A Kitchen Day in Review

Yesterday I spent a day in the kitchen, working on making some easy meals for the upcoming baseball and track season.

The first thing to be made was Hidden Veggie Pasta Sauce , since it is winter still here and I do not have garden produce yet I used veggies frozen from last years garden. I let that simmer in the big roaster oven while I moved onto baking.

Next up was 8 loves of French Bread these I worked on over the course of the day, in the end my daughter Sarah made 4 loves into french bread pizza. They were frozen then bagged, enough for 2 meals, on a busy night all that needs to happen is for them to be pulled out heated in the oven add a salad and some fresh veggies. Two more loves were made into garlic bread, and the last two are for today's lunch.



While the bread was baking I started on the stuffed shells, these are very easy to make. The filling was 5lb ricotta cheese, 2 lb cottage cheese ( small curd), 4 eggs, 2 TB Italian seasoning, and 8 cups of mozzarella cheese all mixed together. Boil the large stuffing shells until slightly soft , rinse and cool. Fill a gallon zip lock bag half way with the filling and cut off the cornor and use as a piping bag to fill the shells.

 Then sit down at the table, start the current episode of Castle on the computer and stuff the shells. I place mine in a disposalable pan with some sauce on the bottom, for us I place 30 shells in each pan so 3-4 shells per person. Cover with more sauce, top with some mozzarella, cover and freeze. We now have 3 of these meals in the freezer ready to go for a easy dinner some night.

Then it was onto the calzones I made the dough using this recipe but times it by 4, using the leftover stuffed shell filling, more mozzarella, and pepperoni for the filling ( no sauce in the calzone, but on the side for dipping). I made 8 large clazones figuring on three a meal, we had 3 last night for dinner, and have 5 left in the freezer so enough for one more dinner meal, and a lunch. The ones for the freezer  I par baked, baking them for only 10 minutes.




The last thing to be made was 21 instant oatmeal packets. In a sandwich size Ziploc bag place:

1/4 cup quick oats
1/4 cup baby oat flakes ( Our local bulk store carries this)
1 TB brown sugar
1tsp Milk powder
a pinch of salt
1/4 tsp cinn

when it's time for breakfast, dump one packet into a bowl, add 1 cup of boiling water, cover, let sit for a minute or two and enjoy. I did add a bit more brown sugar when I sat down to eat, and next time I plan on adding some walnuts.

I did have plans to make muffins for the freezer also but, that was bit to much to get done so that has been put aside till later.

I forgot I also cooked up pinto beans for re fried beans in the crock pot. It's a real easy way to cook beans that I learned from a friend. Rinse your beans, then place in crock pot, fill to top with water and let cook on low for 6 hours. After the beans were cooked I froze them in 2 cup sizes to make re fried beans.

And the rest of the sauce was also frozen in the right amounts for dipping the calzones in and a spaghetti meal.