What kid doesn’t love french toast sticks (or teenager, for that matter)?! And on a busy school morning, having some you can just pull out of the freezer and heat up is such a time saver!

I figured out that I can buy a loaf of Texas Toast for about $4 and make somewhere around 30 french toast sticks (give or take), or I can spend about twice that much for half the amount. This honestly seems like a no-brainer to me. Not to mention, we have the ease of a freezer friendly meal and YOU get to control the ingredients.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• 5 slices of Texas Toast
• 3 eggs
• 3/4 cups milk
• 3/4 tsp cinnamon
• 1 1/2 tsp melted butter

Preheat your oven to 350° F.

Stack your Texas Toast. Using a serrated knife, cut your loaf into three.

Next, you’ll need a 9 x 13 inch pan. Add your milk, eggs, cinnamon and melted butter directly to your pan and whisk until blended.

Have a cookie sheet on hand for this next step. Place your bread in the pan and then flip over. Remove bread from pan and place on lightly greased cookie sheet.

Mmmm…breakfast burritos. I love them, my family loves them…did I mention I love them? Eggs, cheese, potatoes, meat – all of it neatly rolled up into a tortilla envelope that makes eating on the run easy! What can be better than that? Maybe, making a batch ahead of time and freezing them?!

Being a native Southern California girl, I absolutely LOVE Chorizo (and all things Mexican food). When I moved to Washington State I realized it’s not as easy to find certain Hispanic foods as easily as it used to be. None of our markets in the harbor carry Chorizo the way I remember buying it. But I did find a package of Chorizo links over by the Italian sausage links and decided to give those a try…we weren’t disappointed!

You can scramble your eggs in one pan, brown potatoes in another and cook your meat in still another pan OR you can just use one pan and cut down on your mess.  Since I was making these for the freezer, no one was in a hurry to eat them.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• 1 lb Chorizo (or meat of your choice: diced ham, bacon, sausage, etc.)
• 2.5 cups shredded medium cheddar cheese (or cheese of your choice)
• 6 extra large eggs (if using medium or large I would add an extra 1 or 2)
• 2 cups diced potatoes
• 8 burrito size tortillas

I like to start with cooking up my meat first in my cast iron skillet since it seasons the pan up nicely. These links are a little different to work with because each link is packaged in a casing. The first thing you need to do is slice the casing on each link and then remove it and throw it away.

Cook Chorizo until brown and crumbly on medium heat. Remove Chorizo from pan and place onto a paper towel lined plate. Wipe out your pan with a paper towel (no need to scrub it clean).

I’m back with another freezer to slow cooker recipe that I think you will love! The nice thing about this recipe is that you can eat it as a burrito, tacos or even add it to some lettuce for a different spin on your usual salad. There is also very minimal prep involved! It should seriously take you no more than 15 minutes to prep this meal for either your freezer or slow cooker.

If you don’t plan on cooking this dish right away, I like to use 4 frozen chicken breasts from Costco. No point in thawing them out if I’m just going to freeze them, anyway! But today, I wanted to serve this for dinner, so I had some pretty plump chicken breasts I found on sale that I decided to use.

Here’s what you’ll need:

Ingredients:

• 3 or 4 chicken breasts (can be thawed or frozen)
• juice of 3 limes (about ¼ cup lime juice)
• 1 bunch of fresh cilantro – chopped
• 1 – 4 oz can diced green chilies
• ½ cup of onion, chopped
• 1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 tsp cumin
• ½ tsp black or white pepper
• ½ tsp salt

Condiments:

• Salsa
• Sour cream
• Guacamole

First thing you will want to do is chop your cilantro and onion, rinse and drain your black beans, measure your spices and squeeze your limes. I absolutely LOVE the aroma the cilantro, onions and lime juice give off. It smells even better while it’s cooking!View Post

I LOVE Chicken Tortilla soup. I love the flavors, I love the colors, I love how it smells when it’s cooking…I love everything about it! I especially love how easy it is to make. I am finding more and more that “meal prepping” is the way to go these days. It cuts down on eating out and saves so much time during the week. Plus, you get to control the ingredients and that’s always a plus!

This is an incredibly easy recipe that you basically layer in your Ziploc bag and freeze with minimal work. Then, when you are ready to make it, simply take it out of the freezer the night before, dump it in your slow cooker and add water and let it go!

Here’s what you’ll need:

• 1 lb. cooked chicken, shredded (Costco’s rotisserie chicken is awesome in this soup!)
• 10 oz frozen corn kernels
• 1 – 4 oz. can diced green chilies
• 1 – 14.5 oz. can diced fire roasted tomatoes (with juice)
• 1 – 10 oz. can red enchilada sauce
• 1 – 14.5 oz. can chicken broth
• 1 medium yellow onion, diced
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. chili powder
• 1 tsp. cumin
• 1 tsp. minced garlic
• 1/4 tsp white pepper (black pepper works well too!)
• 1 T fresh cilantro (plus additional for topping)
• 2 cups of water (to be added to slow cooker)

Toppings:

• shredded pepper jack cheese
• sour cream
• avocado
• lime
• hot sauce

Tortilla Strips:

• white corn tortillas (or flour, or corn)
• vegetable oil

Can we stop and just admire those fresh ingredients and vibrant colors? How can you not smile at the anticipation of those yummy flavors dancing in your belly?View Post

“Keep things simple” – that’s my mantra going into this next school year. And what’s more simple than crustless PB & J’s?

We can buy a box of these sandwiches for a small fortune, or, we can quickly and easily make them ourselves! As always, the beauty in making your own means you get to control the ingredients and generally you save money. Plus, going from freezer to lunch box obviously saves time during a chaotic school morning!

The ingredients and steps are super simple – don’t be intimidated!

Here’s what you’ll need:

• bread of your choice (2 slices per sandwich)
• peanut butter (or any nut butter)
• your favorite jelly, jam, or preserves
• sandwich sealer or glass with a wide rim
• sandwich size baggies
• gallon size freezer bag

First, grab all your ingredients and make yourself a little workstation. I like to do mine assembly line style. I slather up the peanut butter slices first, then jelly, then put my sandwiches together. As you can see, I don’t go all the way to the edges since I’ll be cutting the crust away.View Post

I can’t believe it…we are already entering into our last month of summer!  I think I spend one month planning and enjoying summer activities, and one month planning for school to begin!  Seriously, where has the time gone??

With school approaching, I find myself beginning to mentally plan ahead for the school year…I begin thinking about our nights before school and our crazy school mornings (sigh)…and as always I try to plan for ways to give us more time.  One thing I LOVE having on hand, and just so happens to be a HUGE time saver, is meals in the freezer (for breakfast and lunch) ready to go.  The brilliant thing about freezer meals is that they can be made in bulk at the beginning of the week and pretty much get you through the entire week.  I have found having a couple different “main courses” ready to go for breakfast and lunch gives enough variety during the week for the kids.  All you need to do is add your “sides” and you’re good to go.  Not to mention, it makes it possible for even your younger ones to help pack their own lunch.  Packing a lunch from home absolutely saves money and you, as a parent, also have the opportunity to make it healthier than their school lunch choices. Win – win!

Here is a super easy recipe that you can make ahead and freeze.

Ingredients:

• 4 burrito size tortillas or wraps (I used spinach herb wraps – yum)
• 6 oz deli meat (my kiddos love ham and turkey, so I have some of each)
• 1 cup of shredded cheddar cheese
• spreadable or whipped – cream cheese
• gallon size freezer bags

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