Freezer Meals Inspired by Our Childhood Favorites
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- čas přidán 4. 04. 2023
- Today we're taking a little trip down memory lane and sharing freezer meals that are inspired by our childhood favourites.
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Recipes:
~ Sloppy Joes: freezermeals101.com/freezer-s...
~ BBQ Meatloaf: freezermeals101.com/bbq-meatl...
~ Chicken Hurry: recipe in the Club here: mealplan.freezermeals101.com/...
~ Honey Garlic Meatballs: freezermeals101.com/honey-gar...
~ Tante Gisele's Chicken Fried Rice: freezermeals101.com/chicken-f...
~ Tuna Casserole: freezermeals101.com/easy-tuna...
~ Spaghetti Sauce: freezermeals101.com/best-ever...
~ Chili: freezermeals101.com/the-best-...
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I love this video. Lots of fun childhood stories. I was raised by my dad, he raised 2 boys, and 2 girls alone. He was a great cook, but now my sister cooks for him. We ate hamburgers, meatloaf, spaghetti with meatballs. It was all homemade. He made this pickle mix for "subs" that was so good! I make all that today for my little family. Wonderful memories. Thank you for sharing. P.S. I made your Eggroll in a bowl and it is so good! I made 2 batches. The second batch I didn't have soy sauce so I used Hoisin Sauce. Came out great! Thank you!
I don’t remember the name of this recipe but I just loved it : Mix some raw hamburger with a handful of rice, make tiny meatballs and place them in bottom of casserole dish. Thinly slice onions, potatoes and carrots and celery and mix the vegetables together and put over the meatballs. Mix I can tomato soup and 1/2 can water and pour over the mixture. It should cover the potatoes a little. Cover and bake at 350 about 45 min or until vegetables are tender. It smells amazing. This was such a fun video. You two are so great!
Sounds great 👍
It sounds a bit like Shipwreck to me... just a little fancier! lol
I have a happy "cutting pizza with scissors" memory too! :)
When I make lasagna, I prepare it a day ahead and layer it with normal un-cooked noodles (no need to buy the "no-cook" noodles). It totally works.
My mom would make tuna casserole with a box of Mac n cheese, a can of tuna and a can of cream of mushroom soup.
My mom did too! I also did with my kids & still do it to this day once in a while. We are in our 60’s raising grandkids as my daughter passed 5 yrs ago from cancer. We love it! We love homemade better, but sometimes you just need something quicker.😉
I loved the Swanson Meatloaf TV Dinner. It was my Fav because it had Tater Tots, Meatloaf, Green Beans and a Brownie!! To this day I try to recreate those exact flavours. Store bought meatballs taste like that Meatloaf. So If you see me eating meatballs and Tater Tots, with Green Beans and a Brownie- don't ask questions, there is nothing to see here! Keep walking! LOL Isn't it funny how those childhood favourites can take you back? Ahhh this was fun.😂
Christie...that cheese grater was probably a Kitchen Magician. That brought back so many memories. My dad would shred potatoes in ours to make hash browns on Sunday morning.
Eeek! You are 100% right! I found one on Etsy. www.etsy.com/ca/listing/1380458915/avacado-green-1970s-kitchen-magician-usa?gpla=1&gao=1&&Cj0KCQjw_r6hBhDdARIsAMIDhV_AxVnjtBPta8FXFmRpz3Lfzv9cGgrK4N7XhfrIX7HBgGLzGMeJBa4aAsUYEALw_wcB_k_&:pla-1818222634234_m__1380458915enca_102855400&gclid=Cj0KCQjw_r6hBhDdARIsAMIDhV_AxVnjtBPta8FXFmRpz3Lfzv9cGgrK4N7XhfrIX7HBgGLzGMeJBa4aAsUYEALw_wcB
Avocado green, and everything! ❤️
Your spaghetti sauce looks so awesome. I’m going to fully cook it and freeze it in Soupers They’re silicone portioned out containers Food slips easily out of them when food is frozen, then I’ll put all the cubes in one freezer bag I live by myself now so this will be handy to have spaghetti sauce to go
Tuna casserole is one of my favorite childhood meals. My dad was a single dad and he was a good cook. He made tuna casserole, chili, veggie soup, fried chicken, bean bacon soup, meatloaf. We had a few other things but these were always on rotation. When you were talking about hotdogs in your fried rice, it reminded me of us having hotdogs on our pizza. We ate it and liked it. I grew up having macaroni and tomatoes, it was so good. A lot of people in the US that grew up in the south are probably familiar with macaroni and tomatoes. I enjoyed this video, hearing about your youth.
