Family Fun in September

A freezer full of good food

     This past Sunday was our family dinner day.  Our son from Iowa was able to come in and my mom was feeling well enough to come also.  That made it eight for dinner.  

    We started out by assembling freezer meals that will go in the crockpot.  I had spent most of Saturday chopping up meat and veggies.  I had everything in labeled containers.  Before my daughter and daughter-in-law arrived I set up an extra table in the eating area to hold the extra ingredients.

   My daughter who is on modified bedrest with her pregnancy I had sit at the table on a bench so she could put her feet up.  My daughter-in-law took over the countertop in the kitchen.  We then spent a couple of hours browning ground beef,  chopping up onions, red peppers, apples and meat.  We then bagged the different ingredients and labeled the bags.  I took them downstairs to the freezer after we finished each one.  It was taking longer than I had anticipated so we had to break for dinner.

     Dinner was a meat sauce made with two different sauces that I had made earlier and froze.  I added ground beef, Italian sausage and zucchini from the garden.  I served it over penne along with a salad with tomatoes and cucumbers from the garden and some garlic bread.  We then celebrated my and our youngest's birthdays with an ice cream cake and cayenne cocoa cupcakes from Wildtree.  

     Then it was back to work putting together the last of the meals.  By this time my daughter was quite tired so I did the rest of the meals for her while she sat on the couch.  We were watching the Packers beat the Saints as we finished up.  My daughter and daughter-in-law both went home with 16 meals that they will be able to just throw in the crockpot in the morning and have a healthy hot dinner in the evening.  The best part was I got to use a lot of produce from the garden.  We used green peppers, carrots, zucchini and celery that was all grown organically.  Next year I might have to try onions as well.

      It was a fun day even though it took me most of Monday to get everything cleaned up.  This week we are going to try the Hawaiian Chicken Sandwiches.

Maple trees out my front door

A visiting heron