Freezer Meal: Sweet Potato Quesadillas & Black Bean-Corn-Edamame Salad with Red Velvet Cream Cheese Brownies

Quesadillas were perfect directly from the freezer!

Defrost and Mix.

I made this freezer meal for my September exchange and meant to post this recipe ages ago. Better late than never! I try to use seasonal produce because I'm making my meals in bulk and I want to buy top quality ingredients locally as much as possible. This meal is especially easy for the Summer since you don't have to use the oven to heat anything up, but it's great during any season. The quesadillas can be cooked directly from the freezer on an iron skillet. It was so easy!

Freezer Meal Menu:

• Sweet Potato-Sweet Pepper Quesadillas with homemade salsa verde Defrost salsa with salad and brownies. Quesadillas can be cooked on an iron skillet directly from the freezer
• Black Bean-Corn-Edamame Salad with Cilantro-Lime Dressing Defrost and mix in a bowl
• Red Velvet Cheesecake Brownies Defrost and enjoy

Quesadillas: 
The recipe that I based this from used corn and since the salads had corn, I decided to use sweet potatoes and sweet peppers since I had so many peppers this time of year from my produce delivery. I diced the sweet potatoes very small the same size as sweet potatoes and cooked them on a skillet in olive oil with no seasoning, just a bit of salt. I used the Chile and Onion Trader Joe's tortillas. You have to be very careful with tortillas that you buy if you're shopping in traditional grocery stores because of the funky ingredients so I always buy ours at Trader Joe's. I made 30 quesadillas on a large non-stick griddle. I made the salsa verde with roasted tomatillos, onion, and jalapenos seasoned with lime, honey, cumin and salt. To cook quesadillas, warm them on both sides in an iron skillet. Cut in wedges and top with salsa and sour cream.

 

Homemade Tomatillo Salsa packs with the quesadillas.

Salad:

On Labor Day weekend, I had trouble finding fresh corn in Indiana since it was a bit late in the season. But I found an Amish produce stand where I picked up two dozen ears of corn by my in-laws lake house. I used one dozen for the freezer meal salads and the other dozen was for us to keep for the winter. I cut the corn off the cobs, then cooked the kernels in boiling water. You can also use frozen corn for this recipe since you're going to put it right back in the freezer if you make this in the off-season.

I cooked dried black beans in the slow cooker, which is my favorite method. Check out my post. If you use a 14oz can of black beans for each salad, make sure you rinse and drain it first. I always cook my own beans because you end up opening up way too many cans. Plus, it's more eco-friendly and budget conscious if you cook your own dried beans. You will need 1 1/2 cups for each batch for the recipe below.


Brownies:
These were very rich so I made two batches for the 6 meals so people would have a small sweet after dinner. I used a nice quality dark chocolate from Trader Joe's for the brownies. They were amazing!

I hope you enjoy these freezer meal posts. I really enjoy freezer cooking and our monthly exchanges. I usually set aside a couple weekends a month to make my meals on the weeks that we're home. Sometimes I have help from Ava and other times Aaron will entertain her outside while I'm cooking. Then we average a freezer meal per week, which we reserve for a Monday or Tuesday night.

Freezer Meal: Sweet Potato-Chickpea Curry & Naan Bread

Last Sunday, Ava and I went to our third freezer meals exchange group. We take turns hosting the big swap. We trade family meals that we'll use for the next month. We trade 4 complete meals, but we plan to have more people in the group so we can have 5 meals to trade and people can have their pick for variety. One of the moms couldn't make it this month, but three of us met up tonight to swap meals. I'm really happy to have these meals in the freezer because we average one freezer meal per week. It's so convenient! The advantage that I found with the group is that we keep ourselves on track with the bulk cooking and then trade for a variety of different meals. We started the group in January and held our first meet-up in February an original four La Leche League moms. Since we're like-minded moms (eco-friendly, health-conscious) we started out with the guidelines to use as much local, organic ingredients as possible. Our meat choices must be local and natural too. We cook a family meal and provide an entree, side dish, and dessert. If your dish requires items from a pantry, then you need to provide it. We include the instructions for reheating and finishing the meal. When we started I bought some cheap casserole dishes to use for freezing. Anna told us how to package with freezing our meals into standard dishes and bags in the freezer to minimize space and eliminate the need for passing around dishes. I stocked up on plastic freezer bags, wraps, and foils and away we went.

