Happy Monday!

Finally, spring has come to Madison, WI! Manatee and I couldn’t be happier. In addition to some serious nesting this weekend, we finally were able to start grilling and eating outside. All winter, we question why we live in Wisconsin and then we get some consistent nice weather to remind us why we both left warm weather climates (me-California, him-Arizona) to return to the heartland.

For us, spring also means baby. We are getting closer and closer to Baby A’s due date (May 30) and we are both getting excited about it. That excitement turned into a flurry of activity this weekend. Suddenly, I was compelled to not only clean out our freezers and fridge, but remove every piece of shelving to scrub and wash. I don’t think our freezers or fridge ever looked better. I also realized that I was a freezer hoarder. I thought I was organized but there was so much we would have eaten had we known what was in there. Moving forward, I am working on some kind of tool so we always know what is in our freezer. I think we will use dry erase boards for each of the freezers, but would love to hear any suggestions from you.

The theme for the next two week is going to be freezer foods. This week, we focused on eating foods out of our freezer and next week, we will be making foods for the freezer to have handy once Baby A makes his/her appearance.

Meal Plan:

Chicken Fajitas made with frozen adobe chile sauce: Poor Manatee had to live through a 4-night run of fajitas. What can I say? It’s all I wanted to eat. We had beef fajitas, tofu fajitas, veggie fajitas, and then finally, these chicken fajitas. While cleaning the freezer, we found a huge amount of hot sauces that I had made during recipe testing for the cookbook. We marinated chicken breasts in the hot sauce and then grilled them with some veggies. Yum! I am finally fajita-ed out.

Grilled Pizzas:

pizzas on the grill

Our freezer is well stocked with ingredients for pizzas. I found a homemade wholewheat crust made with crushed red pepper and flaxseed, several bags of marinara sauce, Italian sausage, and mozzarella cheese. Add some fresh mushrooms and onions, and you have yourself a great pizza pie.

grilled pizza

This was our first time grilling the pizzas and it was definitely successful. Thank you to all those who offered tips on my Facebook page.  I will include a post later this week with more details about our experience.

Chicken Barbeque: We found two pints of chicken barbeque that we will be eating with salads and wraps this week.

Tofu something: We have some tofu about to expire so we will be doing something with tofu this week. Maybe a stir fry or maybe just tofu bites to have on hand for snacking. I will keep you posted!

Bolognese sauce: This was another treasure from the freezer. I will toss mine with pasta and I am sure Manatee will enjoy his with a salad.

Ina Garten’s Raisin Pecan Oatmeal Cookies: I wish these were in our freezer! Lately, my sweet tooth has been in overdrive. I am going to try this recipe by Ina Garten with a few clean eating substitutions. Will keep you posted!

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As I get ready to stock my freezer, I would love to hear from you. What are your favorite freezer stockers? Any tips for good freezer organization?

 


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