Cooking like a boss!

I had intended to post this yesterday, but yesterday was lost in a haze of cleaning for the babysitter.  The night out will also get a mention in a post that will hopefully take shape for tomorrow or Friday.  Hopefully.

Anyway, I’ve been talking about freezer cooking, and I tried a few recipes from Once A Month Mom.  We’ve had a lot of success, and a few glitches, but I thought I’d share the results!  Because I’m home to do most of the cooking, and because our family is so small, one meal with 6-8 servings is usually enough to make two meals for us.  Also, because our apartment freezer is rather small, I try to make meals that can freeze in a bag, and I don’t make several of one meal.  2 of each type of meal is plenty for us, but do what works for your family.

I made the homemade refried beans, shredded beef, chicken salad, sesame chicken, and French toast sticks.  All were unanimous successes, and I am under instructions to make them all again.  The shredded beef was declared to be as good as City Barbecue’s, which I thought was fantastically high praise, since I could eat City Barbecue every other day (alternated with Chipotle, of course) and not get tired of it.

With the exception of me overcooking the sauce for the sesame chicken (still tasted awesome, just darker in color), the recipes for the beans, beef, and sesame chicken were perfect as-is.  On the chicken salad, Big Dude and I both thought that it was a bit bland.  I added a bit more garlic salt, just a couple of shakes.  BD suggested a bit of relish, so I added around a tablespoon, maybe a bit more.  After that, it was just a fuller flavor.  We ate it on salad, with some rye bread toast, watermelon, and corn on the cob that I had baked.  Perfect summertime meal!

The French toast sticks were the ones that seemed the most problematic for me.  It called for 30 slices of bread, which I used, and had a ton left over after I ran out of the egg mixture.  I used regular sandwich bread, and I think I’d rather thicker sliced bread, like Texas toast.  I also had to knock down the baking time from 30 minutes to 20-22.  That may vary based on your oven.  However, they tasted great, and the little dude had no problem making them disappear at breakfast!  I also had enough to give a bag to B. for her boys to try, and I hope to hear their thoughts on it soon!

Since I’m still fairly new at this idea of cooking to save money, I’m always on the lookout for good recipes and websites!  Tell me where you like to go for food inspiration.  Give me a good recipe-I’ll even try it out and feature the results in a future blog!