MUST READ!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is for all MMMM members and readers: We will only be having two more meal exchanges before we take a break for the summer. We will be exchanging April 12 and May 10 only. There won't be any exchanges in June, July, or August. We will then begin exchanging again come September 13th. Please pass on the word to those you know that might be or want to participate so that they can exchange and stock up before the summer rolls around.

This is just a suggestion but with the economy the way it is maybe over the summer it would be a good idea to use the money that we would spend on freezer meals towards the essentials for food storage. I was watching CNN the other night and they were saying that in the upcoming months we are going to see huge price jumps in the food basics such as wheat, rice, sugar etc. Also during the summer the stores tend to hold their case lot sales so maybe this would be a good time to take advantage of those sales while the prices are still low. Just a thought!

For New Members

Over the past couple of months we have seemed to add to our member numbers so I thought I would post a few reminders for the newbies out there reading this.

First thing you want to do is scroll down to the labels on the left hand side of the blog and click on the label "The How To's". This link will take you to all of the posts that we have labeled "The How To's" because of all the good information they contain to get you started and up to speed for the next meal exchange.

Second, scroll down and locate the gadgets on the left hand side labeled "I Would Rather Eat Snails than..." and "Food Allergies". Even if you don't have any please indicate that you don't so that we know everyone is on the same page. If you have administrative rights-which means you can add new posts to the blog-then a pencil should appear at the bottom of each post/gadget. Click on this pencil and it will direct you to what ever you are trying to edit. Just add in your information and then click save. If you have any questions let me know.

Thirdly, we like to keep track of what everyone is cooking of the next meal exchange. This helps prevent double cooking of the same item. So please locate the post that talks about the upcoming meal exchange (February's is titled...) and click on the pencil. This will allow you to edit the original post that way you can add the name of the recipe that you will be cooking for that month.

And finally, after the meal exchange you will have the opportunity to sign up for next month if you wish. You have two weeks from the time of the last meal exchange to decide if you want to participate or not. There will be a gadget on the upper left hand side of the blog titled "The Official MMMM list for March (etc.). You need to click on the pencil and add your name if you want to participate that month.

Once the meal exchange has occured you also need to add your own post of the recipe you just made. This should include everything to make the recipe plus the nutritional information. Look at an example if you need help. Please label your post according to what your main dish is. For example chicken enchiladas could have labels such as mexican, chicken etc..

That about covers it all. The next meal exchange will be held at my house (Savanna Sorensen's) 7416 Sunset Maple Drive, West Jordan, at 9:30am on Tuesday February 8th. Please come with your meals already frozen, and two containers. One to hold all of your meals that you pick up from everyone else and the other to hold the meals that you are exchanging.

Good luck and let me know if you have any questions. My email is guaygunn@aol. com if you don't want to post a comment on the blog to ask your questions.

Happy Cooking!

Newbies Please Read

If you are new to the group then this entry is for you.

I just wanted to make sure we were all on the same page. If you will go to the left hand side of the blog you will notice a gadget that says "Labels". Find the label that is titled "The How Tos". Click on that and it will take you to all the posts that I have labeled as a guideline for starting the meal group. Please read these and get yourself caught up on the How Tos of our meal group. This way there won't be any mistakes and hopefully it will make your experience easier.

Also please add your family dislikes and allergies to the left hand side gadgets.

If you have any questions about the meal exchange or blogging please feel free to call me and we can chat personally. My cell phone number is 801-641-9463. Call me with any questions you have.

Tweeking

Thanks everyone for your feedback. With a group like this we are bound to run into a glitch or two along the way so the input and comments are necessary. After careful examination we will be doing the following:

The official member widget will stay and it will be cleared after every exchange.

If you are interested in participating for the upcoming exchange then you must add your own name to the widget.

I will send out a reminder once a week to get your name on the official list if you are interested in participating.

Everyone has two weeks from the Monday exchange before they must commit to the next exchange. This will give everyone time to analyze their finincial situation, decide whether they need more food for next month or get other people set up with the group. In preparation for December 6th's exchange people must have their name on the official member widget by November 22. This will then give people time to decide what they want to do plus it still gives everyone at least two weeks to really shop the sales.

