Freezer Meals For Teens - Chicken Week

Chicken in enchilada sauce, 2 bags of Hawaiian Chicken, an extra bag of cornflake/ranch breading (went in my pantry) 3 bags of chicken cordon bleu, 2 bags of parmesan ranch chicken.

Last week I made up a bunch of meals with a log of hamburg, this week I brought home two packs of chicken breasts to make freezer meals.

The chicken breasts from Sams Club were huge.  Ridiculously huge.

 I started by cutting them in half - through the middle, so they were half as thick.  Each pack had 5 breasts in it, I bought two packs, so I had roughly 20 breasts to work with.

But even then they were so large that I ended up cutting them in 4ths - so I actually ended up with a lot more.  

making the chicken cordon bleu

Chicken Cordon Bleu
Chicken cordon bleu is one of my favorite meals, and it freezes well.  

Pound the chicken thin
spread with mayo & mustard
top with ham and cheese
fold in half
Dip in egg
Dip in italian bread crumbs

Flash freeze

Except, these were really really large. So after they were in the freezer for about 30 minutes, I pulled them out, cut them in half, sprayed the exposed edge with cooking spray, and dipped in more bread crumbs.  If the kids are still hungry, they can always have seconds, and they will cook better at the smaller size.


Crockpot Hawaiian Chicken
When I cut the chicken in half, not all of the pieces were "neat". The ones that were that were misshapen (about 3 or 4?) I cut into chunks for Hawaiian Chicken. I'll serve this over rice.  

1 can of pineapple chunks
      (pour half the juice into each bag, then half the pineapple into each bag)
1T soy sauce in each bag
3T brown sugar in each bag
2T corn starch
cut up peppers and onions (I used one bag, half in each bag)
baby carrots

I'll cook this in the crock pot, and make rice to go with it.

Parmesan Ranch Chicken

Parmesan Ranch Chicken
For this recipe, I cut the remaining chicken breasts in half again, which is actually 4ths.  I think it will cook better at the smaller size.

1 packet ranch dressing
1 cup crushed corn flakes
1 cup parmesan cheese
      Mix in a ziplock bag  (I doubled this recipe)

1/2 cup butter
       Melt in a small bowl

Dip the chicken in the butter, then drop 1 piece at a time into the ziplock bag, shake to coat.

I placed the chicken in a pan lined with foil and flash froze them before putting them in zip lock bags for the freezer.

Enchilada Chicken
This was 3 of the smaller pieces of chicken in a ziplock bag, with a can of enchilada sauce.  That's it. 

 I'll pop this in the crock pot one morning, then in the afternoon I'll pull the chicken out, shred it, and add cheese, black beans, diced onion...  Fill the tortilla shells, roll, top with the enchilada sauce and more cheese, and bake.  It's a little more work than most of my crockpot meals, but having the chicken ready to go makes this pretty simple and quick any night of the week.

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Feeding Teens - Eight meals from a 10lb log of Hamburg

8 hamburgers, 2 containers of cheeseburger soup, 1 meatloaf, 2 bags of taco meat & 2 bags of seasoned hamburger for goulash & chili

I love the idea of freezer cooking, but dislike all the chaos it creates.  So I scale it down.  Rather than spend hundreds of dollars and hours in the kitchen, I come home with one meat in bulk, and spend about an hour  (or less) prepping it into meals.  

This week I came home with a 10lb log of hamburg from Sams Club, and I turned it into:

1 large meatloaf
2 crockpots of cheeseburger soup (will need milk and beef broth)
8 Hamburgers
2 qt bags of precooked seasoned beef, destined for chili & goulash
2 qt bags of taco meat for taco nights


How many meals you get out of this will vary greatly by family.  I can't even know how many meals I got out of this, since with a house full of older teens, you can never be sure too far in advance how many will be home for dinner.  8 hamburgers might be one meal, or I might get two meals out of them - depends on the night.  When I say "Eight Meals" - it's really just a guess. 

A list of all the "extra" ingredients I used is at the bottom of this post.  Here is what I did step by step:


Cut the log of beef roughly in half.  Start browning about half  of  the hamburg in one pan (dutch oven sized works well)
 Season with:
Garlic
Pepper
Salt
worcestershire sauce

I put half a stick of butter in a frying pan, and then put an entire large, sweet, onion in my ninja to dice very very fine - almost pureed.  Saute the onion in the butter while browning the hamburg.  

