Friday Favorites – Seriously Good Freezer Meals Cookbook – A Must – Have Book for Freezer Cooking!

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Friday Favorites – Seriously Good Freezer Meals Cookbook 

We are back again with our Friday Favorites feature, sharing some of our favorite products with you all. These are products that we have found that have stood the test of time & have been high-quality products that we would recommend to friends & family & therefore, wanted to share with all of you, too.

Today I wanted to share with you a cookbook that has quickly become one of my favorite cookbooks I’ve tried! And even better, it’s from a local Northwest blogger, our friend Karrie Truman over at the Happy Moneysaver website. Karrie is a long-time blogger over in the Tri-Cities, WA area & she has been sharing some amazing recipes on her blog for years.

Now, Karrie has taken all of her beloved freezer friendly recipes & created her first cookbook & it definitely does not disappoint! I am loving all the delicious recipes, but even better, I love how she has specific steps for making these as freezer meals by providing the measurements/steps for cooking these meals in batches for multiple freezer meals, as well as tips to make sure you are freezing your meal appropriately for the best flavor, knowing which foods work best for freezing & more knowledgeable information so you can feel confident as you prepare your freezer meals.

Karrie’s new cookbook, Seriously Good Freezer Meals , is a collection of her best tried & true freezer meal recipes and it is found in many locations both in-stores and online.

A few places to find the cookbook:

Amazon

Target

Barnes & Noble

Recipes from the “Seriously Good Freezer Meals Cookbook”:

Image credit: Charity Burggraaf 

We are sharing two recipes from Karrie Truman’s “Seriously Good Freezer Meal Cookbook“ . She has so many delicious recipes but these are two great spring recipes that are light yet very flavorful to fill your freezer for a meal & dessert on a busy evening.

I included the snippets with Karrie’s own words about each of the dishes, too, so you’ll see exactly why you need to add these to your recipe rotation. Thank you to Karrie for allowing us to share these recipes from her book with all of you!

Lemon Dill Tilapia Tacos

Image credit: Charity Burggraaf

“Girl, what have you done?” Those were my husband’s first words after he laid eyes on these tacos the first night I made them. With all their delightful flavors of garlic, lively lemon and dill, I’m certain you too will swoon over these, especially when you realize how fast they are to make! – Karrie Truman

Ingredients:

Makes 6 servings.

1/4 cup (60 mL) melted butter

1/4 cup (60 mL) chicken broth

Grated zest and juice of 2 large lemons

11/2 tsp (7 mL) dried dill

1/2 tsp (2 mL) minced garlic

2 lbs (1 kg) skinless tilapia fillets (about six 6 oz/175 g pieces)

To serve

2 tbsp (30 mL) olive oil

12 6-inch (15 cm) corn tortillas, warmed

Toppings

1 cup (250 mL) shredded lettuce

1 cup (250 mL) canned or cooked black beans, drained and rinsed (optional)

1/4 cup (60 mL) salsa or pico de gallo (optional)

Directions:

1. In a small bowl, whisk together melted butter, chicken broth, lemon zest, lemon juice, dill and garlic.
2. Place marinade mixture and tilapia fillets in a gallon-size (4 L) freezer bag or bowl. (Label the bag if freezing for later.) Seal bag, removing as much air as possible, or cover bowl. Transfer to refrigerator to marinate for 15 minutes.

Make It Now Preheat oven to 400°F (200°C). Drizzle olive oil over a rimmed baking sheet. Transfer baking sheet to oven while it preheats. Once oven is preheated, remove baking sheet from oven, add fillets and return it to oven. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, until fish is flaky and lightly crisped on the edges. Remove from oven and chop into chunks. Arrange tortillas on a work surface. Evenly divide fish and lettuce, plus beans and salsa (if using), among tortillas. Serve.

Make It a Freezer Meal Freeze bag.

Thaw and Cook Place bag in the refrigerator for 12 to 24 hours to thaw. Preheat oven to 400°F (200°C). Drizzle olive oil over a rimmed baking sheet. Transfer baking sheet to oven while it preheats. Once oven is preheated, remove baking sheet from oven, add fillets and return it to oven. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, until fish is flaky and lightly crisped on the edges. Remove from oven and chop into chunks. Arrange tortillas on a work surface. Evenly divide fish and lettuce, plus beans and salsa, if using, among tortillas. Serve.

