Alicia arrives at my home later that day with her groceries and lots of excitement! I like to plan my menu out but we didn't even know what meals we were going to make....(we ended up just looking at the HG seasonings and would pull one that sounded good.) I must admit I was a little panicked but I reminded myself that this is easy to do. We actually didn't have to have a 'plan' to succeed. And succeed we did!
This was our final result....19+ meals!
4 Burgundy Beef tips
2 Cilantro Citrus Chicken
2 Asian pork loins
2 Italian Mozzarella Chicken
4 KC Burgers-16 patties total
2 Garlic Basil Pasta Casseroles
3 batches of HG Spaghetti Sauce-13.5 cups of sauce
* I say 19+ meals because with any leftover meat from these meals you can create a different meal....saving you time and money! As an example...you can shred leftover chicken to use in a casserole, pasta salads, a HG soup like Chicken Enchilada Soup, on salads, wraps or tacos.
We put all the ingredients on my kitchen table which included tomato sauce, chicken broth, diced tomatoes, cream of chicken/mushroom soup, pasta noodles, and the meat.
I pulled out all my Homemade Gourmet Pantry Staple containers/seasonings, extra mixes, my recipe binder, and all of my 4 Meals in 4 Minutes Meal Planners.
I pulled out a pot, pan, and bowl I thought we would need. We didn't dirty many dishes!! Used only the above, 2 spoons and a measuring cup.Then we got started.
Up first was Burgundy Beef tips. We put all the needed ingredients on the island along with the recipe card. We would end up with 4 Burgundy Beef Tip meals.
First we labeled 4 Ziploc gallon sized freezer bags "Burgundy Beef Tips' with the date. Then Alicia split the meat into the bags.
Then we added 5 tablespoons of HG Sunday Roast Seasoning to each bag.
Dumped in a can of mushroom soup and 1/2 cup of water to each bag.
Then, Alicia's favorite part....she 'Smooshed' the bag....making sure to mix up all the ingredients as much as possible. Then she got out as much air out of the bag and sealed it.
Here are our 4 beef tips! The one on top contains a can of beef broth...due to the lack of planning we only had 3 cream of mushrooms soups..so we improvised and used the broth instead.Now, Alicia has hosted her own Homemade Gourmet Gathering before and has attended a friend's gathering so she already had experience with making 'smooshed meals'. At her HG Gathering I demonstrated how to make 4 meals in 4 minutes with the help of her guest. I got 4 volunteers and each made a meal for Alicia's freezer....she just provided her meat and canned goods and I provided the seasoning. Schedule your own Homemade Gourmet 4 Meals in 4 Minutes Gathering so you too can get 4 meals in your freezer!
Now it was on to making our Casserole:
I put the 2lbs of ground beef with 4 tablespoons of HG Garlic Basil seasoning on the frying pan. I also got the pasta going. We made other 'Smoosh' meals while this what going on. I would turn back and forth checking on the meat. 
After draining the pasta I dumped everything else in this pot and mixed it up. Then I split this into 2 freezer bags labeled 'Garlic Basil Pasta Casserole' with the date and cooking instructions. Thaw, place in baking pan. Bake 20-25 minutes on 350 degrees.
This casserole includes 2 lbs of Garlic Basil seasoned ground beef, mozzarella cheese, HG Spaghetti Sauce, and 1 box of pasta noodles (of your choice). This fills 2-9x13 pans. So really you can get 4- 8x8 casseroles out of this. I normally use the Glad Ware pans....the type that can go from freezer to oven to microwave to dishwasher. I fill an 8x8 pan with half a batch and put it in the oven for that night's dinner, then I would fill the other 8x8 pan with the rest and top with aluminum foil then cover with the lid and freeze for a later time.Now it's Asian Pork loin:
We gathered the needed ingredients, labeled our freezer bags, separated the meat, added 2 tablespoons of HG Garlic Lemon seasoning, 2 tablespoons of chicken broth. Then we 'smooshed' it together and sealed the bag. I had to write on the bag to add 6 tablespoons of honey and 2 1/2 TBS of soy sauce at time of cooking. This is best as a crockpot meal so it really didn't matter that these 2 ingredients were left out at this time.
We labeled our bags and split the chicken (most of these meals call for 2-3lbs of boneless, skinless chicken breast or pork chops). Then we added 4 TBS of HG Italian Mozzarella Seasoning, 1 can cream of onion soup and chicken soup. I always use the low sodium/low fat versions of the soups and broths on all my recipes. We 'Smooshed' until all the ingredients were blended, let out as much of the air and resealed the bag.