My recommendation for shopping the sales is shop them as early as you want. For the most part, people who are really interested in participating will add their names pretty early on. So you will have a feel for approximately how many people will be involved. If for example, chicken is on sale and it's still before the deadline then maybe you buy for what you already know or you buy more. Then if you don't end up using it all freeze it for next time or if you don't have enough then keep your eye out for another sale.

I hope this makes things a little clearer and easier. The whole point of this group is to make life easier. Just know that this isn't set in stone and if something just does not work for everyone then we can tweek some things again. But for this month let's try it this way. Thanks you guys!

Our Next Meal Exchange

This is just a friendly reminder that we will be having our next meal exchange on Monday, November 8, at 9:30am at Savanna Sorensen's house. For all you new comers my address is 7416 Sunset Maple Drive, West Jordan.

A couple of reminders:

Please be on time.

Bring your meals already frozen.

Put them in a box, laundry basket, cooler etc, to get here but remember that you will probably need another box to gather all of your food in while your other box is being used.

If you have multiple items and they can't be attached to the main dish, then please place them in a grocery sack and tie them together. This will make it easier for people to just grab and place in their box.

Please use extra heavy tin foil to cover your tin pans and use "freezer" bags that actually say "for the freezer" on them.

Write or place a label that gives the heating instructions, your name, and the date on the bag or tin pan.

Please remember to create a seperate blog entry that lists your recipe and the nutritional facts.

I think that should do it. I can't wait to have our third exchange. I'll see you all on Monday.

Serving Size

So I have a question for you all? Do you think our serving sizes are too big, too little or just enough?

For my small family of four; my husband (who generally is a big-eater), myself (who is also generally a big-eater), my 2 year old daughter (who eats like a bird), and my 8 mo (who would eat like a pig if she had teeth but alas is stuck to pureed baby food); we don't eat 6 servings. I can cook a recipe for 4 servings and still have left-overs for Aaron the next day. Six servings is just way too much for my family, especially if you count one whole chicken breast as a serving.

I would love to hear what you think. Let me know how well your family does with 6 servings. I think that probably the majority of us don't need 6 servings, but again, I might be wrong. So let me know because if everyone thinks we are cooking too much then lets cut it down. That would be cheaper in the long run and I wouldn't feel so guilty if I finally threw away the leftovers after eating it for the third day in a row.

Second Successful Attempt

Thanks to everyone for participating. I think we have a great variety of foods and I'm really excited to try them all.

With the busy holidays coming up, I figured I would post our next meal date now so that everyone has time to plan and prepare their meals. If you want to participate this month we will be having our next meal exchange on November 8th at 9:30am at my house.

I've looked ahead and it looks like we will probably meet December 6th and January 10if we decide to meet every 4 weeks. This will depend on how many people we have participating. So tentatively plan on those dates for the next several exchanges. I will let you know for sure the closer we get to those dates. If anyone has any imput please let me know.

October's Official Member List

For this month's meal exchange we are cooking for 10 people (see the official MMMM widget for a list). This list is subject to change for November but as for October this is it. Please bring them to my house on October 11 at 9:30am.
A couple of things to remember:

Make sure you bring them frozen.

Bring a box or laundry basket that you can put your frozen meals in. Then we will line the floor of my kitchen with the boxes/laundry baskets and hopefully it will be easier to go around and grab the food.

If you have several items that go together either attach it to the main meal with it labeled the name of the main dish or have them already put together in a grocery bag so that everyone can grab a bag.

Make sure you use heavy duty tin foil or the freezer bags that say "freezer" on them.

Label your food with the name of the dish, how to cook it, what temperature and for how long, when to add extra ingredients (if applicable), the date, and your name.

Sometime before or directly after the exchange everyone needs to create their own post and add their recipe along with the nutritional facts.

I will post something like this again when it gets closer to the exchange date but just keep these things in mind as you are making your meals.
Good luck and happy cooking!!!!!!

