I always love to try new recipes and different ways of doing things. While browsing at Barnes & Noble, I found this cookbook called "Dinner is Ready!" by Deanna Buxton. You can find it on Amazon.com (which is where I ended up ordering it from). I figured I'd give it a try, after reading almost everything on their website. The concept is that you can make 30 meals in ONE DAY! Crazy, I know. I don't have a freezer big enough, so that's probably not gonna happen anytime soon - hehe. Plus, I hate when the freezer is completely full. I like when it's 1/2-full...that way I can find things and see what's in it!
Tonight I made 3 of the recipes (in fact 2 of them are cooking while I'm writing this right now...very convenient). Some of the recipes are a little weird-sounding, but like any other cookbook, you have to filter out for your own personal taste and also I tend to always tweak recipes. I don't think I ever make something from a recipe, "by-the-book." I always add a little of this and a dash of that to get it to the taste that I (or Ryan) wants. Tonight, the ground beef stroganoff (with my twist) was taken mostly from the book. The other 2 things I made (specifically to freeze for later) were: Spicy Sausage Spaghetti Sauce & Chicken Tortellini Soup.
They smell delicious simmering away on the stove right now, side-by-side. It's great because as they simmer, I can do a bunch of other stuff. Then I just let them cool; package them for the freezer, tag them, and it's all set to go! I highly recommend doing meals this way if you're busy, even if you don't use this book. I can say for a fact, I wouldn't use all these recipes, because some just sound a little too strange. However, by making your own meals and freezing them, you can eliminate wondering what the mystery words are on the frozen-food box ingredients :) Just a thought...
4 comments:
you are awesome girlie! how long did it take you to make the three meals? i always want to cook and freeze, but whenever my mom or mom-in-law visit, they manage to overstuff the freezer. i hate it because i can't find anything!! thanks for the book recommendation!
It took overall about 3 hours to do everything, BUT - I wasn't in the kitchen the whole time...meaning I was able to do other things while stuff was cooking. I made the stroganoff first and we had that for dinner, then while the remainder of that was cooling (and waiting to be frozen), I had the other 2 things getting started. The spaghetti sauce and the soup take 1.5-2 hrs. to simmer. But the prep work for those 2 things is super easy :)
girl, i saw the book and thought you had read my post!!! i do this every 6 months with that book:-) you will LOVE the meals. it gets easier every time. just have ryan cut all of your chicken and onions the night before! it takes me about 10hours from start to finish to do all 30 meals.
Wow you are a power woman! I don't think I could do all of them at once. I did the 3 and thought that felt like a lot! But it is nice to just take portioned things out of the freezer :)
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