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"It is a safe thing to trust Him to fulfill the desires which he creates." ~Amy Carmichael

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Freezer Cooking: Pizza Pockets & Breakfast Burritos


I am trying to get into the habit of spending one day each week doing freezer cooking. At least on the weeks when we are not terribly busy. For me, with a baby, it is so much easier to spend an afternoon preparing one or two things in bulk, than trying to do an all-out 30 meals freezer cooking day. My goal is to keep our freezers stocked with individually portioned meals so we can have food in a hurry, but stop spending extra money on the expensive and unhealthy processed freezer meals from the store.

Over the past few months, I have made meatballs, various muffins and individual chili portions for the freezer. Yesterday it was homemade pizza pockets and sausage breakfast burritos. It took me a few hours to finish with a baby in tow, stopping every so often to change a diaper or lay down for a nap. Without her "help" they were fairly simple recipes and shouldn't take too long:

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Pizza Pockets

I used this recipe from MoneySavingMom.com for the pizza pockets. The only thing I did differently was to use white wheat flour instead of unbleached and I made the pockets larger - more meal size than snack size. I also find it much easier to pour a little oil on a cutting board or some wax paper than to deal with a flour mess when kneading and rolling dough. The pizza dough was super easy to make, but we have not tasted them yet so I can't tell you much about the flavor ;) 

For the filling I used:
Sausage
Ground beef
Onions & green bell peppers (I keep bags of chopped onions and peppers in the freezer, so I just added a few handfuls while the sausage was browning)
Olives
Canned mushrooms
Pasta sauce
Mozzarella cheese

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A quick photo of the pizza pockets that I snapped with my phone camera while they were cooling. They baked very evenly, but a little bit faster than the recipe time in our gas oven.

After they had cooled completely I wrapped them individually in plastic wrap, then stored them in a large tupperware container in the freezer. The result was eight large pizza pockets, with just enough toppings leftover for me to throw together a small pizza for me to eat this week :)

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Breakfast Burritos

I happened to have a few tortillas on hand, so I borrowed some of the meat mixture from the pizza recipe to make some breakfast burritos (this is why I used sausage and ground beef - to make it spread a little further than the one package of sausage would have gone). The only extra prep was to scramble eggs. 

Filling:
Sausage
Ground beef
Onions & green bell peppers
Eggs, scrambled and seasoned with Mrs. Dash & black pepper
Cheddar cheese

I filled and folded the burritos, then let cool. It didn't seem to be a problem, but if I were to do it again I would let the filling cool before making the burritos, just to be sure the tortillas don't get soggy while cooling. I also took the advice of a lot of people online and did *not* add salsa, in order to avoid sogginess when they are defrosted. These are seasoned enough to be eaten on the go, but if they are eaten at home they would be great with salsa and sour cream on top...and maybe a glass of orange juice on the side!

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What freezer cooking have you done? Do you have any recipes to share? I am always looking for more ideas!

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