We've discovered that it's helpful to spread out the cooking in multiple days. Yes, it requires some planning! I select my meal for the next month on the day we meet so I can spend the entire month planning. I consider the month ahead and plan the weekends when we're home to cook. It's working really well! I usually make an extra family portion for our dinner either cooking it fresh or adding to the freezer stash.

This month, I made a Chickpea-Sweet Potato, Cauliflower Curry with homemade curry paste with homemade Naan Bread, from my Simply in Season cookbook.I always cook dried chickpeas for the curry in the slow cooker. I provided a cup of Jasmine rice for every meal and a set of cookies for dessert (either Thumbprints or Sesame Sunflower Seed Refrigerator cookies).

I normally make the chickpea curry using a pre-made sauce from Trader Joe's. Since I was making such a large batch of curry I wanted to spread it out over 2 cooking days and make the curry paste from my favorite cookbook, Feeding the Whole Family. I spread it out in multiple steps: shopping for ingredients, cooking dried chickpeas in the slow cooker, cooking curry and naan bread batches in 2 different weekends, and baking cookies over 2 different weeks. It worked out very well! I used the time to make enough for our meal and then freeze the rest. This made it really easy to do the bulk cooking.

This version of the curry was made with: crushed tomatoes, chickpeas, sweet potatoes, onions, carrots, coconut milk, cooked in coconut oil and seasoned with a generous portion of curry paste and sea salt. It was delicious served over the Jasmine rice. I finally nailed the Naan bread recipe, too! Aaron and Ava love it. You can reheat the naan in an iron skillet.

Next month, I'm going to make a Vietmanese meal with chicken Bahn Mi sandwiches and vegetarian pho. I'm going to pickle some veggies for sandwich. I'll reuse the small 4oz jars that I got from the pimentos that I bought for my March meal, Chicken Spaghetti casserole.

Freezer Meals Club and Sweet Potato-Black Bean Enchiladas with Homemade Sauce

I cleared a space in my freezer. Five pans of enchiladas.

Last night was my first meet up for the Freezer Meals group that I joined. One of the moms in my La Leche League group had the idea to start up a new group and there are five moms that are participating in this first meeting. Freezer cooking is a whole new world for me. I heard about stocking your freezer when you're expecting a baby, but I had no idea how to do it. Any busy family would find it helpful to have meals prepped in the freezer to whip out for a week night. I work from home two days a week, which helps because when I work in the office I don't have time to cook in the evening. I usually cook on Sundays for the week anyway. So freezer cooking appealed to me because you cook in bulk.

Our Ground rules: Our group decided to exchange frozen meals to serve 5 people in family. The meals should be healthy and if you include meat, it should be locally sourced without antibiotics. The idea is to provide a meal with a side dish or dessert and any add-on items for the pantry. We wrap up the meals in plastic wrap or foil and then freeze for the monthly exchange. The week before, the women add a blog post with their upcoming menu as the RSVP. I decided to make 5 meals to giveaway and 1 meal for ourselves, which I cooked on Sunday night.

My first freezer meal is Sweet Potato-Black Bean Enchiladas with homemade sauce and glazed carrots. I was disappointed with the corn tortillas because many broke open after I rolled them in the pans. But once you put the sauce on top, you won't notice. I make this filling all the time for my own family, but I wanted to make a homemade sauce similar to the one that my family makes.

Enchiladas cooked!

Enchiladas wrapped and ready to go with the sauce and side dishes. I packed shredded cheese separately for the exchange (left unfrozen).

Freezing the meals was interesting! I'm lucky to have another refrigerator in our garage so I could manage the bulk cooking. I cooked the enchilada sauce last Sunday while Ava was playing with Grandma and Grandpa. I stored a quadruple batch of sauce in the fridge all week. For the dried black beans, I had to cook it in the slow cooker in two batches because there were so many beans. I cooked 1 batch on Sunday overnight and the next batch while the slow cooker was still out on Monday while we were at work. Again, I'm glad we had lots of refrigerator space to store all those cooked beans! Then this weekend, I cooked the rest of the filling - sweet potatoes and onions with peppers. Saturday night, I assembled the enchiladas and placed them in the pans to freeze. I portioned the sauce in freezer bags separately because I read from another website that tortillas would be soggy if they were frozen with the sauce. It was helpful to space out the cooking load to several days.

