FREEZER COOKING...

 FAST FOOD FRIDAY...

"I'm too busy to cook."  "I worked all day."  "I'm Tired."  "It's way too hot out."  "I don't really want to go to the store."   Who hasn't heard or even said these words before?  Should you call for pizza?  Should you pick something up from the nearest drive through?  Nope, neither.  All you need is a little Food Fore-thought.  Fast Food Friday, a planned weekly post, isn't about running out to a local restaurant for take out or calling for delivery.  Fast Food Friday is about having something on hand for those days when cooking just seems impossible or even unappealing. 

With a little planning and preparation, fast food can come straight from our cabinets, pantries, and freezers.  What we are really talking about here is food preservation.  Food preservation can change our future days - take the guess work out of meal prep, allow for an evening of rest not stress, change your grocery bill's bottom line, and of course, nix the expense of drive-thru eatings.  Now those points do sound appealing.

So for many many Friday's to come, check back to see how I plan to never be too busy to cook, not too tired to eat well, not considering if it's too hot out, and best of all, skipping trips to the store.  For today, let's talk about...

FREEZER COOKING...

It's time to stock the freezer again with some fast food.  So today's post is on making burritos for the freezer.  Frozen burritos make an excellent fast lunch when you have a microwave handy.  On the plus side:

• You can control all the ingredients and make them exactly the way you like.
• It doesn't take much to make a lot of them - 18 in today's case.
• For about an hours worth of time, you'll have a lunch option for weeks to come.
• having "fast food" on hand makes for a no-brainer when packing lunches too.

So what to do?  I went for a couple of scratch options on this, and piggy backed the plan with taco night.  Which meant there had to be some fore thought involved.    I went with dried pinto beans which had to be soaked and cooked ahead of time.  I had planned for us to have tacos yesterday so the beans cooking on the same day made for a nice side dish as well.  I also made salsa in a big batch and tripled the amount of taco meat that I prepared knowing that I wanted leftovers to make the burritos with,

Though I did have to make a  cup of rice this morning, most everything was ready to go for making burritos.  These burritos are made of beef, pinto beans, rice, salsa and cheese.  Since it's all going into the freezer, it didn't matter that my leftovers were cold. 

 The Process...

Chose your ingredients to layer.  I work with a large table spoon.  Here I smeared a spoonful of beans across the burrito shell, distributed the taco meat and rice mixture across that, layered in a spoonful of salsa, and topped it off with a sprinkle of cheese.

pinto beans, tacomeat and rice mixture, salsa, and cheese 

  

Fold in the edges of the burrito. 
Sides first - this will keep ingredients from falling out when you eat it.   

Fold the bottom up until closed.

Add it to the growing stack and repeat.

That's it, and the possibilities are endless.  Throw in whatever you like best.  So let's review...

1. Rinse and soak dry beans overnight(I used pinto beans).
2. Put beans in crockpot the next day and cook 6-8 hours on low.  When the beans are done strain and reserve the liquid.  Mash them by hand or puree them in a food processor.  Make sure you only slowly add in so liquid when processing or you may end up with runny beans.  Also, this is the day you may want to do a taco night - just triple the amount of meat being used.  One third is for dinner and two thirds is for the burritos.  I cooked up three pounds of ground beef.
3. When you are ready to make the burritos, prepare your assembly line with your desired ingredients and begin.  

I used...

• 18 large burrito shells(3 packages)
• 2 pounds of ground beef, browned
• 2 packets of taco seasoning
• One cup of rice
• 2 pound bag of dried pinto beans*
• 2 cups of salsa
• one 8 oz bag of sharp cheddar

*Note - I ended up with left-over beans.  They freeze well so I just portioned them out onto saran wrap and folded shut and then placed the portions into a freezer bag for future use.  If you don't want to have extras, a one pound bag should be enough.

Remember, it's all about fore thought.  Spend a little time now when you have it and in the future when you need it, you'll have fast food on hand.  These burritos can be microwaved straight from the freezer for three minutes.  Otherwise, if it's more about not wanting to cook dinner, place the amount needed in a casserole dish and cook in the oven at 375 for 45 - 55 minutes.  Serve with a green salad or chips and salsa.

Enjoy, and be thinking of how you can make life easier in the future.

This post was shared at Food Renegade.