Cooking for the Weekend 6

We hope you are able to gather some ideas from this “cooking for the weekend” series. I cook ahead on Friday for the weekend since I am a stay at home mom so I can take a little break on the weekend. But this process works the same if you did it on the Sunday for the upcoming week, or on Wednesday to finish you week out strong.

This week’s post is a little different. I often throw leftovers, cook extras, or beans, or cooked meat etc in the freezer to have for another day when I don’t have much time to be in the kitchen. I knew I was going to have company for a few days and I did not want to be in the kitchen the WHOLE time there were here but I still wanted to provide home cooked meals for all of us. So I thought I would just try to feed us out of the freezer (or at least mostly). The company was a very close family member so I was not concerned about trying to impress her or her son, we just wanted to visit. Everything is not from the freezer but here is what we had for the most part.

I popped a big batch of popcorn one bowl is plain for the kids and one is spiced up for the adults. Here are a few options so we had an easy go to snack along with lots of fresh fruit in the house.

I cut up LOTS of fresh veggies to steam or roast for a quick side dish and for snacks with Hummus or Ranch Dressing. I pull out the veggies out before every meal so when the kids and myself are so so hungry we are eating good raw veggies and not grabbing junk food off the shelf.

Now the rest of these pictures are not too exciting Before heading to bed I pulled out some bacon for breakfast (I buy 3 lbs at a time and freeze until I need it) and a “treat” marble cake from Katz Bakery Our Favorite Gluten free bakery that ships right to your door.

And some leftover pancakes that went in the freezer a week or so earlier.

The next morning while the bacon was cooking I put the pancakes on a cookie sheet and put in the oven at 350 degrees until warm through. And in no time the boys had fruit, bacon, and pancakes on the table to enjoy. We used the other half of the bacon another day for breakfast with smoothies, and fruit for another easy breakfast.

For lunch one day we pulled out some frozen hot dogs ( which I also buy a large package of and divide and freeze since we rarely eat them).

We ran out of Hummus so I pulled out a bag of Chickpeas from my slow cooker to make a quick batch to have with our veggies for lunch.

Another meal we enjoy Honey Glazed Ham sandwiches thanks to a bag of frozen ham. I also pulled out frozen hamburger patties grilled the week before to go with some steamed veggies for another meal. And we pulled Frozen Cookie dough out one night when we had a sweet tooth.

Another meal we had homemade pizzas so I pulled out some Pizza Sauce to thaw and some gluten pizza crusts from Katz Bakery and regular Pizza Dough.

Yes I still had some prep and planning but I spend way less time in the kitchen than I would have if I had cooked three meals a day from scratch, and we did not spend a fortune eating out. Next week is the last cooking for the weekend post for a while and we are excited that it will be coming to us from a guest blogger.

Check out our other Cooking for the Weekend Posts:

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This post is linked up with Ladybird Ln., Chubby Cheeks Thinks, The Creative Paige, Six Sisters, Funky Junk Interirors, Tatertots and Jello, Lolly Jane Crumbs and Chaos, Skip to My Lou, Craft O Maniac, Nap-time Creations, My Girlish Whims