Next meal...Italian Mozzarella Chicken:
We labeled our bags and split the chicken (most of these meals call for 2-3lbs of boneless, skinless chicken breast or pork chops). Then we added 4 TBS of HG Italian Mozzarella Seasoning, 1 can cream of onion soup and chicken soup. I always use the low sodium/low fat versions of the soups and broths on all my recipes. We 'Smooshed' until all the ingredients were blended, let out as much of the air and resealed the bag. This recipe is actually in October's Bundle of the Month: Mini Meal Trail Collection. It's only $59.75 and includes a FREE HG Homestyle spaghetti sauce mix and a Menu Planner for 16 meals! This is a great way to begin filling your freezer. Read more about it on my HG Website.
The rest of our chicken went to Cilantro Citrus Chicken:
First we labeled out bags, divided the chicken, and dumped in 14 TBS of Cilantro Chicken, poured the remainder of the chicken broth from the Asian meal and about 1/4 c of Olive oil. Smooshed and sealed. This is really great to use in HG's Cranberry Almond Pasta Salad!Next up was our triple batch of Homemade Gourmet Homestyle Spaghetti Sauce:
We needed 15 TBS of HG Spaghetti Sauce seasoning, 3 6-oz can tomato paste, 3 15-oz can tomato sauce, 6 cups water. We put this all in a large pot and got it to a boil while we went on to making our KC Burgers. After it reached a boil we reduced the heat and let it simmer. I left this to cool in the fridge over night, and then I put 4 cups of the sauce in a gallon bag and then I put 2-3 cups in a quart size bag...I did this twice. The gallon bag is for a spaghetti meal and the quart bag is for a casserole meal.Our final meal was Kansas City Burgers:
These make the juiciest burgers! They are great grilled with a little BBQ sauce. Suggested toppings: sliced cheddar cheese, purple onion, avocados, cooked bacon and Kansas City BBQ Sauce as the condiment of choice
We didn't have any tomato sauce left since we used it on the Spaghetti Sauce, but we grabbed a can of diced tomatoes and put it the blender. We used half of what this made for the burgers and put the rest into the Spaghetti Sauce pot instead of just wasting it.To our 4 lbs of ground beef we added 8 tablespoons on HG Kansas City Rub mix, 16 oz of tomato sauce. Then Alicia formed the meat into 16 patties. We placed them on Cling Wrap and folded it over and pressed around the burgers to seal (4 patties per) then placed these covered patties in the freezer bag and put another 4 covered patties on top of those-8 total patties in a bag. Now I can just pull out how ever many I need for a particular meal. This will actually make me 2 meals.
WE WERE DONE!!
This picture shows all the meals made except for the Spaghetti Sauce. One side is Alicia's meals and the other is mine.
Look at all these options now in our freezer! Also note how these meals lay flat and don't take up much room in my freezer. I actually have a lot more room on my top shelf for more meals.Making 19+ meals didn't take us very long. We started at 5:07pm and ended at 6:45pm. Keep in mind that we stopped for pictures and we were really just taking our time while having a good time. Being that we 'winged it', I thought we did great on time. If we had planned ahead of time and had our stations already set up it would have taken a lot less time I'm sure, but nothing beats having a fun with a good friend!!
Overall we spent about $100.00 in meat and about $15 on canned goods. We used my pantry staples so we spent $28 on Homemade Gourmet seasonings.** Divide this into 19 meals and it came out to about $7.53 per meal.....each meal contains 6 servings..$1.25 per serving. Now you can't buy a kids meals for under $4.00 these days-what a value!
The value increases if you have leftovers to make another meal OR if you are feeding only 1 to 2 then it's like you are getting 38 meals!! All you would have to do is to divide the recipe into 2 freezer bags, or you could cook the full recipe at one time and then refreeze the leftovers for another date.
** I do want to point out that if you used the individual Homemade Gourmet mixes instead of our Pantry Staple size that the total for the seasonings used is $72.50!! So you can see the value in buying our 'bulk' size seasonings-the Pantry Staples.
You can find the recipes and cooking instructions online at my website www.homemadegourmet.com/marylou and click 'recipes'. You can print them out or email to a friend plus you can print a grocery list out!! Most of these recipes are from the Meal Planner that's included in our HG 4 Meals in 4 Minutes Collection.
Feel free to contact me with any questions!
Have a delicious week!
Mary Lou
832-444-9605
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