You know, my mom's family has roots in the Ozarks so maybe that's where it came from! She went to cook with her grandmother in a logging camp when she was 15 or 16. Maybe she learned it from her. My great grandmother was born there...
Yes!! Tuna casserole with frozen peas....also goulash(mac noodles, tomato sauce,tomato soup, diced tomatoes,celery, onion and ground beef) These are my childhood comfort meals 😊
We had the goulash on the 101 site today it was delicious. Give it a try
My mom used to make Cincinnati chili when I was a kid. I used to drown it with sour cream as I don't like cloves or allspice let alone the two mixed with unsweetened chocolate in it. It's definitely an experience.
I am Baby Boomer and I had 1,000 in my high school class and didn't know the majority of my class. My husband who went to another school high school in the same district had over 900 in his class. We were mainly a blue collar district, so college prep classes were not pushed (which really hurt those of us who went to college in the long run).
Tuna salad sandwiches for sure! Canned tuna, miracle whip and diced red apples. The very best!
I’ve never heard of diced apples in tuna salad sandwiches. I bet it’s delicious!
I love Jean Pare Company's Coming cookbooks. I am in Ontario, and she was my inspiration while getting details for my Mom's family cookbook because Mom didn't add details for the process.
Oh that's funny! Yes, those Company's Coming books have been a staple in Canadian kitchens forever!
Something my mom made a lot and is a nostalgic favorite of mine was Franks and Beans, which was basically baked beans with hot dogs cut up and mixed in. And Frito pie -- corn chips with chili and cheese on top.
Frank's and beans are totally a hit at our house! Growing up too!
One more comment (LOL), I knew a teacher who lived in Sandusky, Ohio and taught 1st and 2nd Grade on Kelly's Island. She drove to a small airport strip everyday and took a helicopter over Lake Erie for about 20 minutes to get to school. She had 12 in her combination class of first and second graders. She did this job for about 5 years and then got spooked one morning in the fog and quit. This was about 15 years ago, so I do not know how many students are still living on that island during the entire year.
Best childhood food was Pierogies with onions, butter and sour cream! Yummy!!!
I never ate a perogy until I went to college. My roommates cooked them and I finally got to try one.
Homemade perogies make great freezer meals!
I agree with Christie about eating cooked ground beef, onion and potato as a meal. I’m not a steak guy so eating ground beef this way is the equivalent for me I guess
I (Christie) also don't love steak. I'll eat it but I totally get that. 😊 Thanks for watching!
Oh my, I loved this video as much for the stories as for the recipes :) I'm from Ohio so I definitely know about the chili on spaghetti, there is a whole restaurant chain called SkyLine Chili and that is one of their dishes. Hahahaha. Some of the comfort foods we ate growing up are; peanut butter, jelly and bacon sandwiches -- chipped beef gravy over toast -- macaroni and tomatoes ( like Christie said) and ritz crackers with cream cheese. Funny story.... My Aunt would end up feeding all the neighborhood kids during the summers and as you can imagine that could get expensive, she would make up huge pots of "sloppy joes" that basically consisted of Heinz ketchup and ground beef. That's it.. nothing else. I didn't know her "secret" recipe until I was in my late 20's.
Christie here: I'm glad I'm not the only one! Those are great comfort foods. At our house, my dad would often forego dessert to have "sop", which was gravy on bread, with which he would put a single circle of ketchup and a dot in the middle if he was feeling fancy. haha
The macaroni and tomatoes salt snd butter add butter too. So good.
Yes! I'm sure there probably was butter in there but as a kid, I might have missed that.
I’m from Cincinnati and our chili has cinnamon and chocolate in it! It’s not regular chili. It’s a retired taste for sure…when I grew up and moved to Tennessee I would drive 2.5 hours to get it……I now have the original recipe for Skyline chili I can to have at all times.
I grew up in foster care so cooking was always up to the kids….we had a lot of Mac and cheese with tuna and things that kids could cook easy. Ground beef gravy ground beef with brown gravy over toast.