The Polls Have Spoken

Although there are still 3 days left to vote, it looks like everyone has voted and we seem split right down the middle. So in order to make it easier on everyone I've made the executive decision...we are dividing into two seperate groups. So here is what that means:

If you voted to stay in the group that caps at 20 then you will be staying with me in the MMMM group. We will continue to use this blog as our way of communication. Please be aware that this group can continue to grow up to 20 members maximum. So if you don't have the freezer space or don't think you can afford it than this is not the group for you.

We will still meet Monday October 11 at 9:30am at my house for our meal exchange. We will play by ear how often we meet, whether we meet every four weeks or every 6 weeks. That will just depend on how many members are in the group.

The guidelines are still the same except for one addition. We will continue to post our nutritional information for those that are intersted however we will not be posting our recipes and the nutritional information on another site. Feel free to use those websites to help you figure out the nutritional value or for your own personal use.

From now on we will be posting our recipes (that means the entire recipe and cooking instructions) along with the nutritional value on the blog. When you have decided what you are going to cook for the next exchange, create your own post, include the name of the recipe, the recipe itself, what you can serve with it, for instance Cola Chicken needs to go over rice, and the nutritional value of the recipe. That way there is no confusion as to what site we are using, not being able to enter the information on the site, or not being able to find other peoples' recipes. Let's just simplify!

To help me and the other members know who is cooking for October, please add your name to the Official Members of MMMM widget on the left hand side of the blog. Please have it entered by the end of this week, September 26, so that we can really have an idea of how many people want to be involved.

For those of you who voted to have smaller groups, we need a volunteer to be the group "captain" and start the new group. Feel free to use the blog idea or if anyone has any other ideas on how to get it started...feel free to do so. (And let me know what you find works better so that I can improve our group as well. :) )

I hope this helps accomodate everyone's needs and limitations. If I had it my way everyone would still be in one large group but I totally understand that for some it might be easier to be in a smaller group. I'm just glad that so many people are interested and hopefully this has and will help make our lives simplier in the end.

Please don't feel like you are hurting my feelings if you go to a different group or just don't want to participate at all. Again, I totally understand. My intent with this group was to make things easier not harder. If this group is not making your life easier than don't participate. It's not worth the hassle.

Also I hope that no one has been offended by this group or the splitting up of the group. That wasn't my intention. If anyone has been offended then know that I am sorry or let me know and I will personally apologize.

Okay , there you have it. I hope that was as clear as mud. Just keep me posted as to what you are going to do and please do it quickly so that everyone has time to get their meals ready for October.

Official Members of MMMM

Notice that there is a widget on the left hand side of the screen that is titled "Official Members of MMMM." If you are wanting to participate in October or be an official member of the group then add your name to the list. Just click on the screwdriver icon at the bottom of the widget and you can add your name to the list. If for some reason you need to drop out for a month or drop out forever then please take your name off the list. This will help us know who is participating and who is not.
Thanks

Polls!

Please add a poll about your freezer meal on the right hand side of the blog. Put the poll ending time at 10/11/2010 at 09:30.

For those of you that need help doing this, just click on the Design button on the upper right hand corner of the blog. This will take you to the outline of the blog. On the right hand side there is a Gadget button to click on. Once you click the Add a Gadget button it will pull up a list of gadgets you can add. Scroll down and find the Poll gadget button. Click on it and it will bring up another window that you fill out for your poll. Create your poll by typing in a title and then answers for people to choose from. Also make sure you change when the poll will end to 10/11/2010 at 09:30am so that people will have time to vote. Click on save and it should take you back to the blog outline window. Just click the view blog tab and it will take you back to the main window.

If these directions are too confusing, let me know and I will make your poll for you.

Please don't worry too much about the polls. Don't take it personally if people don't like the recipe. It might just be that the recipe isn't great for the freezer or just people's personal tastes are different. Feel free to make the same recipe again (if the majority likes it)next month. You don't necessarily have to come up with a new recipe everytime...unless you want to of course!

A Victorious First Attempt!

I don't know about everyone else but my freezer looks awesome with all the food we cooked. I'm excited to try everyone's meals. (Don't be fooled. Not all that food in my freezer is from our exchange. :) )

I think our first attempt at the meal exchange was a success. After talking to several people there are a couple of suggestions that I think we should put into practice for next time.

