Meal Prepping From The Pantry #5

 

This time I meal prepped a little bit differently.  I made components to future meals rather than entire meals.  First I made myself a loaf of my favorite homemade whole wheat bread.  I was out of bread and had used up my shopping budget plus I had decided I really want to bake my own bread so it is REAL food that I am eating.  The label on a loaf of bread is way too long for my comfort.  I used my bread machine on the dough cycle which freed me up to work on other things until it was time to shape the loaf and let it rise again.

 

After ten minutes in the oven I put them on a rack to cool

While the loaf was on its second rise before it went into the oven I also made a batch of pizza dough in the bread machine.  Once the dough had mixed I let it rest for ten minutes before removing it from the machine and dividing it into four equal portions.  I then rolled out two of them into a small round pizza crust and baked them for ten minutes in the oven at 400° to par bake them.  I then set the crusts on a cooling rack and repeated myself with the rest of the pizza dough.  By the time all four crusts were baked the bread had risen and was ready to go into the oven.

 

Three crusts ready to freeze for the future

A homemade frozen pizza!

After the crusts cooled I topped one of the four with leftovers I had in the refrigerator to make a “take and bake pizza” of my own.  I then carefully slid it into a one gallon Ziploc bag I had labeled with the date.  I then put the other crusts into their own labeled Ziploc bags and stacked them with the pizza on the top and slid them right into the freezer.  I now have four quick and easy pizza options at the ready.

 

It has been a bit of time since I baked my own bread
The bread & the quiche turned out fabulous!

I still had a partial bag of potatoes left in the refrigerator that had been given to me at Easter and I had just purchased a fresh bag on sale.  I took the remainder of the older potatoes, peeled and cut them up and then boiled them in a large pot.  Once they were cooked I mashed them up with butter, milk to be a bit fancy some dried parsley to make a nice big batch of mashed potatoes.  

I mashed the potatoes & added butter, milk & parsley

Whipped to perfection!

I placed the potatoes in smaller freezer containers and once they had completely cooled I added lids I had labeled and put them away in the freezer to have on hand as quick and easy sides for future meals.  All I have to do is thaw and remove the potatoes to a dish to simply reheat them in the microwave next time I want some mashed potatoes with my meal.  The potato peelings went out to the chickens.

 

Par boil for about 5 minutes

Drain

Flash freeze for 30 minutes

Lastly, I peeled and cut up some extra carrots I had and par boiled them for about five minutes before rinsing them in cold water to stop the cooking process.  I then drained them and laid them out on a baking sheet, then placed them into the freezer for about thirty minutes.  Next I removed them to a quart size Ziploc bag I had labeled and then placed them back into the freezer in my veggie bin to wait until I’m ready to use them with a future meal.  I gave the carrot ends to the bunny and the peelings went into the scrap bag I keep in the freezer to make broth with.

 

Yum!

Cooled, labeled & ready to freeze

Ready to go back into the freezer

Celery, onion, carrot scraps + garlic skins after I had pressed it
This will make some delicious & flavorful stock one day

This time I was able to fill in a gap in my pantry by baking a loaf of bread, added some easy pizza options to my freezer and used up a partial bag of potatoes as well as some extra carrots so they didn’t go bad and in the process I’d have some easy side dishes all ready to go.  Once again, no food waste, which is always the goal.  I like it!