My grandma made the simplest spaghetti & macaroni and beef. pasta, hunts tomato sauce, browned ground beef sauce heated up in the drained beef poured over the al denti pasta. set on stove to say warm before grandpa come in from the field
From the states in the south, my all- time childhood favorite: chicken with homemade dumplings. ❤ it's still special to me, and I make it every Christmas Eve! Other childhood simple favorite, tuna mixed with cream of mushroom soup. Layer crushed potato chips on top. Enjoy you two so much! Thanks for the entertainment recipes , tips and tricks! 🤓💞👍
That all sounds lovely!
Christie: no no. It's fine! We ate it in 2 weeks and it was fine... also Christie: please don't do this! 😅😅
Oh, I forgot to comment on one of your last videos that we use chicken mince in our fried rice! It's a bit cheaper and I know you were looking for ideas with chicken mince.(ground chicken)
Thanks for the suggestion!
Chili Mac! One of my favorite childhood comfort foods. That’s chili over spaghetti noodles. It’s delicious and I still make it. I also love serving chili over a baked potato. Yum!
We had something my mom called Hobo Hot Dish. Can't remember all the ingredients, but some of them are: egg noodles, browned ground beef and onions, cream of mushroom soup, whole kernel corn and Velveeta cheese slices (or American cheese slices). Also, I like hot dishes, but my hubby and kids cannot stand them (food can't be mixed together)!
Christine, my mom got me hooked on noodles and juice and I was able to convert my oldest on that. The 'fancy' version is small shell pasta, tomato juice and salt & pepper to taste. Comfort version (for me) is broken spaghetti noodles. Amazing how much we enjoy it.
Isn't it funny what we find nostalgic or comforting! Thanks so much for sharing!
My mom and sometimes dad made pizza burgers. Ground beef mixed with pizza sauce and cheese, spread on slices of bread or hamburger buns and topped with more mozzarella. Then toasted under the broiler until hot and brown.
Oh yeah! That is a total childhood favourite for me but we would do it with ham or pepperoni slices. You can make anything into a pizza with enough imagination!
My family makes a recipe we call Wok meat. It's based off a recipe from an old Better Homes and Gardens cookbook but it's bite sized pieces of meat (we used chicken), garlic, onion, sliced mushrooms, sliced bell peppers, all sauted together with a ketchup and soy sauce mixture. I believe the recipe also called for brown sugar in the sauce and optional jalapenos with the peppers. Never tried it as a freezer meal but I can see it working out really well with cooked cubed chicken.
Oh that would totally work. My mom has a bunch of Better Homes and Gardens cookbooks. I still make Peanut Butter Crinkles from those books. I love it when families have weird names for things. "Wok Meat" might just end up in our repertoire!
This video was so much fun. Thank you for sharing.
Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for watching!
Monday macaroni sounds like a dish my mom made. Whoever she made baked macaroni and cheese she always made a separate one that she added canned tomatoes to. I would love to hear more about that recipe.
My parents grew up during the depression, so my parents went to the school of hard times. My dad raised his siblings growing up, so he was a great cook. My mom hunted and fished to put meat on the table so she did not cook growing up. My family did not have pink hat/blue hat chore lists, it was just stuff that had to be done. So I am trying to learn how to make freezer meals so that we have meals I can make while working full time.
Yes, everybody worked so hard back in those days. It really was a matter of survival. I know freezer meals are a different kind of survival for me and Sharla! We would be lost with out them. Thanks so much for watching!
Thanks girls for another fun video! Love all your content and you are a wealth of knowledge! I love freezer meal cooking also. They are such a wonderful way to bless our family and others in our community that might need a meal etc. Much love this Easter from our family to yours from Australia xxx
I think every Canadian of a certain age had Company's Coming cookbooks in their homes growing up. My Mom cooked a lot like Christie's; lovingly known as Basic British Boring. Meat, taters and 2 veg was dinner at least 5 nights a week. Adventurous was spaghetti and meatballs or beef stroganoff. But, it was all delicious and we never went hungry! What I wouldn't give for her roast beef and Yorkshire pudding with potatoes, carrots and onions cooked with the beef - yum!
Yes! They were a staple in Canadian kitchens for sure! Basic British Boring! I'm dying! It's true! We also had something at our house called "Mother's Golden Brown". It basically meant she burnt the fried potatoes or grilled cheese but we weren't allowed to say that. hahahaha
@@FreezerMeals101 In my family that would be my sister - the smoke detector goes off - Dinners Ready!
It is Cincinnati Chili. There is a fast food restaurant chain called Skyline. They serve it 3-way - over spaghetti, topped with shredded cheese and diced onions. I think you can add other things to make it 4 or 5 way. The chili has cinnamon in it. I can't but Cincinnatians love it.