First, if you have extra add ons like cheese in a bag, french fried onions, etc, put the name of the dish they belong to on the plastic bag, can, or package so that we know which meal it belongs to, then try to attach it to the main meal. If it's a can or you can't attach it to the main meal then place the frozen meal and accessories together in a plastic grocery bag. This will help insure that everyone gets all the accessories.

Another suggestion is to bring your meals in a box or laundry basket so that next time we can just set them up in a line on my kitchen floor and have everyone go around in a line and grab a meal. Hopefully that would keep us from forgetting to grab a meal.

Next time I will have a print out of all the meals everyone is bringing. That way as we walk around grabbing our meals we can just check the meal off the list, making sure we have all of them. This means that at least a couple of days before the exchange I would need to know what everyone is bringing. So make sure you add your meals to the main list on the blog.

Also, several people have mentioned that they know of at least one or two people wanting to join the group. Several of us have talked about it but obviously everyone's opinion is important. So what do you think about adding more people? We were thinking about putting a cap on the amount of people that could join. We were thinking 20 people would be enough. Then if we had even more people than that that wanted to join then they would just have to start their own group. We discussed splitting the group into 2 groups of 10 but people commented that they would rather spend a little more at one time on bulk items and only exchange every 6 weeks then split the group. What do you think?

We would give the people that wanted to join a week to let us know and get up to speed with the blog and the guidelines. That way people could start looking for food on sale now.

I think that's all the suggestions I can think of right now. Let me know what you think about the suggestions and also anything else you can think of.

Good work you guys!

PS, Did someone not get a Sweet and Sour Chicken? I ended up having two extras left at my house. It's in my freezer waiting for someone to claim them. Let me know.

My Crazy First Attempt

So I thought I would share some of my thoughts and feelings about cooking 13...actually it turned out to be 15...meals tonight.
I didn't really follow very many of my own cooking tips. I had children running around crazy, only one set of measuring cups available, not enough big bowls to stir the meals, and not all of my supplies handy.
I assembled my Broccoli Chicken and Rice meal in 4 seperate batches all at the same time. My first batch took me a while as I tried to get everything in order. However, by my second and third batch I had things down to a science.
After writing the cooking instructions on freezer bags 15 times I can tell you the directions by heart.
My arms are tired from stirring and my feet tired from standing.
Luckily I had my husband do the running up and down the stairs to the freezer and he was nice enough to run to the store when I ran out of a couple of items.
With all of that said, I must say that it feels great to have actually made 15 meals in 3 hours. I have a nice freezer full of meals already to hand out on Monday. I'm tired but it will be totally worth it everytime I don't want to make dinner next month.
I hope everyone else's cooking experiences have either gone well or will go well. There is light at the end of the tunnel.

By the way, just for your information:
*I changed my meal from the Chicken Broccoli Rice Bake to Broccoli Chicken and Rice. It's mostly the same ingredients just in a different preparation. I will put the recipe in our cook book later along with the nutritional value of the recipe.
*Chicken is $1.78/lb in the fresh packs at Walmart right now.
*Smith's is having their case lot sale so if you need some items in bulk you might want to check them out. For instance I got Cream of Chicken Soup for $0.59 a can. That's a really good price. Smith's Kroger Shredded Cheese 2lb bags are only $4.99 a bag. Not even Sams club/Costco in their 5lb bags can beat that.
*I did the math on my meals. I tried really hard to stay within the $75 budget but just couldn't do it. I spent $106 and I made 15 meals. That means each meal is only $7. Just thought you might find that info interesting.

Friendly Reminder!

This is just a friendly reminder about our meal exchange coming up. It will be Monday, September 13th at 9:30am at my house (Savanna's house-7416 Sunset Maple Drive).
***Please come with your meals already frozen so that it's easy to transport home.

***If you CANNOT make it then you need to make arrangements to have your meals brought to my house on the day of the exchange...or you can take them around to everyones houses' before or after the exchange. I DO NOT have much room in my freezer to keep other people's food.

***Please bring something to transport all of your meals. They will be frozen but 12 meals are a lot to handle.

***Please be on time so the food doesn's sit out very long.

Thanks and hope to see you all on Monday!

