~Week 6~

I was on a real baking kick this week and I tried several brand new recipes! A couple of the money saving blogs I follow have what they call "Freezer Cooking Days" or they refer to it as "Once A Month Cooking." Basically, they spend one or two days in the kitchen making all of their meals for the next 30 days so that, in theory, they don't have to spend hardly any time in the kitchen for an entire month. They have yet to sell me on the benefits of this. They make a lot of casseroles (although they all claim that they don't). We're a meat and potatoes kind of family. We eat a lot of fresh veggies. I just don't feel like I spend too much time in the kitchen each evening and I rather enjoy the time I do spend so, OAMC just doesn't appeal to me all that much. Maybe if I had 10 kids....or an infant who fussed during the dinner hour as we know they tend to do. My kids play outside until I force them to come in for dinner....I have a lot of "free" time in the late afternoons.

However, having a freezer full of homemade baked goods? I can try that! Just don't think it's gonna last for 30 days. As of the writing of this post, we have eaten all of the cookie dough and blueberry muffins, a pan of cinnamon rolls and more than half of the pretzels that I made last week. :)

Here is what I made/baked &/or froze:

*The World's Best Cinnamon Rolls. I don't know if that's their real name, but it should be. Seriously, stop what you are doing and go make them. You will not be sorry. They were super easy and my husband declared that they were the best thing he had ever eaten....and he is a Cinnabon fanatic so I took that as quite the compliment! We have cinnamon rolls every Sunday for breakfast and one recipe made enough for 3 weeks.

*Make-Ahead Butterhorns. This recipe had me sorta freaked out at first because it calls for an enormous amount of flour and the only reason I tried them was because there were pictures so I could make sure mine were looking like they were supposed to as I went along. I never make something unless I can see a picture of the finished product. They were definitely worth the time and effort....and I have about 8 dinners worth in the freezer! Think Pillsbury Crescent rolls...only A LOT bigger and better! Yum!

*Supposedly Auntie Anne's Soft Pretzels. This made 12 (huge) pretzels and was a bit more labor intensive than I had figured on. The first 6 I made were just salted. They were ok. The next 6 I put garlic powder and shredded cheese on. Much better! Also, my husband suggested that next time I save myself some trouble and just make pretzel sticks instead of shaping them all like pretzels! Brilliant!

*Egg, bacon and veggie mini quiches. There are all sorts of recipes for all sorts of variations of these online. I think they are delicious straight out of the oven. I do not think they are great after they've been frozen and reheated. I probably won't do these (ahead of time) again. Oh well, you live and learn.

*Blueberry muffins. I just always use the recipe from my Betty Crocker cookbook. Easy and really good....especially with fresh blueberries. These didn't even make it to the freezer.

*Best Ever Chocolate Chip Cookies. That really is the name of these....the recipe is in our church cookbook. My family loves them! That's why the dough didn't last 5 days.

After all is said and done and my freezer is full, I'm happy with what I made and think it was worth the time and effort. And it's made me a little bit more comfortable with my bread machine. It's also made me love my KitchenAid more than I already did. And I already really loved it!

Do you have any great recipes for home-baked things? I'm on the hunt for some more....