Remove the onion into a bowl to cool, add another half stick of butter to the pan. Put a bag of pepper and onion strips (Wengers in Mifflinburg often has the bags for 99 cents, they are great to keep on hand) and dice. Saute the peppers and onions.  Set aside to cool.

The first batch of beef should be browned and ready to set aside to cool now - I just moved the pan to a cold burner.

Hamburgers

Add about 3lbs of raw hamburg to a mixing bowl.
Add:
  Egg, Salt, pepper, garlic, worcestershire sauce, shredded cheese, the sauted onion, and shredded cheese.  Mix.  Use and ice cream scoop, heaped, to measure out into 8 hamburgers.

Meatloaf

There's a lot of hamburg left in the bowl.  
Add: Oatmeal (or bread crumbs) parmesan cheese,  another egg, 3/4 a can of tomato paste and a lot of italian seasoning. Mix thoroughly. Shape into a meatloaf, top with the rest of the tomato paste, italian seasonings, and coarse sea salt.

You can put this in a pan in the freezer, on saran wrap, flash freeze it,then remove the saran wrap and wrap in foil.  

Cheeseburger Soup

I bought a case of cheap french fries at Wengers.  Using just part of one bag, I fill the ninja about 3/4 full, and pulse, just to roughly dice the french fries.  I put them in to saute in a frying pan, with just a bit of oil. Meanwhile I put carrots in the ninja and dice them very fine, then add them to the pan to cook with the french fries.

In a large mixing bowl I add about half of the cooked ground beef,  I add about a two cups of sour cream, the peppers and onions I sauteed earlier, then the french fries and carrot mixture,and a generous amount of shredded cheese.  I scoop the mixture into two larger rubbermaid containers, and set them aside to cool.  (When I make this, I'll add a little beef bouillon and water to the crockpot, enough to cover the bottom of the pan.  Some milk - maybe two cups?  And this frozen mixture.  I'll leave it in the crockpot on high for a few hours, or on low all day.

Seasoned Beef for Goulash And Chili
The seasoned, browned, beef left in the pan I split into two qt size freezer bags, to use in chili & goulash.  My pantry is well stocked with beans & pasta, and I canned a lot of tomatoes this summer. I keep Tones bouillon on hand all the time too, so these are meals I can now throw together in minutes.

Taco Meat
I put the last of the beef into the pan with taco seasoning, and brown that while cleaning up the kitchen.  I let it cool quite a bit (I typed this post while it cooled) and then put it in ziplock bags.

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Extra Ingredients:

Seasonings:

• Garlic Powder
• Italian Seasoning
• Salt
• Pepper
• taco seasoning
• Worcestershire Sauce

Misc:

• Parmesan Cheese
• Bag of shredded cheese (I used about 3/4 of one 16 ounce bag of mexican blend cheese, from Sam's club)
• 1 can tomato paste (or you can use ketchup)
• 1 onion
• 1 stick of butter
• 2 cups of sour cream
• 3 eggs
• oatmeal, or bread crumbs, or whatever you use for meatloaf
• Pepper & Onion strips
• french fries, or diced potatoes
• carrots

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Other Ground Beef Recipes:
Shepherd's Pie
BBQ (sloppy joes)
meatballs
White Castle Style Sliders

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Menu Planning Monday 8/31/15

http://orgjunkie.com/2015/08/menu-plan-monday-aug-3115.html

Monday - Hamburgs, Copycat Texas Roadhouse Steak Fries
     http://texasroadhouseathome.blogspot.com/2013/02/steak-fries.html

 LONESTAR STEAK FRIES
Texas Roadhouse Copycat Recipe

Serves: 4

1 tablespoon paprika
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon salt, divided
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
6 potatoes (about 2-1/2 pounds), with skin on
2 tablespoons peanut oil

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. In a large resealable plastic bag, combine paprika, chili powder, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and pepper. Seal bag and shake to mix.

Cut each potato in half then each half into 4 flat wedges. Add peanut oil and potatoes to seasoning in bag then close tightly and shake to coat well.  Spread potatoes in a single layer on a large rimmed baking sheet. Bake 20 to 22 minutes, or until fork-tender. Sprinkle with remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt and serve immediately.

