Here's the original list with **notes:
- BBQ Meatballs (minus the BBQ) - I'm gonna use PW's recipe for the meatballs and when I'm ready to serve them at our Super Bowl get-together, I'll use my favorite homemade sauce. **I altered the PW recipe slightly. I ended up with almost 3 lbs. of frozen cooked meatballs. I took a picture of the finished product..but somehow I can't find it. My kids keep switching out my SD cards from computer to camera to DSi and well...I can't find it.
- Brown Rice - cook and divide into meal portions **I got 3 portions of rice cooked. We've switched almost exclusively to brown rice, which is a great thing nutritionally, but it takes forever to cook! By cooking and freezing it ahead, when we need rice with supper, I just pop it in the microwave and reheat it and it's ready in minutes! No pic of this, or the next 2 things either...y'all know what rice, beans, and hamburger looks like, right?
- Pinto Beans/Refried Beans - cook beans & freeze, possibly make some into Refried Beans to freeze. **Well, I might have gone overboard here. I have enough pinto beans and refried beans to last a long time! I put up 3 bags of whole beans and 4 bags of Refried beans. If you've never had homemade refried beans...they beat the canned ones by a mile and they're very healthy!
- Ground Beef - brown it and divide into 1-1 /2 lb. portions. **I didn't have much ground beef left after making meatballs and baked penne, but I was able to put up 2 portions. When we want spaghetti or tacos, it's super easy to pull it out, mix it with sauce or seasonings and have a meal in minutes!
- Baked Penne - **I definitely had better luck than last time I made this. My only struggle this time was convincing my hubby that I was making it to save for later... not for him to eat immediately! It's his fave, by the way! This looks so much yummier once it's cooked an bubbly and all that...
- Zucchini Bread - I have some zucchini in the freezer I've been needing to use up..now I just need a recipe. *I ended up making 2 dozen zucchini muffins. They're so-so; probably won't be a favorite around here, but I have enough for 2 breakfasts and I figure if we put enough butter on them, they'll become more appealing.
- Black-Eyed Peas - some to freeze, some for our 5th Sunday Meal at church Sunday **I didn't get these done on Saturday. I put some in the pot to soak late Saturday night and got up and cooked them for church Sunday morning, but I ended up not doing enough to freeze extra.
- Whole Wheat Waffles & Pancakes - I will be making these for breakfast tomorrow and doubling or tripling the recipe to freeze some for another 2 or 3 breakfasts. **I skipped the pancakes, but doubled the waffle recipe. We had some for breakfast/lunch and froze enough waffles for breakfast another morning!
- **Oatmeal Pecan Cookies - This was an addition to my original plan. I was craving cookies and these are some of our favorites...what can I say? I mixed up the dough, cooked half and scooped the other half into balls and froze. The next time I'm wanting cookies, I can just pop them from the freezer to the pan! The frozen ones are in a ziploc pictured, but the finished ones are missing because they've already been eaten. However...I got this pic when they were still too hot to eat!
- **Beef Stroganoff - this was also an addition to my original plan. **I had a small roast in the freezer from Angel Food that wasn't big enough to stand on it's own as a pot roast (for the 7 of us), so I found this recipe from Tammy and decided to make it for dinner. I already had the egg noodles on hand, so this came together easily and it was delicious! Also not pictured because it was eaten immediately!
- Mashed Potatoes - I hadn't planned to make these either but when I found a rotting potato in the bag, I decided it was best to go ahead and cook the rest just in case they were all on the edge of going bad. My hubby peeled them for me and I just diced and boiled them, added butter and milk and popped them in the freezer for another day.
- **And last...my 12 year old Joshua decided to make some homemade Honey Wheat Bread. He has actually been begging to bake bread (again, he's done it before) for ages and I finally agreed to let him tonight. He did a great job (aside from the mess, but he cleaned up after himself) and the house smells so yummy!
