Freezer Friendly Recipes

Something I've been trying to do lately is to make at least a couple meals a week that I can freeze half in Ziplock freezer bags for a quick and tasty meal later on. Mostly this has worked great, but of course a few meals haven't frozen and reheated as well as I'd hoped. Here's a couple of recipes that tasted great the first and second time around!

Chicken Fajitas
(In order to have enough to freeze I doubled the recipe and needed 2 skillets. Obviously I froze only the filling and used fresh tortillas and cheese to reheat. These are the BEST fajitas we've ever had!)

Ingredients:
1/2 C olive oil
1/3 C lime juice
1 t sugar
1/2 t salt
1/4 t cumin
1/4 C red wine vinegar
1 t oregano
1/4 t black pepper
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 jalepeno pepper, seeded and finely chopped
1/2 red onion, julienned
3 bell peppers assorted colors, julienned
1 1/2 lbs chicken breast, julienned

Instructions:
1. Combine all ingredients into a bowl. Toss well and marinate in the refrigerator for at least a couple hours, preferably overnight. (I only had time for about an hour and they still turned out great.)
2. Drain mixture and saute over medium-high heat until chicken is cooked.
3. Serve with tortillas and cheese.

Pumpkin Black Bean Soup

(This recipe is from a friend's blog and can be viewed with a photo here. She has lots of other promising recipes though this is the only one I've tried so far. I added a couple cups of leftover cooked brown rice which I highly recommend.)

Ingredients:
4 Tablespoons olive oil

1/2 cup onion, finely diced

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 Tablespoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon allspice

1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper (optional)

2 cans black beans (15 oz each), drained and rinsed

1 can (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes

1 can (16 oz) pumpkin puree

4 cups vegetable or chicken broth

Salt to taste

Instructions

1. In a large pot heat the oil until shiny, then turn to medium low. Add the onion, garlic, cumin, kosher salt, cinnamon, allspice, pepper, and cayenne and stir often until the onion has softened. About 3 to 4 minutes.

2. In a food processor puree the beans, tomatoes, and 2 cups of broth. Add the puree, pumpkin and remaining broth to the pot.

3. Simmer uncovered until thick, stirring often while scraping the bottom, about 30 minutes or until desired thickness. Salt to taste and garnish as desired.

Babysitting Saga Continues

Whew! Our laptop's in the shop right now which has been both a good and bad thing. It makes it harder for me to take and edit photos or update the blog, but it also means that I have more time to spend playing with David and get some Spring cleaning and organizing done.
Since my last post I had yet another babysitter decide that she couldn't watch David anymore. At the same time my office had too many nurses on staff and almost no visits for me so I opted not to not go back. This would mean sticking to a bare-bones budget and make it unlikely we would get anything saved, but I really didn't want to go back to working 12 hour night shifts unless as a last resort.

For a few weeks I was essentially a stay-at-home mom. Then everything changed. One of the full-time nurses left and the office is swamped with visits. There are no plans to replace the nurse unless the census grows so once again I was in the market for a sitter. It's still a huge pain but at least I knew from prior experience not to try traditional daycare centers (most will charge the full week's rate regardless) and went straight to the online classifieds. The first couple of sitters I met with didn't work out (one decided last minute she needed to go back to full-time work and the other just didn't seem like a good fit), but I've finally found what I hope will be a good match.All of my previous providers have been sitters who have had no other clients (though my last one had 2 boys of her own) so this will be our first brush with an actual daycare setting. I have learned from experience though that while it's most convenient for me to hire a part-time nanny to come to the house that David's much happier exploring new environments with novel toys and other children. I've also learned that people don't earn enough from one part-time kid to want to do it long. I know there's a lot of scary stories about home daycare but this woman gave me a list of over 20 parents who gave great references and only watches 2-4 children at a time rather than taking on the max allowed by the state. I'll start back next week and am pretty excited. I really do enjoy my job and relieved that our finances won't be quite so stretched.
And since I haven't posted any David pics in a while I've included some shots of the past month. I don't have any great photos as I have to hurry and whip out a shot before he realizes I've got the camera and races over to grab it.

David and Teddy (his new BFF)