Meal Prep For Two - Freezer Meals - Baking Day - Day 1

It has been a hot minute since I have prepared freezer meals, but I am tired of cooking, clean up and repeat three times a day or just grabbing whatever until we are out of whatever. So, I donned my apron and enlisted Number One for help. 

We did our baking today that included biscuits, bread and granola. It was a great sunny day for off-grid baking. Our oven uses a lot of power to power the heating element even though we have a propane stove, so baking on a sunny day works best for us. 

Let's start with the biscuits. We tripled the recipe.

Biscuits (makes10 biscuits)

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. 

Wisk together in a large bowl:

2 C flour

2 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tbs sugar

1/2 tsp salt

Drop in:

5 to 6 tbs cold butter

Cut in butter with a pastry blender or two knives until mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs.

Add 3/4 C milk. Mix until the dry ingredients are moistened. Do not over mix. Form into a loose ball and press on a lightly floured surface until the dough is about 3/4 inch thick. Cut into 10 biscuits. Melt a tablespoon of butter in a pie pan or cast-iron skillet in the preheated oven. Place the biscuits in the melted butter coating both sides of the biscuits. Bake for 12-14 minutes until golden brown. Serve hot. 

For best results, keep up with the dishes as you go. That way you can move right into the next order of business. 

Sorry about my dirty oven. I had a large spillover and have not deep cleaned it yet. I don't want to do it while we are inside during the cold winter months with no open windows.

I was cooking the turkey bacon and gravy while making the biscuits. 

These are the ugly biscuits that you get after pressing out the dough scraps. They are great for biscuits and gravy. I am missing several pictures, like the pretty pan of biscuits, that I took after baking. I should have checked.

Breakfast is served. 

I made bacon and cheese biscuits out of the pretty biscuits.

I wrapped them in plastic wrap, bagged them up and froze them.

We froze the raw biscuits on a cookie sheet. 

Once frozen we placed them in a baggie with the baking instructions written on the bag.

More clean-up happened before moving on to baking the granola.

Granola: Follow the link below for the recipe. 

Homemade Granola

Granola is Number One's department. We tripled the recipe.

Syrup mixture

Oats and nuts

Mixed all together until oats and nuts are coated.

Ready for the oven

While Number One was taking care of the granola, I was making the bread dough.

A triple recipe almost makes a gallon of granola.

Homemade Bread:

Number One slices the bread. I am not good at it at all.

I am putting together buttered cheese bread for grilled cheese sandwiches.

I wrapped them in plastic wrap.

In between, I made a grilled cheese sandwich with bacon for Number One's dinner.

I ate the ends of the fresh bread for my dinner.

I made up six sandwiches.

I bagged up the un-grilled grilled cheese sandwiches and put them in the freezer. 

This is what we accomplished on our baking day. Tomorrow is a new day, and we have more meal preps planned. I will continue to blog as we go. Thanks for coming along...

Things To Be Happy About:

Cleaving unto one another

Bedtime after a long baking day

Plastic wrap

Saving and re-using bread bags because I can't find bags to fit my homemade loaves of bread.

Remembering to water my houseplants before they perish for good.

A helping hand

Goodnight,

Mrs. Smith

Cheddar Cheese Biscuits

I have not been able to do much posting for the last three weeks or so due to a neck injury from five years ago that flared back up. It has been rough to say the least. Unfortunately, it affects my neck, back, arms, hands and  fingers, which keeps me from spending very much time on the computer.

In order to recover, I have had to stop doing....everything! I'm not very good at sitting still, actually, I have had to stand, a lot, to get any relief at all. I am so much better, praise God, but I am continuing to limit my physical activity for a while longer. Today, I was able to get some light housework done. (no lifting) Number One has been a great helpmate. He has always called himself the "lifter and toter", he has really lived up to this name lately.

I got hungry for some biscuits today, so I whipped up these Cheddar Cheese Biscuits for dinner along with some meatloaf (that I had frozen), mashed potatoes and green beans. Simple enough and not too time consuming considering my physical limitations right now. They were yummy! The more cheese the better of course!

Ingredients

I gave the recipe my own little twist by adding garlic powder and parsley.

Preheat oven to 450*. Place 3 Tbs butter in cast iron pan in oven until melted. In a medium bowl, add the following ingredients and mix well.

1 cup All flour
1 1/2 tsp Baking powder
1/2 tsp Salt

Drop in:
3 tbs Lard, Butter or Crisco (Lard is my choice)

Cut with a pastry blender until the mixture resembles cornmeal.

Add: 1 to 1 1/2 cups of Shredded Cheese, 1/2 tsp Garlic powder and 1 tbs Parsley

Add: 1/2 cup Milk

Mix until dough is formed. (The less mixing, the better) Press out until dough is 1 inch thick. Cut out biscuits. Dip both sides into melted butter, place in pan and bake @ 450* until brown.

For Breakfast Biscuits, I omit the parsley and garlic. Double the recipe if you are feeding a crowd. Enjoy.....