Six Dinner Pile-Up (Freezer Cooking with LG)

No, LG does not refer to the cell phone manufacturer (who I guess makes other things, like washers and dryers and such).  LG is Laura G., one of a handful of lucky dames to have made it to my inner circle.  Please note: being a member of the inner circle guarantees that you will see me without a bra on, and I may or may not brush my teeth for the occasion.

Laura is one of several highly motivated friends of mine.  These are very important people in the delicate ecosystem that is my life.  I am plagued by laziness and procrastination, so it is a blessing to have folks that kick my ass into getting up and DOING (and sometimes just making decisions for me when there are too many choices for my indecisive little self to handle).

Laura suggested we craft over the weekend, but I ixnayed that suggestion in favor of freezer cooking, in hopes that having a freezer filled with healthy meals would make it easier to work out.  Lo and behold, I have worked out 4 days in a row, and tonight I was rewarded with a delicious meal that took me as much time to make as pulling it from the freezer, adding chicken stock, and setting my crock pot light timer before I went to work.  The recipe for tonight's dinner will be posted shortly.

We took a trip to Costco Saturday (awful), got a ton of ingredients (I summarized them below, some might be missing) and made a plan.  I knew I wanted to make My Favorite Lasagna, a variation of Slow Cooker Beef & Barley Stew using quinoa instead of barley, and Laura wanted Slow Cooker Chicken & Dumplings.  Along with these we decided on White Chicken Enchilada Slow Cooker Casserole, Slow Cooker Chicken Alfredo, and a variation of this Slow Cooker Chicken Tortellini Soup.  And to top it all off, we got 2 pot roasts and Laura transformed hers into a moist roast, while I decided to reserve mine for French dips in the near future.  We had a plan.  Now we had to get crackin'.  And crack we did.

I had several frozen chicken breasts, and Laura did as well, so the only chicken I purchased at Costco was thighs (which were called for in the enchilada casserole).  I also had a couple bags of mozzarella, so we split those.  The rest of the ingredients we got at Costco consisted of:

Potatoes

Carrots

Celery

Onions

Mushrooms

Shredded Parmesan cheese

Tortillas

Chicken thighs

2 chuck roasts

We also each made individual trips to Walmart, mostly for items we couldn't get at Costco or didn't remember to buy (like ricotta cheese).  A couple of the items we had to get outside of Costco were:

Fresh Italian parsley

Ricotta cheese

Cream of chicken soup

Cream cheese

Black olives

Spaghetti Sauce

Shredded Monterey Colby cheese

Lasagna noodles (oven ready)

And pantry items we already had:

Diced tomatoes

Frozen spinach 

DIY Bisquick (for the dumplings)

We spent about 4 hours prepping and bagging all of the meals, and ended up with the sight you see before you.  We had wine to celebrate, and went to sleep satisfied with the knowledge that our families would not go hungry for quite a while.

Up next: Slow Cooker Tortellini Soup!  Super delicious!