Tip: You can also make a dilly sauce, if desired. In a small saucepan, combine 2 tsp (10 mL) cornstarch and the marinade from the bag. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring constantly, until thickened, about 3 to 5 minutes. Remove from heat. Build your tacos and then drizzle a little lemon dill sauce overtop.

Mascarpone Key Lime Mini Pies

Image credit: Charity Burggraaf 

From Karrie:  These mini pies are truly my biggest addiction. The refreshing light, sweet flavor of Key limes and the creamy, airy mascarpone are the obvious stars, but the real surprise lies in the unique taste of cardamom in the graham cracker crust. It’s a magical combination! Makes about 12 mini pies.

Ingredients:

Filling

8 oz (250 g) mascarpone cheese, softened

1 can (14 oz or 300 mL) sweetened condensed milk

3/4 cup (175 mL) freshly squeezed or bottled Key lime juice

2 cups (500 mL) frozen whipped topping (Cool Whip), about 6 oz/175 g

Crust

11/4 cups (310 mL) graham cracker crumbs (about 41/2 oz/130 g)

1/4 cup (60 mL) butter, melted

1/2 tsp (2 mL) ground cardamom or ground cinnamon

Garnishes

Additional frozen whipped topping (Cool Whip), optional

Sliced Key limes (optional)

Directions:

1. Filling: In the bowl of a stand mixer (or in a medium bowl, using an electric hand mixer), beat mascarpone cheese on High for about 1 minute, until creamy. Add condensed milk and lime juice; beat on Medium for about 1 minute, until smooth. Gently fold in whipped topping, until blended.
2. Place 12 silicone muffin liners in a 12-cup muffin tin. Scoop mixture into cups until three-quarters full.
3. Crust: In a medium bowl, combine graham cracker crumbs, melted butter and cardamom, stirring well.
4. Sprinkle crust mixture evenly over each mini pie. Press gently with the back of a spoon to flatten. Freeze for about 2 hours, until firm.

Make It Now Remove from freezer. Gently remove silicone liners and invert mini pies onto a serving plate, crust side down. Top with additional whipped topping and a slice of Key lime, if using. Serve frozen.

Make It a Freezer Meal Remove from freezer. Transfer mini pies, in their silicone liners, to 2 labeled gallon-size (4 L) freezer bags. Seal, removing as much air as possible, and freeze.

Serve Remove from freezer. Gently remove silicone liners and invert mini pies onto a serving plate, crust side down. Top with additional whipped topping and a slice of Key lime, if using. Serve frozen.

Review of Seriously Good Freezer Meals:

I am loving this cookbook because these are not only tried & true freezer meals, but they are great for busy moms & dads who don’t have a lot of extra time to put together extensive meals, so these are meals that are very do-able for any level cook. I am one who looks for the easier & faster recipes as I am not a fan of cooking, so I liked that her recipes were not intimidating to me, but easy to follow & fast to put together for your freezer.

One of my favorite aspects of this cookbook are the batch cooking charts at the bottom of each recipe. The beauty of freezer meal cooking is when you cook in large batches to then make multiple meals for your freezer of each recipe. She breaks it down for beginner, intermediate & advanced freezer meal cooks with all the conversions done for you! I once put together a Freezer Meal cooking night for MOPS and the most complicated part was having to figure out all of the conversions for having multiples for each of the ingredients. So I love that she does all the work for you for each recipe. Plus, she has options to create from 1 batch to 5 batches (which equals 30 servings) at a time.

Karrie also shares a number of tips on best practices to use for Freezer Meal cooking at the beginning of the book – everything from the best containers & bags to use for freezing as well as essential equipment to use, what foods to freeze or not freeze, how to maintain best quality for freezing and how long meals will last frozen. These are all very valuable tips if you are new to freezer cooking.

If you’d like to try your hand at a Freezer Cooking Day where you make multiple meals to fill your freezer, Karrie has plans, recipes, grocery list, and prep lists for beginner, intermediate & advanced levels (7 meals up to 50 meals in one day! Wow!) This additional information in this book with all the charts, plans, and conversions really takes the guesswork out of planning these freezer meals & makes them very do-able for anyone to try your hand at freezer cooking!

Make sure to get your copy of the Seriously Good Freezer Meals Cookbook today! Let us know what your favorite recipe is after you’ve picked up your copy!

 

Recipe & Recipe Photos Courtesy of Seriously Good Freezer Meals: 150 Easy Recipes to Save Your Time, Money & Sanity by Karrie Truman © 2017 www.robertrose.ca Available where books are sold.

Image credit: Charity Burggraaf