The Healthy Tales

Posts Tagged ‘freezer food’

Happy Labor Day Weekend!  I’ve taken the day off to run errands – mostly involving my name change.  Bleh!  I hope it will be fast and painless but these are government agencies so you never know what to expect.

My recipe for today is a family favorite.  By family favorite, I mean my entire mother’s side of the family.  I don’t know who developed this recipe or when we started eating it but you can’t pry our fingers away from a pot when it has been cooked.  Normally you have to make 2 batches for us crazy people – 1 to eat immediately and 1 to freeze.

When my grandmother was sick, we use to joke with her that this recipe had special healing powers.  She would go in once a month to have her chemo treatment.  She always picked the first Sunday of the month.  She would feel terrible the rest of Sunday and through Tuesday.  Wednesday was my day off at the time other than Sunday so I would always go over to visit on both of those days.  On chemo week, my mother and I would gather all of the ingredients for this recipe and get to work in her kitchen while she rested and then when it was done we’d bring her a big bowl and she would start feeling better.   I don’t think this recipe really has healing powers but she always knew once she had chicken spaghetti she would be on the upswing the rest of the month.  I guess it was just a small thing to look forward to.

Chicken Spaghetti

• chicken (you can use anywhere from 1 breast to a 1.25 lb of chicken breasts)
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 stick oleo or butter (you can cut this or eliminate it – I normally eliminate)
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 can tomato soup
• 1 can died rotel (regular or mild)
• 1 pound of Velveeta Cheese (look for the light or 2% package)
• 1 package of vermicelli noodles

1. Boil chicken with 1 bay leaf until cooked (~30 to 45 mins). Let cool
2. Saute onion in butter in an oven safe soup or stock pot
3. Shred your chicken into small pieces
4. Add Can of Tomato soup and can of Rotel into onion pot.  Stir until mixed.
5. Start boiling your noodles.  Boil in same water that chicken was boiled in to add flavor
6. Chop your Velveeta cheese into small chunks.  Start adding to soupy mix.  Stir until melted.  Add more, Stir.  Repeat until all cheese has been incorporated and is fully melted (very important!!)
7. Add in Chicken to mixture.
8. Drain noodles.
9. Add cooked noodles into cheesy chicken mixture and mix very well.  Make sure all noodles are coated and mixture is throughout the mass of noodles.
10. Bake in oven at 350 degrees until the mixture bubbles.  Normally this is 10-15 minutes.  Not very long at all

I don’t have all the nutritional information on this recipe but if you stick with a 1 cup serving it is 6 Weight Watcher points.  This recipe makes 6-8 servings depending on how big your 1 cup serving is.

Happy Friday once again.  I am glad to see the weekend here.  I would say I’m having a quiet weekend with Mike away at a bachelor hunting/camping party but one of my best friends is coming into town tomorrow morning.  So quiet, but not so quiet.

I know when I set out to share recipes on this site I said I wanted to keep them healthy and Weight Watcher friendly.  Unfortunately, not everything can be healthified or made to be WW friendly and you can’t deny yourself of everything.  Especially not this week’s recipe.

I first had this recipe in college.  I was living in the dorms and on my own food wise as the meal plans (and food) was horrible.  My grandmother got wind of this and started making food and freezing it for me so I wouldn’t starve.  Often times she just made a recipe up from her head and it wasn’t anything fancy but boy was it good and I was happy.  This recipe never really had an official name.  Sometimes it was Taco Pie and other times it was Frito Pie.  Tasted the same either way.  It works well frozen and defrosted and your kids will love it.  Just don’t expect it to be the healthiest thing.  Also, since it is a made up recipe and I never got to cook it with her, the measurements are approximations.

Taco/Frito Pie

• 1 bag of Fritos, crushed
• 1 pound of lean ground beef
• 1 can of turkey chili
• 1 can of beans, Texas Style
• cheddar cheese
• 1/2 can cream style corn
• 1 box Jiffy Corn Bread Mix

Begin by browning the ground beef.  Next puree that can of beans.  Grab an oven-friendly casserole dish and start layering.  There is no measurements to your layer.  Just make sure you can spread a thin (or thick) layer across the dish before moving onto the next layer.  Layers are: Fritos, chili, meat, beans, then cheese.  She normally did 3 layers but 2 would be fine as well.  For the topping make the Jiffy Corn Bread batter following the box directions*.  Mix in a half can of cream style corn.  Pour batter on top of your layered dish and then place in oven.  Bake until the topping is brown (follow Jiffy directions for oven temperature).

* Jiffy mix can be infested with weevils so make sure to buy it the day you make it and sift through it first.

Happy Friday!  I am glad the weekend is here.  I’m heading home to visit my family so no cooking for me this weekend.  I am hoping to see if I can bring back some chicken rollups though as I haven’t had any in a very long time.  We’ll see though.

So this is my first week with Freezer Food Friday.  The purpose of this meme is to share a meal that you can make ahead and freeze to eat later.  So this week, my recipe is for Red Beans and Rice.  It is an old southern favorite and one that freezes very well.

Red Beans and Rice

• 3 cans of Green Giant Red Beans, drained**
• 1 small onion, diced*
• Smoked sausage, diced (use up to 1 pound)
• Celery, diced*
• garlic, minced (to taste)
• Cajun seasoning (to taste)
• Brown Rice

Saute the onion, celery, and garlic in olive oil.  Remove.  Brown the sausage in the same pan.  Drain sausage on paper towel (pat to remove excess oil & grease).  Put beans in a stock pot and then stir in the sausage, onion, celery, and garlic.  Add 2 cans of water to pot and let cook for 30 minutes.  Add cajun seasoning for flavor.  Serve over brown rice.

I tend to do 1/4 cup rice, 1/2 cup bean mixture.  You can serve with cornbread or muffins.  The Vitatop Corn muffins work well and they are only 1 WW point.

This recipe will make 6-8 servings depending on how you serve the rice/bean ratio and the points will be around 5-6 per serving depending on rice/beans.

*frozen, diced onion and celery will do.  If you have a Kroger, look for the Recipe starters bag that has celery, onions, and green bell peppers already diced and use that.  It saves time and money.

**any brand will do but they should be red beans if you absolutely cannot find them you can use Kidney beans but there is a taste difference.

I was looking for some new health related memes and came across Freezer Food Friday.  This meme is dedicated to passing along recipes that can be made ahead and frozen.

Meal planning is one of those tasks that I am terrible in doing.  I always have the grand idea to sit down and think about what to cook but then I head to the grocery store and it all falls apart because I didn’t plan right.  I tend to buy items but none of them go together and when I do have a recipe in mind I’ll forget an ingredient.

After not planning appropriately, the next downfall of mine is making enough meals to get from Monday through Thursday.  Typically that is just one recipe stretched out over 4 days with 2 people.  So by the time Friday hits, I’m tired of eating the same thing or we’ve run out and I don’t want to cook.  So I’m going to try the cook and freeze half method.  I think this will help with the budget as well as help with the weekend revolt I tend to have against the kitchen.  The revolution leads to eating out which blows the budget and packs on the pounds.

I’m excited to start this meme on Friday.  I am going to try and ensure most of my recipes are Weight Watcher Friendly as this is my healthy blog.    My first recipe will be for my favorite – Red Beans and Rice so come back and grab this freezer friendly, and heart healthy recipe!