Red Enchilada Sauce (courtesy of Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon)
Makes 3 cups 

I quadrupled this recipe to make 6 pans of enchiladas and I still have a couple more servings left with all the sauce. So I froze an extra batch to use later. The sauce is very thick compared to store bought. I couldn't find enough dried chiles for my extra large batch so I used 3 large poblano peppers chopped and cooked them with the onions and garlic.

Ingredients:
4 ounces whole dried New Mexico or Ancho chiles
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 tsp ground cumin
2 cups beef or chicken stock
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 small cans of tomato paste
1 tbs red wine vinegar
Sea salt to taste

Preparation:

• Wearing gloves, clean the dried chiles by removing the stems and seeds. Don't touch your face. Set aside in a bowl.
• Saute onion in olive oil. Add cumin and cook, stirring constantly, until well amalgamated into the oil. Whisk in garlic, tomato paste and vinegar. Add stock and chiles, bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer. Simmer covered for about 45 minutes. 
• Pass the sauce through a food mill or puree in the food processor. Season with salt to taste.

Sweet Potato-Black Bean Enchiladas
Makes 12

Ingredients:

• 1 cup dried black beans, soaked over night. 
• 1 sweet potato, chopped in bite-sized pieces
• 1/2 onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 jalapeno pepper
• Taco seasoning - dried oregano, ground cumin, and chili powder (1 tsp of each)
• Sea salt (about 1/2 tsp) for the filling
• 12 corn tortillas
• 2 cups of red enchilada sauce
• 1 cup of shredded cheddar cheese for topping
• Garnish suggestions: sour cream, avocado, chopped fresh cilantro

 Preparation: these can be done ahead of time and stored separately in the refrigerator.

• Cook soaked black beans in the slow cooker overnight or all day (on LOW for 8-hours). Water should be about 2-inches above the beans. See my blog post on detailed instructions.
• In a large preheated skillet, add cooking spray or olive oil. Cook onions, peppers, and sweet potatoes on medium-low until the sweet potatoes are tender (about 25 minutes). Add seasoning to the vegetables when you start to saute. 
• To assemble: Mix black beans with sweet potato-onion mixture and add sea salt. Warm tortillas. Fill corn tortillas with about 3 tablespoons of bean-sweet potato mixture.
• **If cooking immediately: coat 9x13" casserole dish with cooking spray. Add a few spoonfuls of enchilada sauce to the bottom of the dish. Begin adding enchiladas to the pan. You can fit 8 across vertically and 4 horizontally at the top. 
• **If freezing, line the casserole dish with plastic wrap. Build enchiladas in the dish in the same format. Freeze sauce in a separate container or bag. When cooking, add defrosted sauce on the bottom of the pan before baking. 
• Add remaining sauce by spreading evenly on the enchiladas. Sprinkle with shredded cheese.
• Bake in a 350 degree preheated oven for 45 minutes.

If you have extra filling left, you can squeeze in more enchiladas or save it for a burrito for a quick meal later in the week.

Serve the enchiladas with vegetables or a green salad. Garnish with hot sauce, avocado, fresh cilantro, and sour cream. Let me know what you think!

Mexican 7 Layer Dip

The Roman Numeral Installation outside of my office building.

Georgia Street – constructed in time for Super Bowl.

Minced black olives make the flavor more evenly distributed.

All 7-Layers complete

Today is Super Bowl Sunday! It's been such a fun time to live in Indy. Aaron and I work on Monument Circle and our company, ExactTarget, has been enjoying the festivities and helping take part in the marketing efforts. We took pictures in front of the roman numeral installation and we had a fun company party last Wednesday. All three of us had fun!

The entire city has been enjoying the Super Bowl Village and NFL experience. The zip line has been the major attraction along with the temporary party tents and outdoor live concerts. The Host Committee has also added breast cancer awareness and even the first ever lactation room in the village. It's been wonderful that they have planned for families!































