Kitchen Experiments

Several moms in the MOPS group I am in have been discussing 30-day Cooking or Once a Month Cooking. While I already make extra of freezer friendly dishes when I can, I had not thought about cooking chicken breast or ground beef in bulk and then freezing it. So after talking with several moms I decided to give it a try. Here is what I did...

Chicken Breast

Prep:
I took 7 large chicken breasts (I buy the big bags of Tyson Boneless Skinless breasts at Sams) out of the freezer and put them in the crock pot. I covered them with water (though not completely covered as they were frozen solid and I knew they would thaw and fit better),seasoned them and put the crock pot on low.

Cooking:
Chicken was done in a couple of hours when we returned home! The chicken smelled so good from the slow cooking and seasonings. I took the chicken out of the crock pot to let them rest before I cut them up. They were super moist and very easy to cut compared to boiled/poached chicken breasts. I cut them up and got about 7 cups of cubed chicken.

Total Cooking Time:
3 ½ to 3 ¾ hours
7 large frozen chicken breasts

Freezer Prep:
Here is where I experimented. I put 2 cups chicken in 2 separate Reynolds Handi-vac bags and 3 cups in another. I let the chicken cool before I sealed the bags. I am not sure if it was the bags or the chicken but when I used the little handi-vac, it sucked the air out and then started pulling the juices out too! I think the chicken was just that juicy. After the bags were sealed to my satisfaction I put them in a Gladware storage container, closed the lid and put them in the freezer for later use.

Overall results:
I was very pleased with the time to cook the chicken (3 ½-3 ¾ hours), the chicken was super moist and it was not much work at all. I was able to put all the meat up in about 20 minutes.

Other thoughts:
I might try cooking some chicken breasts in the pressure cooker some time. My mom does this a lot and says the meat is very moist as well.



Ground Beef

Prep:
I pulled 3 (three) 1 lb. bags of ground beef out of the freezer and set it in the sink to thaw for a couple of hours. I then placed the semi-thawed meat in the crock pot and turned the crock pot on low.

Cooking:
I checked the meat about 20 minutes later to pull the thawed portion off so the frozen portions could thaw; I continued to check the meat about every 20-30 minutes until it was completely thawed. All the meat was thawed in 1 hour. I stirred the pot to break up the meat further and seasoned the meat with basics like salt, pepper, garlic, onion. I put the top on and let the meat cook, stirring 2 more times to turnover uncooked meat.

Total Cooking time:
3 hours
3 lbs. semi-frozen ground beef

Freezer Prep:
I pulled out several spoonfuls of meat and placed in a colander to drain. I had the colander on several layers of paper towels stacked on a dinner plate. (The grease drained through the colander pretty well.) I then measured about 2 cups of meat and placed in various containers to continue my freezer experiment (regular Ziplock freezer bag, handi-vac bag, Gladware small bowl), let the meat cool, then closed the containers and placed in freezer.

Overall results:
I was very pleased with this method of cooking ground beef. I think I “stirred the pot” more than I should have, but I was so curious as to how everything was going. The crock pot I used will probably not hold more than 3 lbs. at a time, but I have a larger oval crock pot that should do more.