Freezer Lunches

I've been making burritos of various kinds (mainly breakfast and rice and bean) for a while now.  The boys all love how easy they are to pull out for lunches or snacks before/after practices.  Lately, I've made the discovery that leftovers are too difficult to pull out of the fridge to eat, but stick them in a tortilla and BAM lunch!  Here's a little tutorial on how I do it.

What to do with leftover mashed potatoes and peas?  Mix them up...

Top with leftover meat and some shredded cheese...

OR take some sausages out of the freezer (I get manager's special meat, so I often have little bits of various things) and pan fry and top the mash with the sausages and cheese.  Wrap them up and put them in foil or a Ziplock. And freeze!

Another thing I sometimes get cheap with the manager's special meat is ground sausage.  Brown it and add to cooked scrambled eggs (today I did 1lb meat to 12 eggs...but any ratio works).

Place the mixture in tortillas along with salsa, shredded cheese, and sour cream.  Wrap up and place in foil or Ziplocks. And Freeze!!

What to do with leftover beef and cream cheese?  Cut them up.

Add to scrambled eggs and mix up.

Place mixture in tortillas and top with favorite salsa.  Wrap up, foil/Ziplock, and Freeze!!

Leftover sausage and bean mixture?  

Add to tortilla with cheese and sour cream.  Wrap, foil/Ziplock, and Freeze!! 

Today I also pan-fried hot dogs and two hamburger patties, and used up the ends of some lunch meat packages and sliced cheese.  

All said, I completely filled the freezer box with easy, ready-to-grab lunches with just a couple hours of work and I used up leftovers!  That's a successful day!

Corn Dog Muffins

Was looking for some recipes that would freeze well and would give some options for lunch boxes besides sandwiches.  Found this one and it is a hit!  And so fun!

Makes 42 to 63 muffins (I like lots to freeze, but you could easily cut the recipe in half...another fun option would be to use mini muffin tins for fun finger food for a party)

Ingredients:
4 (8.5 oz) boxes of cornbread mix
4 T brown sugar
4 eggs
3 cups milk
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
2 packages of hot dogs cut into pieces (interestingly the cheaper the hot dog the better the muffins!)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).  Lightly grease muffin tins

In a large bowl, stir together cornbread mix and brown sugar.  Add cheese and mix.  In a separate bowl, whisk together eggs and milk.  Combine egg/milk mixture with dry ingredients and gently stir until moist.  Fold in cut up hot dogs.  Spoon mixture into muffin tins (~2/3 full).

Bake 14 to 18 minutes or until golden brown.

Serve or let them cool and package them up for the freezer.  I usually wrap them in foil in packages of two.