Baking Day: My Plan and Recipes

Today I am doing a baking day!  A baking day (or freezer cooking day) is just a day where you cook several things to freeze for later use.

I really struggle with cooking in the summertime.  The heat makes me avoid heating up the kitchen and I just tend to eat less in general in the summer.  Strangely, my family still needs to eat!  These past few weeks we’ve been relying on frozen pizzas and my husband’s cookings far too many nights.  I decided I needed to do something about it!  So, I’m going to stock my freezer with some meals that will be easy to heat up and eat on the nights when I don’t feel like being in the kitchen.

Here is my plan for today:

2 Cheesy Broccoli and Rice with Chicken
Chicken and Black Bean Taco Filling
8 Pie Crusts
2 Chicken Pots Pies – using 4 pie crusts from above
Crockpot Salsa Chicken*
Crusty French Baguette
Bread Machine Wheat Rolls*
Pizza Dough*
4 Pizza Kits*
Taco Seasoning*
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins
Double Chip Cookies
Chocolate Butterhorns*

That will net at least 13 meals plus extra goodies!

My plan has already changed since I wrote it last night!  The salsa chicken and taco seasoning were added this morning.  I had intended to make something else in the crockpot but neglected to prepare it last night.  Then I decided to make crockpot salsa chicken instead (mainly because it sounded easy…) but then realized I was out of taco seasoning!  Thank goodness my friend Rachel recently shared a homemade taco seasoning recipe or I would have decided to make something else.

I seem to have not planned this out very well because there have been several other things that I thought I had but don’t!  My husband made a trip to the store for me to get a few things, but I’ve since realized I’m out of other things.  I am by no means a pro at this but I do have one bit of advice – check to see if you have all the ingredients, don’t just assume you do.  Don’t forget about things like spices, oils, flour, and sugar!

I also haven’t been feeling well this morning so my day is going a bit slower than I expected.  I am going with a no-stress approach though this time. I hope to get everything done but I am not going to be upset if I don’t.  It’s helping me to be much more relaxed!

So far today (it’s 1 pm now) I have made chicken and black bean taco filling (substituted red beans), taco seasoning, salsa chicken, pizza dough, pizza kits, pumpkin chocolate chip muffins, chocolate butterhorns, and the wheat rolls are currently in the bread machine!

Oh, and all the recipes with a *star are new recipes.  All the others are tried and true!

If that is all I get done today, I will be happy.  Though I do hope I can at least get the meals done.  I’m not sure why I planned to make all the sweet stuff first… 😉

I will try to post updates later on and maybe some pictures of the food!