Deep Fried Cheese Sticks - Freezer Recipe

This is another freezer recipe we decided to try over the weekend. We’ve only tried it a few times, but so far we’ve enjoyed the ones we made. We did it in bulk so we can keep them at hand in the freezer. Here’s the recipe.

• String cheese sticks. We had about 30, and each stick gives us 2 breaded cheese sticks.
• Flour for dredging
• Milk
• Breadcrumbs

1. Cut string cheese in half

2. Dredge cheese with flour
3. Wet in milk
4. Roll in bread crumbs

5. Wet in milk again
6. Roll in bread crumbs again.
7. Bag them and put them in the freezer.

Fry when you’re ready to enjoy. Just keep an eye out. If it's in there for too long, the cheese will start to seep and it won’t be pretty. This is the part we’re still testing out... the temperature and time for the frying. I’ll update this when we figure it out.

Serve with marinara sauce (or some Ragu pasta sauce, which is what we use).

Freeze Ahead Beef Enchiladas

As a part of this weekend of cooking, we made some freeze ahead beef enchiladas. In the last couple of months, we’ve been interested in making freeze ahead meals for time saving purposes, as well as cost saving purposes. Here are some freeze ahead web sites if you’re interested.

http://organizedhome.com/freezer-cookbook-recipes-freezer-cooking
http://www.frugalmom.net/once_a_month_cooking.htm
http://www.once-a-month-cookingworld.com/index.php
http://www.recipezaar.com/cookbooks/tags/OAMC

Anyway, we decided to make some beef enchiladas. I doubt this is any sort of authentic, but it tastes great, so it’s become one of our favorites. The measurements here are for bulk cooking.

Ingredients:
3.5 lbs ground beef
2 large green bell peppers minced
1 onion minced
2 pkg fajita seasoning
1 tbsp minced garlic
3 pkg (12 count) tortillas
2 large cans of green enchilada sauce (28oz)
1.5 large cans of refried beans
2 lbs mild cheddar cheese
5 - 12x8 aluminum pans

1. Brown the ground beef
2. Add onions and garlic
3. Add bell peppers. I used some from my garden, so there were some small red and yellow ones.
4. Add fajita seasoning stir and let cook for a few minutes til well integrated
5. Add some of the enchilada sauce (maybe half of the large can) then cook a few more minutes.
6. Remove from heat and let cool.
7. Once mixture is cool, set up the assembly line for the wrapping. It goes pretty fast with 2 people. It probably took us about 30 minutes to do all of them. We ended up with 4 trays(12 x 8) of 8 enchiladas each plus another that was almost full. A grand total of 38 enchiladas. (Yes, 38. A couple of the tortilla packages had a baker's dozen.)
8. Wrap the enchiladas. Start with tortilla, add a bit of beans, (we add a bit of hot sauce for some heat), add a little cheese, add the meat mixture, then wrap it by rolling it up and place in pan. Do that to each enchilada.
9. When the pans are full, put some green enchilada sauce on top (you want to moisten the tray, but make sure to share the goodness with the other trays).
10. Top the pans off with a nice layer of cheese.
11. Cover your pans with some foil and put it in the freezer. (You might also want to label your trays with directions, or dates, or whatever).

To reheat a pan:

Place the pan in a 400 degree F oven for an hour with a vented cover (poked holes on the foil, or a tented foil cover). Then uncover and bake for an extra 20 minutes to get the cheese a bit toasty.

That’s it. I hope you like it.

Filipino Empanadas

This weekend felt a bit like a cooking weekend. We decided to do some freeze-ahead meals for quick weekday lunches and dinners. Of the things we made, we made some filipino empanadas. These empanadas are like pocket meat pies. I made the dough in accordance to some site that I found, but unfortunately never bookmarked (ugh - sorry if this happens to be your empanada dough recipe.)

For the filling, I didn’t really follow a recipe and didn’t measure any of the ingredients. This is one of those recipes where you can play around with the amounts of the ingredients and it’ll taste good. Here’s the basic recipe that I followed.

For the dough:

• ½ cup butter
• 3 oz cream cheese
• 1 cup flour
  

1. cream butter and cream cheese together. It may help to microwave it for a few seconds first.
2. Add flour, mix well.
3. Wrap in wax paper, & refrigerate overnight
   

For the filling:

• ground beef


• minced onions


• minced garlic


• potatoes nearly minced


• raisins


• soy sauce, salt, pepper to taste

1. brown the meat


2. add onions and garlic, cook for a minute or two (til onions are soft)


3. add the potatoes and raisins, stir


4. add soy sauce, salt and pepper to taste.


5. Cover and simmer for a few minutes (maybe 5 or so)


6. remove from heat and let it cool down in pan (this will give the raisins some time to absorb some of that yummy meat sauce.


7. When it has cooled down, strain the meat with a strainer and let it continue to strain overnight in the fridge.

Wrapping:

1. Take a piece of the dough (about 1 ½" size ball), and knead a bit to make the rolling out a bit easier. Have flour on hand for dusting, you’ll need to do that a lot. Roll out the small ball into a circle that is about 5" diameter and about 1/8" thick.


2. Take a heaping spoon of drained filling on one side of the rolled out dough (but not too close to the edge).


3. Fold over dough and pinch down the edge a bit. You can use a fork to pinch it down better.


4. Place on cookie sheet and make more til you’re out of dough.
   (If you end up with some extra filling, eat it as is with some rice, it’s tasty).


5. Brush a little beaten egg on top of each empanada for shininess.


6. Cook empanadas in a 375 degree F oven for about 15 to 20 minutes or til golden brown.


7. Let cool and enjoy!

Notes:

• You can freeze the cooled down empanadas in a freezer bag, to reheat just put in the microwave for a minute or so.


• You can probably use a simple pie recipe, or even buy the pie dough from the store.