PS-Sorry this sounds so bossy! :)

Thought I'd share...

I checked out four freezer meal cookbooks from the library this week. If anyone wants to look at them and plan ahead for our next attempt, you are more than welcome to borrow one of the books. Here are the names of the cookbooks:

Girlfriends on the Go- A busy Mom's guide to make ahead meals
The Freezer Manual from 30 Day Gourmet
The Best Freezer Cookbook
Dream Dinners...Life just got Easier!

There are lots of interesting ideas and one book actually has planning worksheets and menus!

Getting Caught Up!

This post is for Andrea. Hopefully we can get you up to speed. I would recommend reading all of the posts and comments so you have an idea of what is going on. I would especially concentrate on reading the first post about the guidelines and also the recap post from our first meeting. The only thing that has changed on the guidelines is there are 13 meals to prepare instead of 10. Other than that, everything is the same.
Other things, post your family food allergies and food your family hates on the widgets on the left hand side of the blog. On the right side of the blog there is a widget titled "MMMMs favorite links". There are three links to different sites that are recipe websites that allow you find out the nutritional value of your recipe. You need to calculate the nutritional value of your recipe and then post it on the post labeled "What we are cooking for our first attempt." That way poeple who are watching what they are eating can know calories, fat, etc.
Other than that we are meeting on Monday, September 13 at 9:30am at my house (Savanna's) to exchange our meals. Make sure they are frozen and that you bring something to hold 13 meals in.
If you have any questions or concerns then just post it.

Notes from Our First Meeting

Here are the notes from our first meeting to use as a reference while we are getting ready for our exchange. Please don't let all of these tips/helps make you feel over whelmed. That is not the point. Just take several of these points at a time and use them while you are cooking. Don't worry if you forget them, just review the tips the next time you cook and add a few more to your regime and pretty soon you will be a pro at it. This really is NOT as daunting as it may seem. Just start cooking and you will realize how easy it can be.

The Maples Moms Making Meals

Food
A general rule: If you see it frozen at the store then it can probably be successfully frozen at home.

Raw potatoes do NOT freeze well in any recipe.

Cubed potatoes in some soup type recipes are usually good-like chowder.

Mashed potatoes can sometimes be frozen. Make the mashed potatoes very thick and test freeze a small portion.

Boxed dehydrated potatoes such as Scalloped Potatoes can be frozen.

Frozen potatoes such as hash browns freeze well.

The freezing process softens vegetables-such as stir fry. Better to just add in later.

Fresh, raw vegetables, except onions and peppers, need to be cooked briefly, or blanched prior to freezing. Cooking for about 2 minutes in boiling water is usually sufficient.

Add toppings such as buttered crumbs and French fried onions at baking time. Place in a small zip lock baggy and freeze with the meal.

Top with shredded cheese at the end of baking time or else it will stick to the foil when you uncover it after it has been baked. Instead, include the topped cheese in a zip lock baggy.

If your recipe calls for ham but you only need a little bit then go to the deli section of the grocery store and ask for what you need. It can be cheaper that way.

When making enchiladas, consider tearing the tortillas or making layers instead of rolling each enchilada.

If you don’t want to take the time to mince garlic or chop onions, replace it with bottled minced garlic or dried onion flakes or powder. 1 medium onion=1 tsp dried onion powder, 1 clove of garlic=1/8 tsp garlic powder.

Pasta can be frozen successfully but it should be under cooked. Cook the pasta 2 minutes less than the shortest recommended cooking time. Only add the pasta AFTER the water is boiling and set your timer as soon as you drop the pasta into the boiling water.

An exception to this method of cooking pasta is lasagna. You don’t need to cook your lasagna noodles at all. And you don’t need to buy the expensive “no boil” kind, either.

Manicotti can successfully be made using uncooked manicotti tubes as well. They are also much easier to fill when they are uncooked. When filling manicotti tubes, place the filling in a small resealable freezer bag. Cut the corner off the bag, fit the opening into one end of the manicotti tube, and squeeze the filling into each one. Place the manicotti on a bed of sauce and cover completely cover with sauce so the pasta has a source of moisture.

