a group that needs to raise money, please contact them for info.  Their people are just as fabulous as their products.

Psst…I’ll be giving away a Cook’s Knife on Saturday for Virtual Freezer Cooking Day.  Be sure you “like” the Eat at Home Facebook page and check in over there on Saturday for the giveaway details.

88 meatballs.  That’s a lot of meatballs to stash away in the freezer.

It boggles my mind, but somehow we have managed to eat all 88 meatballs and we didn’t even have company to help.  Did I mention it only took us 3 weeks to polish them off?  Yikes!

I used them for spaghetti/tortellini meals twice.  And I had two recipes to try out that used meatballs.  One of them didn’t turn out quite the way I’d hoped the first time, so I tried it again.  My kids have revolted now.  I don’t think I can feed them another meatball dish for  a while.

But, I still think it’s a great idea to have homemade meatballs in the freezer.  They taste much better than the store-bought kind and they are better for you too.  You can use them for spaghetti, of course.  But they’re also good in Sweet and Sour Meatballs over Rice and Meatball Subs.

Before we get to the recipe, I want to remind you about Virtual Freezer Cooking Day on February 19.  On that Saturday, I’ll be in my kitchen cooking freezer foods and I’ll be checking in on Facebook frequently to hear what you’re cooking in your kitchens.  Here are the details of the event.  Be sure to RSVP. There will be prizes and giveaways involved!

Back to today’s recipe:  Somehow I failed to take a picture of the finished meatballs.  The ingredient photo is at the top of the post.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• 4 1/2 lbs. ground beef (I used extra lean)
• 4 cups Panko or bread crumbs
• 5 eggs
• 2 Tbs. Worcestershire sauce
• 1 small onion, diced
• salt and pepper

I deliberately kept the seasonings simple so they could be used in a variety of dishes.  If you like, add garlic, oregano, basil, parsley or other seasonings.

Mix all the ingredient together.  I did two batches in the stand mixer.  Roll into balls.

I froze some of the meatballs raw, because they were going to be used in a baked dish and I think using cooked meatballs would turn out too dry.  To freeze raw meatballs, place them on a wax paper lined cookie sheet and freeze.  Then transfer them to a freezer zip top bag.

For the rest of the meatballs, bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes.  Cool and freeze.

Stay tuned later in the week for two recipes to use all these meatballs.