Freezer Experiment #1

I don't mete out my energy very well. At the beginning of the week after having the weekend to rest I start full throttle and by Wednesday my energy starts to taper. Thursday I get even slower and by Friday I am dragging. This past week I really had to push myself to stay on task. It was especially exhausting because I had to do lists for everyday of the week and I always had one task left at the end of the day that I didn't get to. Well then that added something more to my list the next day and it just started piling up. Geez. I stay at home for goodness sake. I always thought I wouldn't have to adhere to a calendar when I got to this point.
I even tried to pair down what I want to accomplish to work around Derek's schedule but I guess I need more fine tuning. Well now that we are really trying to stick to our Financial Peace budget I am determined not to make the pizza and taco runs that used to happen when I was just too tired to cook. So I'm going to start making freezer meals. I tried to start a freezer dinner group a couple years ago but it didn't work out and after my first couple dishes I just stopped.
I realize now that even if I'm not managing my energy efficiently at least I can cook extra food on my full throttle days so that I can have a quick, no brainer, dinner when I don't have any fuel left. This week I got a great deal on green peppers at Aldi and I decided I would make stuffed peppers. Yummy, quick, and in theory they should freeze very well (my mother-in-law confirmed this). So today I decided I'd whip a batch.

I had six peppers that I washed and cut in half and put in a pot of boiling, salted water.

They need to boil until they start to get soft. They will start to turn a lighter green. Don't let them go too long or they will fall to pieces.

For the stuffing I mix rice with salsa, cheddar cheese, and meat. I decided to use black beans in this batch.

For the amount of peppers I had today I used three cups rice, a 24 oz. jar of salsa, about a 1 1/2 cups cheese, a can of black beans and about a half a pound of cooked hamburger meat. Most people use a lot more meat than I do. I use waaaay less than a pound of meat in helpers and other such dishes so I would say meat to your personal preference. FYI I let the rice cool completely before adding the cheese. I don't do this when I'm going to cook it right away but since I was freezing it I thought I'd try it this way.

Ok, this is where it gets a little more experimental. I've never cooled the peppers before but again since I'm freezing I laid them out to cool instead of stuffing them when I took them out. Don't they look pretty?

Well don't cool your peppers this way. I was a total goof and even though I knew the peppers were soft for some reason it didn't occur to me that they wouldn't keep their shape if I laid them this way. Mine went flat. Next time I will cool them on their backs.

I just used my hand and stuffed the rice into the peppers. You have to mound up the filling to balance out the amount of pepper you have. Lucky for me when I filled them with rice they began to look like their old selves.

Bryan wrapped them in nice little foil packs for me in preparation of their frosty storage. We wrapped each pepper individual since they are delicate in their boiled state.

I ended up with dinner, two freezer dinners, and two bags left of Spanish rice for a side dish another night! Woohoo. It took me an hour to do the entire thing and I have three dinners done.

I've decided Saturday is not a good day to do things like this. I definitely need to have a day of R and R. I also realized that it won't be a big deal to make a couple extra dishes of freezer friendly foods at least once a week. This will be mega useful stockpiling for those lazy days and an especially good practice to have going when we decide its time for baby Derek the sequel.