Instant rice turns mushy and disintegrates. Deep fried foods lose their crispiness. The crispiness can be regained somewhat by placing it under the broiler in your oven or toaster oven for a minute or two.

For dairy-based sauces and gravies/soups they can be frozen and reheated. Sometimes the recipes thicken a bit and you may need to stir in a little milk, broth or water. Heat and stir, and they usually blend right back to a beautiful consistency.

Some recipes that call for marinating beef, pork, turkey or chicken can be marinated in the freezer. Simply prepare the marinade, pour it over the meat and freeze in a freezer bag.

The test for “freezer-worthy” is, “Do you like it after it has been frozen?” You are not freezing leftovers.

Fully cooked meals such as Slow Cooker, Stove Top and Oven recipes should be frozen as soon as cool enough to go into the freezer. Assembly recipes should be frozen as soon as preparation and packaging is complete.

Most frozen meals can be baked for about three hours at 300 degrees. Cover the dinner with foil and place the frozen dinner in the oven. Program your oven to bake for three hours at 300 degrees and go.

If you are going to be gone for an hour, you can have potatoes ready to mash right when you get home. Before you leave, bring a pot of cubed potatoes to a full boil. Turn off the heat, but leave it on the burner with the lid on. The potatoes will be ready for mashing when you return.

For perfect rice every time, even when you are not home, measure rice and water into a pan. Bring to a boil. Turn off the heat, but leave the pan on the burner with the lid on. The rice will be fluffy and perfect in about an hour.

Things that will make your life easier while cooking:

You will need two different sets of measuring cups and measuring spoons-one for dry measurements and one for wet measurements.

A canning funnel for filling quart or pint sized freezer bags.
Have several large mixing bowls. Popcorn bowls are inexpensive and fairly easy to find.

Have several large mixing spoons.

Have a permanent marker handy for marking your food. When marking your food include the oven temperature, baking time, topping with crumbs or cheese, etc. You can either write directly on the foil or bag or attach a label.

Use paper bags as trash cans. Place several around the kitchen where you will be working. This saves time having to walk back and forth to the garbage.
Have your recipe on a 4 x 6 card that you can carry around with you. You can also write on the card to adjust serving sizes etc.

Make a list of the recipe titles. As you take a meal from your freezer, mark off the meal and then you know what you have left for later. Date the list or date the meal. With a list you have an immediate “menu” for your family to choose from. Tape your List of Recipes that you have prepared, on the door of the freezer, on the inside of a cupboard door or some other convenient place where you can refer to it often and keep it updated.

Making a shopping list is an absolute must. Group the items on your list by category. If you are extra ambitious then you can list your groups in the order you come upon them in the store.

Disposable Foil Baking Pans

You will need to cover the foil pans before putting them in the freezer. Use EXTRA HEAVY foil. It is much wider and heavier than regular foil. There is heavy duty foil that is slightly heavier than the regular foil but it is not freezer foil. You don’t need to wrap the entire pan, just the top. Cut the foil about 1 inch larger than the pan and crimp this excess under the edges of the pan. Press the foil right down on top of the food to eliminate as much air as possible.

Non Stick Cooking Spray to grease the foil pans. Lay out all your pans and spray them at once. It saves time.

Freezer bags

Most dinners can be frozen in freezer bags. As long as it isn’t layered you can put it in a zip lock bag. Good quality zipper freezer bags are the best. Look for ones with thick plastic and strong seams. Also look for ones that have a good zipper.
Fold down the freezer bag before filling. This will protect the zipper and it helps it stand up on its own.

Freezer bags can be placed in a baking dish when you are ready to heat and serve the meal.

Label your freezer bag before you put the food into it.

Be sure to press all the air out of the bag before you seal it. This is a very important step since air causes freezer burn.

If you are unsure about the amount of recipe to put into a freezer bag, measure each portion first.

Disposable plastic storage containers

If using disposable plastic storage containers make sure they are freezer and microwave safe. Leave 1/4 –inch head space so the food has room to expand as it freezes. Press a piece of plastic wrap onto the surface of the food and replace the lid.

