Saturday, November 26, 2016

Creating Meals for the Work Week

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday. If you're like me, Monday means going back to the day job. 😦 One of the things I really hate doing is figuring out what to pack for lunch. Frozen dinners are often a hit and miss game. I get tired of sandwiches all the time. Plus, I'm not a big fan of lunchmeat. I would rather have a peanut butter sandwich (absolutely no jelly of any kind--YUCK) than lunchmeat. Usually I take leftovers, but I've cut down the size of meals I used to cook so more often than not, there are no leftovers.

So I'm trying something this weekend that I've thought about but never acted upon. I bought some plastic containers with snap-lock lids that can go from freezer to microwave to create my own frozen dinner of sorts.

Yesterday, I made a batch of homemade cornbread dressing. (There was none leftover from Thanksgiving.) I put a layer of dressing in the bottom of the pan and then a thick layer of chopped turkey (from a second turkey DH cooked just to freeze for meals), and then a layer of dressing on top.  After it cooked and cooled, I packed it into the containers with a little turkey gravy on top. I now have 9 turkey and dressing meals in the freezer, and some turkey left to dice for soups or tacos or a rice dish during the week.

Tomorrow, I'm going to make another set of lunches from the extra ham DH smoked. I'll make some smaller containers of sliced that can be warmed for sandwiches, and then some containers that will have ham and mashed potatoes with brown gravy. I'm also dicing some ham for omelets and other meals during the week.

When I make chili, I've frozen large and single meal size containers for later use and that has worked out really well. Maybe next weekend, I'll make a large pot of chili and put some in the freezer for lunches.