Fill the Freezer/Pantry - {Week 1}

Ever since we acquired a [large] chest freezer last fall, I have been working on trying to fill it. I love the idea of freezer cooking but haven't gotten up to that yet. I have been working on making extras of this and that and freezing those. It has worked marginally. Since I am already cooking for 4 adults and 2 toddlers I am usually doubling most recipes so we have leftovers for lunches. So I have been working on freezing mostly baked goods. Last week I made several loaves of zucchini bread and muffins and froze those. My mission for September is to work on filling my pantry and freezer with homemade mixes and staples that we use. I have began making a lot more of our favorites from scratch and it is great. Not only does is save us money, but it limits the ingredients and what we are putting into our body. 

Here is what is on my to-do list for the first week of September:  I think I might skip the cookie dough too this week as my mom ordered 3 boxes of cookie dough from the neighbor boy selling it for his football team and we now have 2 boxes of oatmeal raisin and 1 box of peanut butter chocolate chip in the freezer. [click links for recipes]

• brownie mixes
• corn bread mixes
• cookie dough (oatmeal raisin)
• baked oatmeal muffins 
• stuffing seasoning mix
• bread for stuffing
• maple pancake syrup
• burritos (breakfast and lunch)

I already made the burritos. I made some chicken, bean, salsa, and cheese burritos for my husbands lunches and some Denver omelet burritos for breakfast. I flash freeze my burritos on cookie sheets them individually wrap them in plastic wrap and store in plastic shoe boxes in the freezer. This time I got fancy and made sticky labels to put on the burritos that listed what was in them. I also made the pancake syrup. We had it for breakfast yesterday. I was too stuffed up from my allergies to actually taste it but my kiddos loved it and my husband said it was "different" but it tasted really good when mixed with the butter on the pancakes. I also made the stuffing seasoning mixes, but haven't portioned out and cut up the bread yet.