Notes: Sure, you can peel the potatoes if you want, but we like the extra crunchiness of the skin. Besides, the skin is good for us!

Tuesday - Taco Night

    Set out as make your own.  Ingredients:

• Tortilla Chips
• Quesadillas
• Seasoned ground beef
• refried beans
• salsa
• guacamole
• black beans
• sour cream

Wednesday - Church Dinner

Thursday Night -  Pulled Pork, Roasted Potato Salad, Broccoli

Perfect Pulled Pork | Kevin & Amanda's Recipes

http://www.kevinandamanda.com/recipes/dinner/perfect-pulled-pork-slow-roasted-seasoned-savory.html

The recipe calls for soaking the pork in a brine, then coating it in a dry rub, and slow roasting it.

Dry Rub

1 tbsp ground cumin

1 tbsp garlic powder

1 tbsp onion powder

1 tbsp chili powder

1 tbsp cayenne pepper

1 tbsp salt

1 tbsp ground pepper

1 tbsp paprika

1/2 cup brown sugar

Roasted Potato Salad

Toss the potato chunks in oil, then sprinkle liberally with salt, pepper, and garlic powder.  Roast.

I love to use Hickory Smoked Bacon - I bake that while the potatoes are roasting

Then it's best with home made mayo - but whatever you typically use to make your potato salad will work.

Friday Night - Football night - Eat Out/Calzones at home

For away games, we eat out in the town of the football game, but I'll make sticky buns for breakfast, calzones for lunch, with an extra calzone for my son and his friends to eat after the game, if they end up here.   

This weeks restaurant - 

    Our favorite restaurant in Muncy is the Main Street Grill, but they take a long vacation each year, to visit greece, and do not reopen until September 10th.

    So we're still deciding between Haywoods, and the Country Store Cafe.  I think we're leaning towards the Country Store right now - I love their soft pretzels.

Saturday - Soup & Sandwiches

Hungarian Mushroom Soup (From the freezer)

Leftover pulled pork sandwiches

coleslaw

Sunday - Turkey Dinner with all the trimmings - stuffing, mashed potatoes, corn, rolls

Geocaching Favorites

After a semi disappointing trip the train trestle cache, I started thinking about caches that truly have taken me to beautiful views.  I can't remember all of them, but I'm starting a list so I can remember in the future.  :-)

We live in Central Pa, so most of our favorites are nearby - although we do travel the state a fair bit.  

I have a photo album of interesting geocaches here:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.369864743215946.1073741971.175207949348294&type=3

What A View!

Sharp's Ridge
High Above The Rest
Columbia Hill Summit
Hickory Run Boulder Field
Canyon Vista Trail
The Glens Of Ricketts Glen
Rider Vista
Shikellamy Scenic Look Out


Historical Spots
CCC Museum - also a GREAT container!

Pennsylvania Oddities

 

Graffiti Highway
Scripture Rocks
Land Of Oz
Wilson's Home
Galloping Ghost

Fun & Interesting 
Raiders Of The Lost Cache
Lewisburg Bookswap Cache (find the cache, swap a book!)
Flea Market Find (great container!)
Old Trolls (Great container)


Gadget Caches
Betwixt & Between 6 & 5
How's The Fishing  & Where'D The Cache Go (2 locations, same gadget)
  Slide Me Up The Pipe
  Float Your Cache
The Answer Is The Key (A WVTIM copycat cache)

Evil Hides (super tricky containers)
Nature's Totem Pole

Interesting Caches That I Don't Personally Love

Fools Gold (find the container, then sort through a bunch of little containers inside to find the log)
Train Trestle Falls

Our Journey to the Train Trestle Falls Geocache

At the Train Trestle

Earlier this summer we had the opportunity to visit the geocache with the most favorite points in PA - which at the time was Raiders Of the Lost Cache.  When I posted on You Might Be A Geocacher If..  that we were headed there, several commented that they much preferred the Train Trestle Falls Cache, and that is was the most scenic, beautiful, cache they had ever been to - with a tunnel, trestle, amazing view, and waterfalls.  More than one person could not believe it had so few favorite points, compared to other caches.

So I immediately added it to my "want to go there" list.

