Chopping and Chatting

The leaves are starting to change, the air is cool and brisk in the mornings, my boots are eagerly awaiting their seasonal debut, and pumpkin spice lattes have arrived at Starbucks. It's official fall is here! You know what else seems to happen during fall? The meals seem to get heartier and cozier. More baking and roasting start happening in my kitchen and the crock pot comes out of hiding.

So a few weeks ago I invited a few of the girls over to prepare and put together crock pot freezer meals. This is something I've never done before, but have seen lots of pins floating around Pinterest and it peaked my interest. Crock pot cooking isn't all that difficult, in fact it's down right easy; but this makes it even easier! You chop all the ingredients at one time, put them all into their respective gallon freezer bags and voila done! Just thaw out the night before and dump into the crock pot in the morning. Set it and forget it!

Because I volunteered to host this first attempt at crock pot freezer meals, I decided upon the five recipes and did the grocery shopping to pick up everything we would need. Then everyone just paid me back for the cost of the ingredients ($50). Additionally I labeled all the freezer bags and printed out the recipes to save us a little time. I cannot tell you how many blog post I read that said it took them one hour to make 12 meals or some variation of that. I'm calling bull s*@#. Realistically 2-3 hours is a better estimate if you are attempting this as a party or get together. 

The time flew by, because two to three hours in the kitchen chopping and chatting with a few of your favorite gal pals makes it fun! This is especially true if you are like me and my friends; because we like to think we're Julia Childs and drink a little wine during the cooking process!

If you are thinking of hosting a crock pot freezer party yourself here are a few things to take into consideration:

1. Space - make sure you have plenty of clear counter/table space!

2. Utensils - We easily used 8-10 bowls to hold all of our chopped ingredients before assembling the bags. Cutting boards and knives too!

You can have each guest bring their own if you are worried you don't have enough.

3. Time - as I mentioned above, you can count on a minimum of 2 hours

4. Organization - I'm sure there are several ways to arrive at the end product, but we chopped everything for all recipes first, and as we finished chopping an ingredient we placed it in a bowl on the table by the freezer bags and recipe card and then assembled each recipe one by one. 

5.  Getting it home - we only made 5 different meals, but five gallon bags full of ingredients can be tricky to carry home, so provide guest with a box or bag large and sturdy enough to transport meals home. 

6. Season to Taste - I would also make sure to remind each guest to salt and pepper to taste once their meals are in the crock pot. None of the recipes we prepared called for salt or pepper, but I think almost every recipe would benefit from a dash or two.

7. Guest - I would limit the guest list to 4-6 guest. Even with a large kitchen, the saying "too many cooks in the kitchen" still applies!

These are the recipes I chose, but it might also be fun to let each guest contribute a recipe. 

The Beef stew, and Cilantro Lime Chicken  recipes came from Six Sisters Stuff blog. 

The Teriyaki Chicken and Creamy Italian Chicken came from this Today Show link, and the 

Pork and Tomatillo Stew was a spin off of this recipe from Cooking Light.

lots of recycling!

So far the only one my family has tried is the Teriyaki Chicken. It was good, but a little too sweet in my opinion. It was also disappointed that the peppers turned to mush. In the future I think I would leave the fresh bell peppers out of it until about half way through cooking, but thats just me!

Overall it was a fun and productive afternoon. I can't wait to try the rest of our crock pot meals, and when they run out I will be ready to host another chopping and chatting party!