Tag Archives: make ahead meals

Meals in Minutes ~ Well kind of!

Sausage & White Bean SoupOur schedule, like so many other families, is crazy busy. I’m finding it harder and harder to stay on top of things and one of the areas I feel like I’m failing is in providing my family with good quality meals on a regular basis. I would say we eat well most of the time, but lately I’ve been feeling as though we are having more last-minute pulled together meals and I’m just not satisfied. Last weekend, I decided to find more slow cooker meals because I find it so much less stressful to come home at the end of the day and have our meal ready or at the very least close to it. In my search, I ended up on a great site called Who Needs a Cape (love the name). On the site, Katie shares how to make 40 slow cooker freezer meals in 4 hours. No way! I was intrigued and spent quite a bit of time exploring the site. What fascinated me the most was that I could pre-make the meals, freeze them and then just dump them in the slow cooker without having to spend time preparing the slow cooker meals in the morning before work. It almost seemed to good to be true.

In my reading, I discovered, that she also posted different options including how to make 7 meals in one hour. This seemed like a great place to start because some of the larger meal plans (30 and 40) involve doubling recipes and making enough for two separate meals. This makes great sense if your family likes the recipe, but if not, it could be a big waste of money. (I was also a bit concerned about the recipes tasting watered down because in my experience, freezing sometimes does that.)  So, on my last day off, I spent the morning grocery shopping (using the shopping lists she provides on the site – so great!!) I got home at noon and by 12:10, I was making the first slow cooker freezer meal. I can’t say I was super organized. I was taking ingredients out as I needed them and labelling bags as I went. In the end it took me an hour and half to complete all 7 of her meals. However, I was “on a roll” and ended up making a few other recipes that I had found on-line. In the end, I made 13 meals in 3 1/2 hours. I was so excited (and exhausted), but the true test will be when the meals are served to my family. I must say I was pretty proud of my accomplishment and the fact that I tried 11 new recipes in one day seemed like one of the craziest things I’ve ever attempted in the kitchen.
Last week, we ate the first slow cooker freezer meal and it was a huge success! The whole family gave the Sausage & White Bean Slow Cooker Soup a thumbs up. I didn’t adapt the recipe at all, but in the future I’ll be sure to double it. The only complaint was that there wasn’t any left! I was even more excited about my 3 1/2 meal marathon after we’d tested the first one and it was hit.  I can’t wait to try the next recipe and see how it scores with the family.

 

Sausage & White Bean Slow Cooker Soup

Ingredients:

  • 1 lb breakfast sausage, crumbled, cooked & drained
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1/2 cup finely diced onion
  • 2 celery ribs, diced
  • 2 14 oz. cans Great Northern Beans, drained
  • 1 28 oz. can diced tomatoes
  • 3/4 t dried rosemary
  • 1 t dried oregano
  • 1 t dried basil
  • 1 32 oz. carton chicken broth

Instructions:

Crumble breakfast sausage into pan and cook thoroughly, drain & let cool if freezing.  Place all items into slow cooker, stir and cook on low 6 hours. If freezing, add all ingredients EXCEPT chicken broth into gallon-sized freezer bag. Thaw overnight in refrigerator before placing into slow cooker. Add chicken broth & cook on low 6 hours.

Taken from Who Needs A Cape (which she adapted from: Sausage & White Bean Soup)

I can’t say how much the meals cost because I bought items far beyond what was needed for the meal preparation and had many of the required items on hand already. What I do know is that it will help reduce the stress of not knowing what to make for dinner, the frustration of having to run to the grocery store for items we don’t have in the house or even worse, the feelings of defeat when you accept the futility of being at a total loss and order-in or pick-up fast food as a last resort. Obviously, the few hours spent preparing seems like a miniscule sacrifice in comparison to the rewards of convenience, stress free meal times and the peace of mind knowing that your family is getting a well-balanced home cooked meal. I’m feeling blessed to have found Who Needs a Cape ~ this might just be life changing… can’t wait to taste the remaining meals!

PS We’ve tried two of the other new recipes that I found and used that day, but will far less success. Both were found on a different site and although super easy to prepare, the results were less weren’t very impressive. The Chicken Broccoli Alfredo  and Hawaiian Chicken had mixed reviews, but no one thought they were great. I am still very optomistic and can’t wait to try the remaining 6 meals from Who Needs a Cape. I’ll keep you posted.

