Recent Freezer Meals

This week I am going to cook it up with my friend Lauren and build up my freezer meal stash, and I remembered that I hadn't posted some of my freezer meals from November.

I made Chicken Enchiladas from Nourishing Traditions, Beef Empanadas and homemade tortilla chips and everything came out ah-mazing. 

Here's the Chicken Enchiladas recipe:

Meat from 1 whole chickens (save bones to make stock!)
2 medium onions, finely chopped
1 red pepper, seeded and diced
1 green peppers, seeded and diced
2-4 jalapeno peppers( I actually omitted this, Peter doesn't like spicy foods)
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil or lard
1/2 cup tomato paste
1 cup chicken stock
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon cumin
.5 teaspoon red chile flakes
1 teaspoon salt
1 clove garlic, peeled and mashed

Saute the onions and peppers. Then add tomato paste, stock, oregano, cumin, red chile flakes, salt and garlic. Cut up chicken and stir meat in. Simmer for 15 minutes until most of the liquid has evaporated.

Serve up with the usual garnish sides, like avocado, shredded cheese, sour cream, etc.

Then I fried up my own tortilla chips and they were the bomb.com.  I bought sprouted tortillas and then sauted them in bacon grease. I have since also tried it coconut oil and it tastes almost as tasty as the bacon grease, but come on, its bacon grease, so nothing really can possibly taste better.   I am going to try and do it in lard next.  Yes, lard!  Lard is good for you! Isn't it awesome?  Check out this post to learn more about the awesomeness of lard and how to fry  tortilla chips in it.

Then, I made up some empanadas. These are such a BITCH to make, but they are so tasty.
Cooking up the inside is not such a big deal, it's the rolling every little empanada that takes forever. This is the recipe I use, but I tweak it a bit and add a couple of chopped up boiled eggs, because that is the way Peter's mom makes them.  Also, that recipe calls for cutting out circles from pie crust pastry, whoever thought that was a good idea was nuts.  So I have Peter's mom bring me loads of pre-cut empanada pastry from Miami every time she comes to visit and I keep them in our beloved deep freezer. 

Empanada freezer warning.... do not smooch them all into a container like I did. They will not pull apart. They will still cook up tasty, but you will have a one big glob of empanada. So next time, I am going to wrap the each with freezer paper or freeze them on a cookie sheet for a few hours first (kinda like blueberries) and then add them to a container already frozen.

Wish me luck for Wednesday! We are only doing 6 different recipes, but it's still gonna be a handful!