It was only a few weeks later that we heard of a geocaching wedding taking place half way between this geocache, and where we live. A bike trail I had been wanting to do was also nearby (The Little Toby Bike Trail).  So we loaded up the tent and the bikes, and made a week-end out of it.

We made a wrong turn headed to the cache and turned back a little dirt lane, which was then gated with a sign denoting private property.  We had to back back out the lane to get out.

This is what the actual parking location looks like:

To the far right, out of this photo, there was a short, mildly steep, trail leading up to the top of this wall.

 The view from the to of the wall.  Not pictured here are piles of trash, a campfire area, and many other signs that made it clear this is a popular party location.  I was glad to be back out of here in the afternoon - I don't think this is where I would want to be on a Saturday night - just not my thing.  :-)

A very short walk back a pretty trail led us to the entrance to the tunnel.

The cache description is clear, and repetitive - BRING YOUR FLASHLIGHT.  Probably not the one on your phone.  We had our spotlight along, and were happy to have it, in the middle of the afternoon.  The description is also clear that you might get your feet wet - especially if you don't have a flashlight.  I didn't hesitate to wear flip flops, because I didn't care if my feet were wet - but if I went back I'd wear boots.  Not because of the water, but because of all the trash floating in the water.

It's so cool in the tunnel.  Almost immediately you escape the heat.

About half way through I had the fleeting thought that if this tunnel collapsed on us, no one knew where we were.  The tunnel appeared to be pretty secure - but there was no cell phone signal anywhere in the area, and we really should have made sure someone knew what we were doing.  This is true of so many of our trips...

  The tunnel is long - much longer than it appears in photos.  Maybe a quarter of a mile long?

 

 You come out of the tunnel to a small area, right before the train trestle.  In early spring, or winter, the view would probably be more impressive.  Walking out on the tracks would have allowed us to see more of the creek - but it didn't feel smart, after remembering that no one knew we were out here.. and I couldn't envision the view being great.  I was also thinking about all of the recent articles about being on these train tracks being tresspassing...  it just felt wrong to be out there.  I did venture out a few feet before deciding the view wasn't really worth it.

There were trails to the left, and to the right.  We explored the one on the left, away from the cache, to see if there was a better view (no) and found a campsite and more signs of partying.  Then we headed to the right, towards the "waterfalls" and the cache.

Spoiler alert - there were no waterfalls.  Not even "cascades".  Nothing of the sort.  :-(

Other cachers talked about the view - I'm thinking they were there in the winter?  In the summer, this is the view of the creek from the path - 

The actual cache is easy to find - but hard to get to.  It's STRAIGHT up a steep hill.

Then it was back to the tunnel - 

All in all, it was just really disappointing, because I had the cache so elevatedin my head.  I think I would have enjoyed it more if I had NOT been told about it, if no one had raved about how awesome and beautiful it was, I might have been more impressed. For me, it felt a lot like tresspassing, was dirty, and not even close to one of the 50 most beautiful spots I've been in PA - let alone THE most beautiful.

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We only had a few hours to spend in the area, and there are so many interesting caches here.  The ones we did really enjoy included:

Scripture Rocks - read the cache description. This is one of those PA Oddities that I love, and never knew about.  I love that geocaching takes us to places like this!

http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GCN9ZD_scripture-rocks-1?guid=3e83bcd3-d457-4797-8d65-df85da66d2d1

This series of PVC caches area fun, simple, gadget caches that we enjoyed very much:

http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC3JM80_float-your-cache?guid=e7204f79-f1d8-49cf-9e9c-686321bad7d4

http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC3JMAT_hows-the-fishing?guid=b1641034-e715-4d08-b779-3e1072e8c77e

http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC3JMA0_slide-me-up-the-pipe?guid=1b89b800-ad5e-4ce0-a32f-3da1c851d94c

We didn't get to this one - but I really wish we had!  It was raining a bit, and dark, so we skipped it.  :-(

It has 110 favorite points, as of 8/23/15 - http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC35EY4

We did stop by this one - and although it's a pretty spot, and I enjoyed stopping there, I am unsure how it merited 72 favorite points?  It must be on location alone - which was nice - I do enjoy caches taking me to locations like this.

http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC16922_helen-furnace-cache?guid=91345532-d479-4c48-aaa5-c04b9dcce803