Are you in Alberta? My best friend lived in Alberta for a year in 2020, her partner was on a teaching exchange. She lived in Red Deer. She was also going to travel to different places in Canada but she got there just before the pandemic hit so she couldn't. She brought me back a hoodie and I took care of her cats. She split with her partner just over a year ago so I have been teaching her about freezer meals since she has less money and has to work more.
Yes, we’re in Alberta. We’re doing a video coming up soon with more freezer meals for one so hopefully that’s helpful for your friend.
My favourite childhood meal was called Muckup. You brown mince and onion with some curry powder. You then add a couple of spoons of rice and salt. Next you grate a carrot and addd some peas. You then add crushed pineapple, pineapple pieces (Including juice) and tomato soup. You cook until the consistency of pasta sauce, then add brown sugr and cook for about an extra 10 minute. It sounds off, but it is amazing. I have converted so many people. Best eaten with mash potato, but great on pasta or jacket potatates. Also delicious in Jaffles.
I’m from Cincinnati and yes we put chili on spaghetti! I’d say more times than not.
That or on a hot dog with lots of cheese. The chili we are famous for is more like a sauce than a chunky chili though.
I love a good chili dog!
mayo IS actually shelf stable! It does not say "Refrigerate after opening" My mother in law taught me that with potato salad - the potatoes are most perishable- more so than the mayonaise! (Val from Louisiana)
Childhood comfort food: Rice burgler or potato burgler. Brown ground beef, season, add water + rice or potatoes, cover and cook until the rice or potatoes are done and water is absorbed. Take off the heat and add a little shredded cheese, cover and let the residual heat melt the cheese. When I make it now, I cook the rice separately and add frozen mixed veggies, then mix everything together and heat through.
Ground beef with ketchup and some onions is what we called loose meat and we would have loose meat sandwiches. Not as much spice as sloppy joe's but kind of the same thing.
My kids always bring up a few meals i experimented wirh. One was lentil meatloaf. i tried to extend ground beef by adding cooked lentils. They loved meatloaf but not.that day. They were so disapointed! Never did that again. When the boys were little we had neighbors move in who were vegetarians. My neighbour would talk about how great tofu was. I tried to incorporate it into scrambled eggs and cheese cake. Not a sucess. We buried the large "cheese" cake in the backyard😂
You buried the cheesecake! 😂😂 I appreciate your attempts at trying to change things up. Sometimes they work out and sometimes they don't and you have to bury it!!
Great video!!
Speaking of Company's Coming and Spaghetti Sauce. You must try the Meaty Spaghetti Sauce in her slow cooker book! It's my family's all-time favorite! my family gets so excited when I make it over any other sauce and I have gotten asked for the recipe many times!
And the one favorite simple meal that I can think of from my childhood was macaroni noodles with Cheez whiz instead of real cheese! Sounds kinda gross now, but it was sooooo good!! lol
We'll have to look it up! Thanks! I didn't like Kraft Dinner as a kid (and I still don't) but we would put cheez whiz on green beans sometimes! I haven't had Cheez Whiz in ages!
When I would make spaghetti sauce, I would double or triple the batch, put the leftovers in the freezer, and the next week or two thaw it out and make it into chili. I would add kidney beans, sausage, and more chili powder, cumin, etc, and no one was the wiser.
Christie here: I can totally see why that would work. Great idea!
Creamed tuna with green beans served over mashed potatos
My grandma used to make this sauce for her meatballs and ribs and it was literally ketchup, brown sugar and corn syrup it was so good!!
But I think back now as an adult and it's like.. 🤔 Sugar, Sugar, And tomato flavoured sugar 😅😅😅😂😂😂 no wonder it was so good 😂😫.
We've all had that realization! LOL Maybe my kids will grow up and pine for a super healthy sheet pan meal!
We have always cut our pizzas with scissors. Someone gave us a pizza cutter but we much prefer scissors! Often when our kids had ftiends over for pizza night they would laugh and comment on it😊
Oh that makes me happy! ♥️
I love that so much! ♥️ ✂️✂️✂️
Tuna casserole definitely needs corn 😆😆🇦🇺
I've never heard of adding corn to tuna casserole, but I love learning about what is common for food in different places in the world. Thank you for sharing that!
