I’ve been working on staying caught up with the Money Saving Mom’s challenge to fill my freezer in May. She is doing one recipe each week day. I tried to do that, but I found that I do best when I can do a few recipes at once. I feel like I get more accomplished when I can multitask. HOWEVER, I almost bit off more than I could get done today.
I started off with a list of each step so I wouldn’t forget anything and all my recipes together.
Here’s what I did:
I started cooking the beans to make my own refried beans in my 12 qt stockpot. I used my clock/timer to make sure I didn’t forget about them and overcook. And I used one of my bamboo spoons to stir periodically. Here’s the recipe I used: http://www.tammysrecipes.com/homemade_refried_beans
I used 3 cups of dry beans and adjusted the other ingredients accordingly. I didn’t use ground coriander or fresh cilantro. They were delicious! They made enough for both recipes I needed them for plus a little leftover.
Then I started cooking the chicken I needed for the Southwest Roll Ups and the BBQ Chicken pockets in my Deep Covered Baker. I used my Chef’s Tongs and Digital Pocket Thermometer to make sure everything was cooked through. The I used my Salad Choppers to chop up the chicken quickly.
I started the Pizza Pocket & BBQ Chicken Pocket dough. I used my Adjustable Measuring Spoons, Small Mix ‘n Scraper, Measuring Cups, Italian Seasoning and Smoky Applewood Rub.
Here’s the recipe I used: http://amysfinerthings.com/pizza-pockets I made the first batch according to the recipe. The second batch I replaced the Italian Seasoning with the Pampered Chef’s Smoky Applewood Rub.
For the filling I used my 5″ Santoku forged cutlery, Bar Board, Bamboo Spoon and Medium Stainless Steel Scoop.
The scoop was fabulous to keep everything equal when I filled the pockets.
I only used the hamburger meat, pepperoni & pizza sauce for the pizza pockets. I added to cheese to some for those of us who can eat cheese. For the BBQ chicken, I used a pound + of cooked chicken and added bottled bbq sauce to make it saucy, but not too wet. I added cheese again for those of us who could have cheese.
I baked them on my Medium Sheet pan and some other pans I have. Then I put them on cold pans to go in my freezer to freeze them individually before I put them in zip bags for storage.
When the beans were done cooking, I mashed them in my 12″ skillet. I tried to mash them with my Mix ‘n Chop. It worked ok, but I had a lot to do and I knew with the smaller surface it would take a while. So I tried my Mix ‘n Masher next and it worked really well for how much I need to mash.
I used my Scoop ‘n Drain to get the beans out of the pot and into the skillet.
I used part of the beans for this recipe: http://amysfinerthings.com/brown-bag-burritos. I added the cheese after I had made some for my daughter that is dairy free. Then the other batch of beans I used in this recipe: http://moneysavingmom.com/2010/04/southwest-roll-ups-recipe.html. Again, adding the cheese after I had made the dairy free batch. I used my stainless mixing bowls to make the fillings.
I used my 2 cup prep bowl and leakproof glass container to store the leftover fillings. I had a little of all but the southwest roll ups. We’re going to use the fillings on baked potatoes or toast or salad for dinner.
It took me 4+ hours to do it all. I had estimated 3+ hours. I was going to take a break and finish up the burritos and roll-ups, but I decided to push through and get it done at once. I’m so glad I got so much accomplished.
Next time, I will make the pockets and cook the beans at the same time, but I will plan to make the burritos and roll-ups the next day.
My family is super excited to give these recipes a try and I’m sure I will make them all again. They were all relatively easy, but it was a learning curve since it was the first time I made all 4 of them.
