This changed the way I do dinner.

So I tried a new dinner idea: frozen crockpot meals. I spent Sunday evening gathering all my ingredients and had everything ready for the whole week. It took a while to package everything, but it has made the rest of the week a breeze. 

First, I gathered all the recipes I wanted to make for the week.

Then I chopped everything up and put all the ingredients for each recipe into a labeled big, ziplock bag. (I put the date, any extra instructions, like serve over rice or add a cup of this, and the cook time.)

Then I put them all in the freezer.

 labeled bag

frozen Teriyaki Chicken

 frozen Chicken Tortilla Soup

So Monday morning I pulled a bag of frozen ingredients for Mediterranean chicken out of the freezer and dumped it all straight into the crockpot, set the temp on low and when I returned 8 1/2 hrs later this was awaiting me:

Mediterranean Chicken

It was delicious!! I think I'll never use the oven again. :D

I'm excited about this because:
1. It's super easy and I'm lazy busy.
2. This will be great when Crockett leaves because it will be hard to cook for one person and I can have leftovers for a few days (I love leftovers).

Here are the recipes I tried. I've only made Mediterranean Chicken, but it was great. I'll update as I make the others. (Update: The Teriyaki Chicken was great too! Next time I will add more chicken and carrots and less pineapple and onion.)

Teriyaki Chicken

 med - large bag of carrots 

(I used fresh, whole carrots and peeled/chopped 5.)

red onion in large chunks

2 cans pineapple (undrained)

4 garlic cloves

1 cup teriyaki sauce

(I used HEB brand marinade.)

 bag instructions:

add 1/4 cup teriyaki sauce and cook low 8 hrs or high 4 hrs, serve over rice

Chicken Tortilla Soup

3 cups chicken broth

1 1/2 cooked chicken (cut into strips or cubes)

1/2 onion

1 cup frozen corn

2 green onions

28 ou. can tomatoes (undrained)

1 cup chopped veggies

(I used a can of mixed veggies.)

4 garlic cloves

1 tsp. cumin

1 tsp crushed red peppers 

(I omitted this.)

salt to taste 

(I added about 1 2 tsp.)

bag instructions:

cook on low 8-10 hrs or high 6 hrs

Mediterranean Chicken

3-4 pieces of chicken

(I always use thighs.)

1 bag of frozen artichoke hearts

1/2 jar of green olives (drained)

28 ou. can tomatoes (undrained)

bag instructions:

cook low 8 hrs or high 4 hrs, serve over rice

I also am planning on doing Savory Chicken, but will add that recipe when I get to my computer. I'll also post the links to all the awesome sites I got these recipes from because they have a lot more. The recipe for the soup was the only one not specifically designed for freezing in advance, but since it is a crockpot recipe I imagine it'll work just fine. I'll let you know!

Happy Cooking!

- B