We're heading to a friend's house to watch the game and I just made Mexican 7-Layer Dip. It's a recipe that my step-mom made when I was growing up for all the pool parties we'd have with the neighbors. I make it in a casserole dish so it serves a crowd. The dip has lots of flavor and the difference is taco seasoning is mixed in the sour cream.


Mexican 7-Layer Dip
Serves a crowd

Ingredients:

• 1-14oz can refried beans
• 1-16oz container sour cream
• 2 cups prepared guacamole
• 1 small packet of taco seasoning (or use a blend of chili powder, cumin, oregano, and cayenne)
• 3 tomatoes, diced
• 3 green onions, thinly sliced
• 1-14oz can of whole black olives, minced
• 2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

Preparation:

• Spread refried beans, guacamole, in the bottom of a 9x13 inch casserole dish. Mix taco seasoning with sour cream and spread on top of the guacamole. 
• Add diced tomatoes, green onions, olives, and shredded cheddar cheese.

Serve with tortilla chips. The dip is so dense, it works best to offer a serving spoon for guest to scoop out the dip onto their plates. 

It's really easy to make and the dip is always a crowd pleasure!

Cauliflower-Sweet Potato and Chickpea Curry

Last January, we went full force into the vegetarian lifestyle. Around October, we started to eat a bit of meat. Aaron eats meat more than I do, but I eat some meat. I'd classify myself at 95% vegetarian. I really craved bacon when we weren't eating any meat. So on occasion, I've eaten bacon, fish, or turkey on Thanksgiving. But our family meals at home are still vegetarian.

I changed the way that I cook and stock the pantry. I buy whole grains and dried beans from the bulk bins at Whole Foods. Ava loves to help out with shopping at the bulk bins! I've learned to cook dried beans easily in the slow cooker. I typically cook a big batch of beans every week in the slow cooker for many different meals. We often cook pinto beans which are great whole or refried for burritos. I also like to make chickpeas for curry, felafel, and hummus.

This curry recipe is something that I threw together one night and it ended up in our regular rotation. I like this dish because it's hearty with all the veggies, beans, and rice, and I take a short cut with store bought curry sauce. I add milk to the sauce to stretch the sauce since there are so many vegetables and it boosts the protein factor. It's relatively easy to make because you just have to chop the veggies and let the curry simmer on the stove top. As a busy working mother, I really like the meals that I make in stages so that I can walk away from the kitchen. I tend to cook in "bursts" now.

If you don't live near a Trader Joe's to buy this curry sauce, substitute your favorite curry sauce. The sauce has a spicy punch, but adding the milk cools it down enough for children. You'll need about 2 cups of liquid to simmer the vegetables. The sauce has quite a bit of sodium, so be careful not to add to much salt. I cook the chickpeas myself so I add a bit of salt to season since the beans don't have any salt.

Serving suggestion: The curry is great served with warm naan bread and fresh seasonal fruit.

Cauliflower-Sweet Potato and Chickpea Curry
Serves 4 (main dish, 6 side dish)

Ingredients: 

• 1 medium head of cauliflower, cut into florets
• 1 medium sweet potato, cut into bite-sized pieces
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 tsp minced garlic
• 2 tsp olive oil
• 3 cups cooked chickpeas
• 1 jar Trader Joe's Yellow Curry sauce
• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 cup frozen peas (optional)
• 1/2 tsp salt *if using unsalted home-cooked chickpeas.
• 1 cup jasmine rice

Preparation:

• Chop vegetables. Preheat a large dutch oven or pot to medium heat. Drizzle olive oil. Add diced onion, sweet potato and garlic. Saute until onion is translucent. 
• Add cauliflower florets and sauce. Pour milk in the empty jar and put the cap back on. Shake the jar so that the milk loosen the thick curry sauce and pour the contents into the pot with the vegetables. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to a simmer. Add cooked chickpeas.
•  Cook jasmine rice according to the package directions.
• Simmer for 30-45 minutes for the flavors to combine. Add frozen peas in the last 10 minutes of the simmering process. Vegetables should be tender.
• Serve curry over hot cooked rice.

I made this curry for my in-laws and my mother-in-law really liked it. She suggested that I post it onto the blog. Enjoy!