Chicken Enchiladas with Avocado Cream Sauce

It is has just been one of those days.  I finally got a moment to sit down and post and it’s already 9pm. Actually, anyone who knows me well will be totally surprised that I am even attempting to string any words together on a page at this time of night.  Most evenings, this is my bedtime. Occasionally I make until 10, but generally speaking I am completely out and dead to the world by 9 or shortly after.  Really you say?  Oh, yeah, after teaching between 40 and 50 kindergarteners all day, making the commute home across the city, cooking dinner, tidying, running the kids’ to their activities, refereeing the sibling rivalry matches and dodging my hormonal daughter’s “bullets”, I am done by about 7, but somehow manage to hang in there until 9.  I try to blog ahead and post date if I can, but not this week.  I was recovering from parent teacher interviews over the weekend and just didn’t have the energy to spend hours at the computer.  So, this week, I am trying to fit my blogging into my already crazy schedule. Note to self….this doesn’t work well.

Anyways, the good news is that today was my day off and I managed to try two new recipes.  I had “pinned” this recipe months ago, and finally decided to try it out.  Of course, we were all going in different directions at supper time, so I don’t even know if my husband enjoyed the meal as much as Shay and I did or not.  We both loved it!  Eden refused to eat it because it was “green”. Eventually, she did eat half of an enchilada, but that was only because I told her she would get nothing else to eat unless she ate some supper.  She said it wasn’t bad and apologized for not giving it a chance.  She certainly didn’t rave about it, but I think they’d have to be smothered in chocolate sauce to get her stamp of approval these days.  All of a sudden, she is very picky – ugh!!

Chicken Enchiladas with Avocado Cream Sauce

This recipe was posted by The Holzmanns, but she offers credit to Give Me Some Oven as the original poster.  These enchiladas are different from any I have tasted before.  I was totally intrigued when I first found the recipe ~ I couldn’t wait to see how so many of my favourites were all brought together in such a unique way. Mmmm….cilantro, lime, avocado, chicken….what could be better.  These almost have a “fresh” springy flavour – very different.  Creamy, yet light and oh so yummy.  I wouldn’t change a thing.  I used the rotisserie chicken like Hannah recommended and from start to finish it took me about an hour and a half to have them ready to serve.  Prep took almost an hour.  Next time, I will follow Hannah’s lead and make a double batch, so I can freeze on pan for a future meal.  I didn’t want to do this on the first go around in case they didn’t pass the family test.

Chicken Enchiladas with Avocado Cream Sauce

Enchilada Ingredients:
  • 2 Tbsp. olive oil
  • 1 medium onion, peeled and thinly sliced (I diced mine)
  • 2 poblano peppers, stemmed and thinly sliced (I used one large jalapeno and omitted the poblano because I couldn’t find them)
  • 1 jalapeno pepper, finely diced
  • 8-10 flour tortillas (I used 8 large tortillas)
  • 4 cups chopped cooked chicken(rotisserie works best)
  • 2-3 cups Monterrey Jack cheese
  • optional garnish: fresh cilantro, sour cream, and/or shredded cheese, salsa

Avocado Cream Sauce Ingredients:

  • 2 Tbsp. butter
  • 2 Tbsp. flour
  • 2 cups chicken broth
  • ¾ cup sour cream
  • ½ tsp. cumin
  • ½ tsp. salt
  • ½ tsp. garlic powder
  • ¼ tsp. pepper
  • 2 avocados, peeled and pitted
  • ½ cup chopped fresh cilantro
  • juice of one lime
Instructions:
First make the avocado cream sauce:

  1. Melt the butter in a skillet over medium high heat. Add the flour, whisking until golden and bubbly, about 2-3 minutes.
  2. Slowly whisk the broth into the flour mixture. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for 5 minutes.
  3. Stir in the sour cream, cumin, salt, garlic powder and pepper, whisking if necessary to remove any lumps.
  4. Remove from heat and transfer mixture to a blender or food processor. Add avocados, cilantro and lime juice, and pulse until smooth and well-blended. (Be very careful blending hot liquids — the heat will expand! So be sure to remove the lid occasionally so that the heat can escape.)
  5. Season with additional salt or pepper if needed.

avocado cream sauce
Enchilada Filling:

  1. In a large skillet, heat olive oil over medium-high heat. Add onion, poblano and jalapeno, and saute for 5-6 minutes until the onions are cooked and translucent.
  2. Remove from heat.
  3. To assemble the enchiladas, place a tortilla on a flat surface.
  4. Spread a tablespoon or two of the avocado sauce down the middle of the tortilla. Then layer on some of the vegetable mixture, shredded chicken and cheese.enchilada assembly
  5. Carefully roll the tortilla and place it seam side down in the baking dish.
  6. Repeat with the remaining tortillas.
  7. Drizzle the top with about half of the remaining avocado cream sauce, then cover the dish with foil and bake for about 20 minutes, or until tortillas are heated through and begin to harden.
  8. Remove from the oven, then serve individual enchiladas drizzled with the remainder of the avocado cream sauce. You can also garnish with additional cilantro, cheese, and/or sour cream.
chicken enchilada

I literally popped these out of the oven 4 minutes before we had to leave for hockey practise. No time to take photos, here is a quick snap shot of the half I managed to scarf down before racing out the door! Delicious.

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