Day 2 would best be called Misadventures in Meal Prep! It was a disaster. Okay, disaster might be a strong word, but a lot went wrong. At the end of my prep on Saturday I realized I was 1 bag short of chicken so I had ordered some fresh chicken (it was $1.99/lb vs $2.33/lb). In the process of trying to hunt down said bag of chicken, I managed to “lose” another bag. It wasn’t really lost, I just covered it up and missed it. So I ordered too much fresh chicken. I discovered somehow I either missed writing down 2 meals that I planned to make or I over ordered ground turkey by 6 lbs. No idea how I managed that. Really I think it was 4 lbs. I think I meant to double two recipes, but I didn’t write that down so I didn’t double those 2 recipes. When I was making them though I was looking at the meager amount of meat present wondering how it was going to feed our family. I added vegetables to the meat to make it go further (and a plus was added vegetables that the kids won’t know are there)! Extra chicken and ground turkey isn’t really a big deal though. It will get eaten no problem! But when trying to be on a strict budget, finding extra food is not really what I want. I want what I have spent to be exactly what I planned with enough leftover for staples throughout the month (bread, milk, eggs, snacks for during school time).
Sunday morning I got up knowing I would need to figure out what to do with the leftover chicken and ground turkey. Sunday was my breakfast freezer meal prep day. I had my clean kitchen since I cleaned up after every meal prep the day before. I got out my recipes and my mixing pans I would need.
I started with my bacon, egg, and cheese breakfast casserole. My kids love this casserole and I like it because it also has broccoli in it. The kids happily eat it without complaint. It can be breakfast, lunch, or dinner. I got out all my ingredients. As a recommendation, if you purchase frozen broccoli florets for this meal (like I did), I would highly recommend letting the broccoli thaw or warming it up first and then drain off all the water. I forgot to do that this time and I ended up with a little bit of a runny mess and it took longer to cook. The first thing to do for this casserole is to break open and beat your eggs. I started with that. For the first time perhaps since I very first learned how to crack open eggs, I had a mishap. I had 2 eggs already in my mixing bowl. I picked up my 3rd egg and cracked it open. As I was trying to drop it in, I don’t really know what happened. The shell just crumbled to pieces. Eggshell went into the mixing bowl, half of the egg went into the bowl and the other half went on the counter and quickly spread to the floor. I had egg mess EVERYWHERE. I started over and tried again. This time I dropped an egg. I was so frustrated. I finally managed to get the eggs in without incident. As I mentioned I forgot to thaw or cook my broccoli to get some of the water off from my frozen broccoli so it took longer to cook in the oven than normal.
After I finished putting the casserole together and in the oven it was time to start on the next recipe. It was an Instant Pot recipe (This is an Amazon affiliate link. If you click on the link and make a purchase I make a commission from the purchase at no additional cost to you. See Disclaimer page for more info). It was an Instant Pot Breakfast Pancake. My plan was to make this up and then put it in the freezer. This was another one of those recipes that made no sense from the Instant Pot cookbook I have. So I went to Pinterest to see if I could find something close. I found the EXACT recipe, but with directions that actually made sense. Here is the link to the recipe on Pinterest: https://kirbiecravings.com/giant-instant-pot-pancake/ The creator of this recipe mentions that some Instant Pots won’t allow you to make the specific recipe I used. The Instant Pot I have allowed me to set it to Manual and follow the instructions. I’ve had my Instant Pot for years now so it’s possible that it has been updated and if you purchase this one, it may no longer allow you to make the original recipe. If you have a rice cooker, it can be made in that. If not and your IP won’t let you make the original recipe, the creator of the above recipe has a different recipe that will work in the IP.
So back to making my IP Pancake with terrible directions until I found it on Pinterest…I went to the refrigerator to take out my eggs. I grabbed my dozen eggs so I could take out the number I needed. As I was trying to take it out of the fridge, somehow I hit the door of the fridge and the egg carton popped open. Eggs flew EVERYWHERE and cracked. I had a huge mess on my hands AGAIN. Really, what was the deal with eggs Sunday morning?!!? I got it all cleaned up and went back to the pancake making. It cooked up well. I ended up serving it for breakfast. It has a little different consistency so I wanted to make sure the kids would eat it before I made it for a freezer meal. I made a few tweaks to the recipe. I added some vanilla and some cinnamon. I served it with a little syrup on top, blueberries, and scrambled eggs. The kids ATE.IT.UP. and so did the husband. Everyone requested more, but I had already wasted a dozen eggs trying to make the recipe and had wasted 2 eggs on the previous recipe. I didn’t have the luxury of making another giant pancake.
I moved on to my next recipe. That’s when I realized I didn’t have my ramekins. I ordered some from Amazon on Friday and they had been scheduled to arrive Saturday, but this was one of the few times it didn’t come on time. I checked on the status of my order and it was now scheduled fro arrival on Tuesday. Guess that recipe will have to wait. Oh well, I have to order more eggs anyway from my egg disasters!
My other breakfast to be made up beforehand is a banana bread in…you guessed it! The Instant Pot! My bananas weren’t quite ripe enough so I made the banana bread Monday night. It will go into the freezer. My other plans are mostly pancakes/waffles. I will make those up this week. I did make up a sheet pan pancake. Sheet pan pancakes are perhaps one of my favorites! I can mix my batter, add in fruits or whatever I want, throw it on the sheet pan and let it cook without having to worry about flipping it or if it’s burning! I can work on other things while it is cooking! After that cooled I cut it up and put it in freezer bags. I then made sure it fully cooled in the refrigerator and then moved it to the freezer.
Now it was time to come up with a plan for my leftover meat. With the leftover chicken I made up my Instant Pot Salsa Chicken and then did a BBQ Chicken for the Instant Pot. I haven’t tried it before so we will see how it works out. I did 4 chicken breasts, half of a big bottle of BBQ sauce, and then added in 1 cup of water. Due to the sugary content of the BBQ sauce, you need water to keep the Instant Pot from overheating and to keep the BBQ sauce from burning to the pot. Hopefully 1 cup is enough, but not too much! The kids have liked the BBQ Chicken when cooked in the oven so hopefully they like it in the IP as well. I made taco meat with 2 lbs of the leftover ground turkey meat. The other 4 lbs made Sloppy Joes with hidden veggies! I used some of the Sloppy Joe meat for dinner on Sunday and put the rest in the freezer for later!
I hope you have enjoyed my misadventures! I definitely don’t have it all together. Children and pregnancy brain have really changed how my freezer meal prep looks. Sometimes it works out and sometimes it is a disaster! I’m trying though and I now have a deep freeze FULL of meals for August! I am so glad to have them done (well almost…still waiting on those ramekins, but they have finally shipped)!
Stay tuned for the recipes I used for the freezer meals! Do you have any favorite freezer meals? Feel free to share them in the comments section!
Ended day 2 with a walk under the pretty sky. Just what I needed!
