Nov Freezer Cooking

I'm doing a super simple couple of hours of freezer cooking today. We'll be out of town for Thanksgiving and since we're almost a week into the month, I don't need as many meals. Here's what I'm working on right now:

*cooked chicken- I put split breasts in the crockpot with some chicken broth, season salt, pepper, and garlic powder and set it to cook for 6 hours on medium. This chicken will be used in salads mostly.

*lime tacos- since the crockpot was in use and I am working with split breasts rather than boneless, I decided to try boiling it in water that has some chicken base added along with the chili powder and lime juice. I will see how it tastes when it comes out and possibly add more if it needs it. I will probably leave the corn out since I don't have any and use it as a quesadilla filling instead of as tacos.

*sweet potatoes- several are baking in the oven for Sweet Potato Streusel muffins. I'm not sure when I'll make them but thought they sounded good. Since the boys are still reluctant to eat veggies, I will just hide them.

*Italian Sausage Sauce- I usually buy Italian turkey sausage but neither Food Lion or Walmart had any, so I bought two pounds of ground turkey and used this recipe. It didn't have quite as much flavor as I hoped so I might use this one next time. After cooking it I added a little more Italian seasoning, pepper, garlic powder, and salt. I added three cans of stewed Italian tomatoes that I pureed and a couple pinches of sugar and simmered. I had enough for three meals. Tonight and another night this month we'll have zucchini crust pizza. I'll top it with the sausage sauce and cheese. Later this month I'm going to add some peppers and onions to it and serve it over spaghetti squash.

*I have two whole chickens. I'll freeze one and put the other in the crockpot before church in the morning. I'll cook it on high and we'll have roasted chicken and salad for lunch (as long as the power doesn't go out which happened last time I did this)! I'll make loaded chicken salad (chicken, mayo, celery, apples, raisins, pepper, lemon juice) for dinner and then freeze any chicken that is leftover. Later this week I hope to make sausage patties and brown bag burrito filling.

On a random note, I thought I'd share some of the recipes I found earlier this week. They were all a result of my desire to not go grocery shopping. While we ate well, I realized I should have just gone shopping because I wasted so much time searching for things to make.

*Thai Honey Peanut Chicken. Along with that I sauteed some squash, zucchini, onion, and cooked brown rice in sesame oil and added some fresh ginger. Anthony and I both really liked it and Graham even at the chicken by the handful (still working on using a fork with him).

*Reed couldn't have the above dish because of the peanut butter in it. I found a recipe for zucchini bread that didn't have eggs or milk since we were out of both. I cut this recipe in half and made mini muffins with it. They were too sweet but a huge hit nonetheless.

*For breakfast I made three servings of oatmeal according to the containers directions and added a couple of tablespoons of brown sugar, peanut butter, coconut oil, and coconut flakes. Super tasty!

*Thanks to my mom's suggestion I used some ground beef to make Swedish meatballs that I baked in the oven. I mixed a can of cream of mushroom soup, milk, white cooking wine, garlic powder, and nutmeg to make a sauce for them. I served it over spaghetti and we liked this as well (except Reed who refuses to try spaghetti). We have half of it in the freezer to enjoy again soon!