I grew up on the farm as well. It was all meat and potatoes with little spice. Salt , pepper, maybe some onion. My mom made sloppy joes with beef, ketchup, mustard,and onion. It seemed like it was beef at every meal. No tacos unless we begged, lots f tater tot casserole. When I met my husband it was a whole new space world. Lol. Would love to find out Sharyla’s macaroni Monday. Interesting.
After we filmed this video, I had a craving of course for Mom’s Monday Macaroni so I made it the next day and one of my oldest sons came up the stairs as it was cooking and exclaimed “it smells like my childhood”! It was wonderful! I doubled the recipe and it was all gone.
womans day magazine, Ladies home Journal, McCalls, and good housekeeping, they were the mainstay and Moms would share.
Everywhere! Sometimes we'd have cookies from the back of the chocolate chips package. My mom had an awesome cake called Mrs. Leuf's Chocolate Cake that was first published in the Western Producer (a Canadian farming publication!) back in 1968. It's darn good cake, too! It's still my go-to when I need a chocolate cake recipe.
crazy days! but glad she found it!
My favorite meal that my mom made was a pot roast. Chuck roast, potatoes, carrots, and onions. No liquid, no seasonings. It was browned and then cooked long and slow in the LIFETIME waterless electric skillet. I still make it and i have my own LIFETIME skillet now.
She made two other things of great note. Every other Sunday morning she would roll out the cornflakes with the rolling pin to crush them. Then she would dip the chicken parts in egg and canned milk, then into the flour and then roll them in the crushed cornflakes and bake them in the oven. That was my other favorite meal. I have never made that and i don’t know why.
The third meal of great note was steak. She would get this thin steak. I don’t know what the cut was. She would put it into that electric skillet and pour a can of tomato soup over it and let it cook until it almost fell apart. We loved it at the time. When I was in highschool, my brother moved out and his roommate taught him how to broil good cuts of steak. I was absolutely amazed. I had never heard of such a thing. Of course, I have never made the soupy steak but i broil or grill steaks all the time now.
I can hear the memories as I read that. That chicken sounds so yummy!
@@FreezerMeals101 that chicken was amazing. I think I might just try it. I’ll let you know.
We always put celery and onions in our sloppy joes. I have since added spinach I also now grate all the veggies so no one sees them
Yes... sneaking the extra veg in there. I just saw someone in a mom's group I'm in on FB say she purees white beans and adds them to mac & cheese (Kraft Dinner) and her kid hasn't detected it yet. Lots of extra protein there!
Christine did your mom have a sister in Hershey Pennsylvania?!!! My mom did the same with ground beef until canned manwich came out. However she overcooked her meat all the time, possibly that was how her mom cooked or how my dad wanted it
we don't put ketchup in the fridge and we have had stir fry with hot dogs as the meat
Yes! I have found my people! lol
I've got to ask... was that chocolate cake recipe from the Western Producer the one that you use boiling water in?
Yes it was! Mrs. Leuf's Chocolate Cake! Two cups of boiling water. Such a weird cake recipe but it's a no-fail and I've been making it forever!
@Freezer Meals 101 pretty much everyone I knew was making that cake back in the early 90s. I had forgotten all about it until you mentioned it. I may need to make one.
Nothing like a rude interuption by a tornado warning.
I just found out it touched down several miles from me. One person was killed. NWS is still conducting surveys to see if any more touched down here.
i hate cold ketchup!
Cincinatti Skyline Chili
So I hear! I didn't know about it until we started doing videos and someone commented. Looking at specific recipes for it, it seems really different than most chilli, besides the spaghetti part. I'd like to try it some day!
@@FreezerMeals101 me too! Regional fave, apparently
My mom used to make Cincinnati chili when I was a kid. I used to drown it with sour cream as I don't like cloves or allspice let alone the two mixed with unsweetened chocolate in it. It's definitely an experience.
It's been interesting to find out about Cincinnati Chili or Skyline Chili because people have certainly laughed at me over the years for suggesting to put chili on spaghetti because that's how we ate it growing up. BUT I didn't know until your comment just now how different that chili really is with the chocolate, cloves and allspice! I took a deep dive into recipes that claim to be just like that authentic Skyline Chili and one recipe even described the different ways to top it, like with additional onions and kidney beans! That is super interesting. I like chocolate, cloves and sometimes allspice, so now I want to make some to try it out because it sound super weird and I don't know if I'd like them together.
I appreciate your comment so much! Thanks for watching!