Cooking great meals for one or two people

Cooking for one or two can be frustrating, since most options are larger, family-friendly portions. And small portions you find in the store are mostly packaging and not quality. Lately I’m entertaining the idea of eating healthier [had to happen sooner or later], which generally means cooking at home.

I’ve enlisted a great blogger friend Joelen: She shares easy-to-follow recipes and she’s also on Twitter. Here’s a great post on some tasty and easy freezer meals for the cold winter months:

When it snows, cook!

Over the weekend I had initially planned on hosting a chocolate tasting event where friends & I would “deep” taste varying chocolate of different cacao percentages. However Chicago was hit with a pretty bad snow storm a few days prior to the scheduled event so I canceled the chocolate tasting so folks could deal with the snow storm “aftermath.”

So with a free weekend to myself, I decided to cook and stock my freezer with prepared meals. I think I went a bit overboard since I cooked quite a bit… perhaps way too much! I shouldn’t complain because now my freezer is chock full of food and the best part is that dinner will be easy to get on the table for the next month or so.Here are some pics of what I prepared in advance today, however I’ll be posting the recipe for the dishes on the days we actually enjoy them. Hopefully the meals I prepared will provide you an idea of what things can be frozen in advance and perhaps inspire you to prepare meals for your freezer during these cold months!

Chicken Pot Pie

Disposable loaf pans are perfect vessels for freezing food, especially when wrapped in a gallon sized freezer bag for extra protection. Here I made a chicken pot pie filling which I ladled into the loaf pans. I topped each pie with a prepared crust, trimmed to fit. Cover with foil and place in a freezer bag. To prepare, I just take it out of the oven and pop it in to bake!

Once again the disposable loaf pans come to the rescue. I figured with italian inspired lasagna already in my freezer, why not have some tex-mex flavors too? Using corn tortillas, shredded rotisserie chicken, black beans, corn, cilantro, tomatoes, spices and a Mexican blend of cheese, I layered my lasagna then topped it with an enchilada sauce and more cheese. For the enchilada, I used the chicken filling above and made mini enchiladas cutting the tortillas smaller. These resulted in little chicken & cheese filled “cigars”.
As you can see from my initial picture in this post, my freezer is stocked with the items I’ve mentioned here, along with some portioned out chicken breasts, shrimp, edamame (our favorite guiltless snack!), some frozen desserts, and other miscellany that’s not exactly “blog-worthy.”

But I hope this helps inspire you to use your freezer to your advantage! Not only does it save me time from slaving over the stove and oven, but it certainly has saved us money in the past. We’re not so quick to drive to a restaurant or call for delivery with all these meals waiting for us. This is a great way to also plan meals for families, including those who are pregnant, recovering from surgeries or medical procedures resulting in limited physical activity, students, etc.