The Pringles and Beer are a before or after snack!  Not WHILE I’m handling raw pork.

Just thought I’d share a favorite hobby of mine: freezer cooking.  About 50% of our dinners are made after the girls have gone to bed, when I have a free moment to enjoy the process.  Making freezer meals are a lot of work, because each recipe yields approximately 4 dinners, but they pay off exponentially when it’s dinner time and I don’t have to cook with two crying toddlers at my feet.  Not too mention, I cook 4 dinners with one clean up.  Nightly cooking involves heating up the meal, which excludes the cutting board, knives, measuring cups…etc, etc, etc, etc (I’m a HORRIBLY MESSY cook…I would fail mis en place if I ever returned to cooking school).

I’ve found that they are a cost savings as well.  The recipes call for so much “stuff” that I don’t throw away half an onion and half a can of chicken broth.  I checked out Super Suppers here in town, and I’ve always thought it was a swell idea.  But I figured I could do it a lot cheaper on my own.  Wouldn’t you know, there are entire cookbooks dedicated to the art of the freezer meal.  Surprisingly, they don’t suck!  I assumed they would be a ton of flavors all meshed together like um….a crock pot.  Not a fan of the crock pot meal unless only one thing was in it.  My friend Keri can make a mean barbecue in a crock pot.  But she doesn’t also stick 5 different veggies in with it.  I like carrots to taste like carrots, not pot roast.

I couldn’t do it without a chest freezer in my garage (thank you to my sister who had one to give me!!!).  But if you have the freezer space, it’s definitely worth the time.  Super Suppers has a great cookbook, and “Don’t Panic, Dinner is in the Freezer” is a gem.

The meal above is Pork Chops with Apple and Herb Dressing from the Super Suppers Cookbook:

8 cups corn bread stuffing mix (don’t use generic…too mushy)

4 cups of apple slices (the recipe calls for “canned” which I despise…I’m trying fresh, tart apples this time around; I’ll let you know if it bombs)

3 cups fine chopped celery

3 cups fine chopped onion

4 tsp dried crushed sage

1 tsp black pepper

4 cups chicken broth

1 cup butter, melted

15 or 16 pork loin center cup chops (I’ve used bone in, loin only…all different thicknesses…they all work): Buy whatever is divisible for your families dinner size (we eat three per meal…so I buy 15…but if you make 4 chops per meal, you’d buy 16)

2 tablespoons seasoned salt (what IS seasoned salt?  I use whatever I have)

And here’s where it gets COMPLICATED:

Stir it all together (except chops), adding the broth and butter last.  Sprinkle the chops with a bit of salt.  Allot the chops in freezer bags for your meal size (I do 3 chops for us).  Spoon the dressing into all the bags, distributing evenly.  Squeeze out air and freeze.  Seriously, that’s it.  Thaw and bake at 350 in a pan coated with cooking spray, covered in aluminum foil for 45 minutes.  Uncover and bake for 15 more minutes.  They will keep for 2 months frozen.  I usually burn through a recipe in 4 weeks, and I keep 3 at a time (12 meals) rotating through the freezer.   I know some dedicated families who cook for 8 straight hours and make 30 meals at a clip.  I just don’t have the stamina.  If I EVER had 8 free hours to myself, I’d sleep.

I would say this recipe falls in the middle of the pack as far as favorites.  It’s a solid, tasty meal.  I don’t love pork chops, but if they are made well, I do like them.  It’s easy to make and isn’t horribly messy.  I can only cook it when I have an hour to wait for it to bake.  Soup, on the other hand, is harder to prepare, but is ready in 15 minutes at dinnertime.

The last bonus of the freezer meal is that because I try to squeeze as many meals as possible with each recipe, we eat less at dinner.  I make the portions smaller than I normally would.  Normally, you’d get 4 chops with a meal, and we’d waste one or end up splitting the last one, eating more than an ADA portion.  (I can rant later about my belief that we should all eat an ADA diet because American portion sizes are killing us).  With freezer meals, I have more flexibility in allotting our dinner sizes in the freezer bags.  Overall, we eat much less at dinner.

As a sidenote, this meal is maybe a bit more on the pricey side.  It costs me $6 per meal (total, not per person) to make this recipe, and I got 5 meals out of it…so I spent $30 on ingredients.  I make a meatball dinner that is only $3 per meal.  You just can’t beat these prices with groceries getting more expensive every week.