What I’ve been up to today (and last night): cooking!

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As some of you know, I'm into batch cooking and then freezing the meals. My friends Becca and Kellie got me into this, and they took it a step farther. They organized a group of us to "swap" freezer meals.

Think about it. Instead of running out and buying multiple ingredients for multiple meals, we each buy enough to make ONE recipe 9-12 times over. Then we get together and swap. We'll go home with meals such as lasagna, chili, cheese steak, stir fry, chicken curry, and sweet & sour meatballs. It feels like an extension of what I'm already doing with couponing to save money.

While it usually means I end up doing a huge shopping trip and spend 3-4 hours assembling meals once per month, it also means effort and time saved in the long run and I find it's well worth it!

We have a meal swap tonight, and I chose Cheesy Chilada Bake. I knew that with Superbowl around the corner, that I'd be able to find Mexican-inspired ingredients at low prices. Plus, I already had a stockpile of black beans to use, and I found a great sale on Albertsons cheese a couple weeks back ($0.88 for 6 bags!)

So last night I started prepping my ingredients. While the original recipe calls for green peppers, Becca uses a mix of red and yellow, too. I like that, so I followed suit.

I got all my meat cooked up and ready to go…and then I realized I'd totally missed a primary ingredient: tomato sauce! And unfortunately, I didn't have enough left in my stockpile. So I had to finish my recipe up today. My son was very happy to help this afternoon.

That's his famous "blue blanket" in the background, by the way. He doesn't go anywhere without it…a modern day Linus, of sorts. Even though he's three, I try to include him in whatever I'm doing. In fact, as I type this, I'm working on my desktop and he's next to me on the laptop watching monster trucks on You Tube. It's how we roll!

Back to the meals. My recipe mixes peppers, salsa, tomato sauce, meat, and spices and then layers corn tortillas and cheese. Here's what one looks like when it's done.

It's sort of like a Mexican lasagna. Very tasty! And it's also for dinner tonight. Here are all 9 of my Cheesy Chilada Bakes, ready for swapping!

 
So how much did all these dinners cost me? All told, I spent just $63.80 out of pocket to assemble these – and that includes the foil trays. I will end up with 9 meals at the end of this, which means each dinner will have cost me just $7.08. These dinners are often large, too, and many will easily be stretched into two meals. Tonight's for instance, will easily take our family through dinner tonight, lunch tomorrow, and possibly beyond!

If you're wondering where I get my recipes, I primarily use the book Fix, Freeze, Feast: . The recipes are really excellent for freezing, and they are not your typical "cream of mushroom soup casserole" type recipes. It's currently less than $10 on Amazon, and you could purchase it for about the same amount at Borders if you had one of those nifty 30-40% printable coupons. My book is covered with food bits and scribbles - probably my most "loved" cookbook at the moment.

Don't forget: we're still not done stretching that $175 grocery trip yet! My husband Terry will be whipping up a variety of freezer burritos later today and I'll be sure to share with you what he does!