Freezer Cooking

One of my favorite things to do is to prepare freezer meals. My hubby travels quite often so I am left to care for our seven children. The days I am alone caring for our busy household and home schooling three of our children I feel overwhelmed, exhausted, and outnumbered by the time I should begin preparing dinner. Freezer meals have kept us from driving through fast food restaurants on the nights dad is out of town. I have been a member of a once a month cooking club for almost two years now. Between cooking with a group of friends and making meals on my own, I keep a great supply of meals on hand.

Multi Tasking Mom's recipe swap this week is make ahead meals. Here is one that I can easily make in large batches, separate and freeze I found it in one of my grandmother's church cookbooks. My kids love this meal, and we rarely have leftovers. It is a little bland in color, so I make a side of peas, carrots or a tossed salad to liven it up. My friend Rapunzel puts peas right in the meat mixture for a one dish meal.

Just a note: If you do have left overs and want to reheat in the microwave, we peel the biscuits off, heat the meat mixture until it's hot then add the biscuits for about 10 seconds more. This keeps the biscuits from getting hard.

CB Casserole
Serves 6-8

1 ½ lb. ground beef
1 onion, chopped
2-8 oz. packages cream cheese
2 cans cream of mushroom soup
1 cup of milk

Have on hand: Three tubes of refrigerated biscuits (the cheap kind that come in a four pack).

Cooking day instructions: Brown ground beef with onion. Thoroughly cream the milk, cream cheese and soup together. Add ground beef mixture to soup mixture. Spread in bottom of greased 9 X 13 pan or in a freezer container. Do not place biscuits on top of casserole at this time. Label and freeze.

Serving day instructions: Thaw. If frozen ahead in a freezer container, spread into a greased 9 x 13 pan. Bake meat mixture at 375° until it bubbles all across the top (20-30 minutes). Cut biscuits into fourths. Place biscuits evenly over the top of hot mixture. Bake for an additional 15-20 minutes or until biscuits are brown and completely done.