The Day Before:

Do not shop on cooking day. It can be exhausting to do both the shopping and cooking in one day.

When you get home do NOT put everything away. Place the non perishable items on the counter where you will be using them. For example place all your cans near the can opener.

Get out all of your food items you already have in your house like your spices. This way they will be handy and available when you need them.

Choose a place that you will package your dinners for the freezer, such as the kitchen table. Place everything you will need there such as your freezer bags, cooking spray, tin foil and magic marker.

Cook your meat the night before. If you can, place it in a slow cooker (crockpot) over night so that when you are ready to cook in the morning, all of your meat is cooked. Then divide it evenly.

Shred your cheese, chop your vegetables and thaw out your meat.

Cooking Day:

Choose a day to cook that you have no obligations that will interrupt you and take you away from the kitchen. Eliminate the need to run errands and arrange for someone to take your kids.

When you adapt your own recipes for the freezer you may need to add 50% to the recommended baking time.

The Freezer:

Each meal should be cooled completely before putting it into the freezer.
Lay them out flat in your freezer until completely frozen. Then you can stack others on top.

Try using your vertical space in your freezer by using three tiered stacked utility bins in your freezer.

Thawing:

Meals in freezer bags that have thawed can be conveniently poured into baking dishes for the oven, into dishes to be heated in the microwave, or into pans for heating on the stove top.

Meals frozen in foil baking pans will need to be thawed before baking, in order to be ready to serve in the baking time recommended on the recipe.

Frozen meals should be thawed in the refrigerator. Ideally, you would remove a meal from the freezer the day before so that it has time to thaw by the time you need it. However, if you don’t remember add approximately 50% to the baking time and 50 degrees to the baking temperature.

Recipes with pasta in them should be allowed to thaw undisturbed. Forced thawing and any stirring can cause the pasta to get mushy and fall apart.

An easy way to remove a frozen meal from a freezer bag is to cut or tear the sides of the bag at the seam.

Take out the guess work of determining if the meal is hot by using an instant read thermometer.

Food.com

I posted the Food.com (formerly Recipezaar.com) to our favorite links. This site is awesome! There are thousands of free recipes and a whole section for OAMC (Once a month cooking) and freezer meals that already contains 6,000+ recipes! You can create your own profile where you can submit recipes to viewed privately or publicly. When you submit your recipe it also calculates the nutrition info for it too. You can have your own community of chefs (I'm still trying to get this all figured out) where you can share recipes, I believe. There are also lots of cooking tips and other cooking helps on this site! Hope you like it! I would love to hear feedback about the site too! So let me know what you think!

P.S. I should have told you how to view the OAMC/Freezer Meals recipes from site... when you get to the site there will be a little button on the left side, under login , that says recipesifter. Click on it and you can navigate through the types of cuisine, meal, etc. Click on Preparation, and then it will show another menu that will show OAMC/Freezer Meals click on that and it will say 6,577 recipes found and view them.

SparksRecipe Issue!!

Thankfully, Tawni tried inputting a recipe and adding it to our cookbook and found out there is a little problem with adding individual recipes from personal accounts and recipe boxes to a shared cookbook. We think we have circumvented the problems by creating a universal login and password for us to all use.

Username: maplesmoms
Password: dinner

When you login this way you can easily use the recipe calculator and add the recipes to our recipebox and The Maples Moms Making Meals Cookbook.

If anyone else experiences problems with this site, please let me know and we'll try to figure things out.

Is everyone okay with using the universal login? You can make your own account and cookbook and add our maplesmoms recipes to it, but for some crazzzzy reason it won't work the other way! Sorry for the hastle! I hope this will still work for everyone!

Eating Smart

So Brooke had a great idea. She (along with some others) had voiced concern about exchanging food when she is trying to watch her calories. (I'm just watching them as I quickly consume them...that was supposed to be humorous :) ) So she found a great website that calculates the nutritional value of a recipe. Just enter the ingredients of the recipe and it will calculate calories, fat, fiber, etc. So to help out all those calorie-conscious mom's here is the link.

http://recipes.sparkpeople.com/cookbooks.asp?cookbook=271006


I actually think that every recipe should be calculated this way. What do you think?