Dinner's in the Freezer

Saturday, August 15, 2009

It is time again to put dinner in the freezer! I will be cooking six different recipes with a friend this coming week so that we will have handy meals in the freezer.

Anyone ever heard of gnocchi? I was first introduced to them while I lived in Argentina. I have always spelled them "ñoquis" (the Spanish spelling). These little dumplings are Italian, and most of the time made from potato. One of our chosen recipes for this cooking session is with ñoquis. You can buy them frozen or dried. I have normally found them at our local Sam's dried. But I have looked and can't find them! I may try making these myself. I just found this recipe and they can be made and frozen for later! The beauty of the recipe we picked out that uses ñoqui is that if we can't find them we can use regular pasta. Here is what we are cooking for the month of August...
Spring Veggie Soup with Dumplings
Pizza Roll ups
Poppy Seed Chicken Casserole
Mexican Lasagna with chicken, corn and black beans
Gnocchi (ñoqui) alfredo
Lemon Chicken Tortellini

Here are the recipes:

Pizza Roll Ups
1 recipe of bread dough
chopped pepperoni
grated mozzarella
Italian spices
pizza or pasta sauce
If you know how to make cinnamon rolls then you can make these! You roll out the dough in a rectangle. Sprinkle with pepperoni, cheese and spices. Roll up and cut slices to make rolls. I then put these on a tray and freeze. Once frozen, put them in a Ziploc bag. When you want to eat them, thaw and let rise a bit. Bake in the oven. We serve them with pasta sauce as a dipping sauce.

Poppy Seed Chicken Casserole
1 package fried rice flavor Rice-a-Roni, cooked
4 cups shredded chicken
1 cup sour cream
1 can cream of chicken soup
36 Ritz crackers
6 T. butter, melted
1 T. poppy seeds
Spoon rice in an even layer over the bottom of a 11 by 7 baking dish. Combine chicken, sour cream and soup in a bowl. Spoon evenly over the rice. Sprinkle with poppy seeds. Freeze. When ready to eat, thaw. Crush Ritz crackers. Combine the crackers and butter. Sprinkle over casserole. Bake at 375 for 30 minutes.

See my blog tomorrow for the other recipes!

4 comments:

KiminSD said...

Thanks again for sharing these recipes - it is so helpful to see good recipes that freeze well!

Kim

Debbie said...

You're welcome! I don't know how I survived before doing these freezer meals! It makes life so much easier.

My Blessings From Above said...

Thanks for linking the gnocchi recipe. I have been wanting to try these for sometime now.

We love the poppyseed chicken recipe. It has been a favorite for sometime at our house!

Debbie said...

Michele- I made the gnocchi last night and it was pretty easy. I tripled the recipe so that I would have extra in the freezer.

Glad to hear that the poppyseed chicken is good. It will be our first time trying it.