Michael and I have been very, very busy with a new project. We decided to rip up a large portion of our well worn, (well worn out!), carpet and replace it with solid hard wood. Learning any new skill takes a great deal of time, probably exponentially more than one would ever anticipate, at least for us. Anyway, putting down a new floor and doing it right doesn’t leave a lot of time for scratch cooking. Thank you Freezer Food!

Zucchini-Tortilla Casserole is one of our favorites. It’s one of those dishes that, while you’re making one, you might as well do two, and it freezes well to boot.  I freeze it in the baking dish that it will later cook in, then, after it’s frozen, use a hair drier to free the frozen casserole from that dish and  package for the freezer.  I also often use disposable foil containers.  It’s a simple thing to choose a meal from my freezer inventory, ready to pop straight into the oven.

Soups and side dishes, like Slow-Cooked Baked Beans, that I intend to heat stove top, are often frozen in recycled plastic containers like those that lunch meat come in. Again, they benefit from air-tight packaging after the contents are frozen. Having many of my sides frozen in identically shaped packaging makes them stack efficiently in the freezer, but I have one more trick up my sleeve. I corral like packages in reusable grocery bags to keep them organized and easy to retrieve from my chest freezer.

My little raised bed of tomatoes, squash, and peppers is off to a great start this year! I’m looking forward to putting up lots of Homemade Marinara and Freezer Tomatoes to get me through the winter.  Until then I have zucchini to deal with.  You should see the one that got away.  While we were working on the floor I neglected to the check the garden, as nothing had produced anything yet.  When I finally wandered out there to check I found a whopping four pounder…three pounds, fourteen and five eighths ounces to be exact.  Most of the time, by the time a zucchini gets that large it’s inedible, but this one was fine.  I scooped out the seeds and grated the flesh for zucchini bread.  Yumm!  Now, what to do with his cousins?

Be thankful for what life gives you.