My kitchen tried to kill me today...

Ok, so not really, but at the end of the day, that's what I felt like! 

 And it's completely and totally my fault.  

I'm not sure why but for some insane reason, I thought it would be a good idea to start freezer cooking today.  I've been wanting to try it out for a while.  So, today, the day that I also traded out summer for winter clothes and prepared everything for our family to leave on a 2 day camping trip tomorrow, seemed like the worst day in the history of the planet!! perfect day to start.  I mean, I was already fighting storage wars in the bedrooms, why not turn my kitchen into a battle zone as well!!

 Ever since purchasing our stand-alone freezer, I've been looking into freezer cooking and trying to figure out how to make it best work for our family.  I finally decided to just give a few things a try and see what we like and what we don't.  I love the concept of putting everything in ziplocs in the freezer and having it ready to go into the crock pot with minimal work on the day you want to eat it.  I also have a few recipes (soups and casseroles) that I know freeze well so I plan to double those when I cook them and freeze half.  Today I kind of did a hodge podge of everything.

I have a board on pinterest with several very promises freezer cooking websites but I haven't had near the time I would like to figure it all out.  I came across this blog and she had some great, easy to follow, freezer, crockpot recipes.  She goes through step by step how to put everything together.  Even has it kind of grouped by the ingredients you use.  Y'all, this was SO EASY!  (ok, I know I said that my kitchen tried to kill me but I tend to try and do a bit too much at once which was definitely the case today..)  I also loved what I saw over at mamaandbabylove.com.  Even bought her ecookbook that's mostly crockpot recipes made with fresh ingredients.  

What I really love about this is the idea of using really fresh, non-processed ingredients.  It takes a lot of elbow grease to chop all the veggies..

... but so rewarding to have all those meals in the freezer!

I'll update when we've actually sampled some of the meals, but I hope they are so good because I could get used to this!   

Here's what I made today...

Spicy beef/veggie soup (for crockpot)

BBQ Chicken with fresh veggies(from mamaandbabylove.com

Orange Beef and Broccoli (kind of made this one up myself-will keep you posted)

Broccoli Cheese Soup

2 chickens cooked in crockpot last night overnight turned into chicken salad and soon to be white chili

And in the midst of all the freezer cooking, we (by this time Maddie was helping) also made our picnic lunch for the camping trip of tuna and chicken salads and raw veggies, and Maddie made the most AMAZING sugar cookies.  Will post that recipe soon!

Oh, and here's a cultural funny...

At the grocery yesterday I was figuring out which cheese was least likely to bust our budget this month.  Cheddar is expensive but sometimes it's marked down.  Anyway, I noticed these packages on the deli counter....   

(in case you can't read it, it says, "Cheese Remains")

It was the "remains" of various kinds of cheese after they grate it- actually a pretty good mix of cheddars for a good price!

Cracks, me up when someone whose first language is obviously not English does the advertising or marketing or whatever you want to call it in the stores here.  

One time in a dept store just before winter, there was a big bin of "ear wormers" beside the scarves.  

Oh, but my favorite was the knock off brand toothpaste that someone decided to call "Crust"- gross!  Who wants to brush their teeth with Crust?!  

Ok, this post is getting more and more random so I'm signing off!