Today I began preparing more meals to freeze for future quick dinners. I wanted to use what I already have on hand. I found a whole chicken in my deep freezer in the garage. On Saturday I put it in the crock pot fully frozen on low. After about 3 hours I removed the giblet bag very carefully by using a kitchen towel to grab a leg and dug the bag out with a fork with my free hand. I continued to allow the chicken to cook on low for another 3 hours or so. We went to a movie and when we came back the entire house smelled like chicken. I switched the crock pot to warm then transferred the chicken to a round casserole dish. By that time it was falling apart, so it was able to scrunch down in the casserole dish. I just stuck it in the refrigerator to cool until I had time to remove the meat. (I should have aired out the house or seasoned the chicken more to give it a different aroma, because it was really weird to go to sleep with that chicken smell.)
Today I started by placing the butter in the saucepan, then the Italian seasoning. Then I began to remove the chicken meat from the bone. As you see in the first picture, I used a "garbage bowl" so I could work quicker. I just threw the good chicken meat into the saucepan on top of the seasoning and butter. There seemed to be more meat than I anticipated, so I kept about 1/2 lb of dark meat to add to my chicken burritos I plan to assemble another time. My hands got really messy, so I only took one additional photo of the food prep. This was when I had to wash my hands so I could drain the egg noodles. The picture below only shows about 1/4 of the meat. I just started pulling off the chicken breast at that point.
Once I pulled off all of the meat I added the cream of chicken soup and the cream cheese. I allowed the mixture to cook on low for about an hour and mixed it very well. The cream cheese takes a while to melt. It seems like there is not enough sauce or it is too thick at first, but once the cream cheese melts there will be plenty of sauce.
I chose to use freezer bags for my meals so they could be transferred to a glass casserole dish for reheating. I first spooned some egg noodles in the bag, then spooned sauce over it. As I learned when making Swedish Meatballs that I needed to use more sauce. I thought I had enough sauce with the meatballs and noodles but I ended up having an abundance of noodles and not enough sauce in the bag. Next, I laid the bags flat in the freezer, making the casserole lay down in a thin layer. This allows the casserole to cool quickly and avoid warm spots where bacteria can grow. Once these are frozen solid I will stack them. I made two 4 portion meals and two 1 portion meals. Here is the recipe for Cream Cheese Chicken. I also cooked 1lb of egg noodles and added them to the freezer bags with the Cream Cheese Chicken sauce.
While the chicken mixture was cooking I thought ahead to dinner tonight and took 3 lbs of frozen ground beef and threw them in the crock pot on low. I plan to make a triple batch of taco meat for future quick meals. I always buy the taco seasoning in a large container at Costco. Tonight we will have tacos (Monday is always taco night at my house) with 1 lb of meat and I will freeze the other 2 lbs in two separate freezer bags, just like the cream cheese chicken.
On Wednesday my daughter is going to join me in making freezer pizzas. I found a few great recipes online and cannot wait to try them. One of the blogs claims to have the secret to solving the soggy dough dilemma that most of us encounter when making homemade pizza dough. I am really getting tired of the "just like delivery" frozen pizzas we have been eating (see the box in my freezer?). I'm ready for some great tasting, low cost pizza for our Friday night "pizza night". I think we'll also make some bread sticks to go with our freezer casseroles. Stay tuned for pics from our Wednesday pizza making session!
