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Frugal Living Meal Planning

Freezer Cooking Day: Baking for the Freezer

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Here’s a funny thing about yesterday’s freezer cooking session – it was a complete disaster. I started making a pie around 6:30pm. Then I decided, “eh, what the heck… I’ll just do some freezer cooking for breakfast and snack items being that we have nothing like that in the freezer.”

Freezer Cooking - Baking for the Freezer. #frugal

I should have waited. My gut told me to just wait until tomorrow but I am so stubborn that I had to do it NOW. I ended up finishing at 2:30am. Ouch.

To add insult to injury, I had barely any sleep the night before because my husband is working nights, and since I work from home, I’ve adapted myself to his schedule so we can spend the most amount of time together.  I’m a night owl by nature, but it’s still an adjustment even for me. I was pretty much falling asleep while flipping pancakes.

I ended up making an apple pie from scratch, complete with homemade pie crust and all.

Then, I started kneading the bread, and set it aside to rise for two hours, being sure to punch it down and knead again at the one hour mark. The bread came out nice and golden brown – just the way I like it. I think I’m getting into my bread-making groove now because I was brave enough to add garlic salt to the top of the bread.

While that was going, I had some left over pie crust and decided to make my own ham and cheese hot pockets. My husband and I decided to call these empapockets because they’re like a hybrid between empanadas and hot pockets. These didn’t make it into the freezer.

The hubby came home from his “lunch” break at midnight and we ate them for dinner. Oh, we also each had a slice of pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, hence the big hole in the pie in the last picture in this blog post.

To make them, I just cut my leftover pie crust into small balls, rolled them out into circles and added some sliced ham and shredded cheese as the filling. I closed them and then crimped the edges down with a fork, cut slits in the top of the empapocket (Maybe we need a new name?) and sprinkled garlic salt on top to give it flavor. They were magical. I dipped mine in pizza sauce.

This should work out to be a super cheap recipe because I made five just with the overhang of the pie crust that I cut off from the edges.

Next up were the brownies. This was the only thing that wasn’t 100% from scratch and homemade. I just mixed up the boxed batter and added sprinkles. Because everything is better with sprinkles – obviously.

These bad boys went into the oven at the same time as the empapockets did. This is a picture of them cut into individual pieces after they’d been flash-frozen. A $1.50 box of brownies made 15 brownie pieces. Notice that there’s only 14. I decided to compensate myself for my efforts. I definitely recommend sneaking a brownie after they’ve hung out in the freezer for an hour. The chewiness is out of this world.

Finally, the devil himself entered my kitchen and jumped into a skillet. I call him pancake.


It took me 30 minutes to make just 8 pancakes. By the end of the 8th one, I decided to put the rest of the batter in the fridge (it’s still in there. I may or may not resume the pancake making tomorrow), lined up everything I made on the counter and snapped a pic for this blog post.

I was ambitious and decided to triple the recipe. There must’ve been about a gallon of pancake batter sitting in my bowl. It was nuts.

As I write this (2:54am), the only things that are bagged up for the freezer are one of the loaves of bread and the brownies. The pancakes are flash-freezing.

As for the apple pie, I’m keeping it out. I deserve it. I would have another slice now but it’s 3:00am and I still have the teensiest shred of dignity in me that’s screaming “don’t do it!” But tomorrow, it’s ON.

So yeah, the moral of this story is to make sure you have enough energy before you set out on a freezer cooking expedition. I’m not a freezer cooking newbie. I’ve done it tons of times. That’s probably why I felt so confident that I could tackle it in a decent amount of time. I guess it took getting my buttkicked by a few pancakes to knock me back into reality.

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17 Comments

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Comments

  1. AvatarJoy says

    July 15, 2013 at 2:21 pm

    Jazmin, all of your goodies look amazing. I wanted an empanada/hotpocket/empapocket as soon as I saw them! You are the freezer queen!

    Love, Joy
    Yesterfood

    Reply
    • AvatarJazmin Rode says

      July 17, 2013 at 7:45 am

      Haha thanks, Joy! The empapockets were so good they didn’t even make it to the freezer!

      Reply
  2. Avatar[email protected] says

    July 15, 2013 at 4:43 pm

    Wow, I am impressed!! My husband would die if I made him an apple pie!! What is flash freezing? Anyway, I loved the post, thanks for a few laughs, those ham pockets look yummy and the bread too! Thanks so much for your sweet comment on my blog!

    Reply
    • AvatarJazmin Rode says

      July 17, 2013 at 7:47 am

      My hubby’s lucky he got that apple pie. It’s a rare occasion around here too lol!

      Flash-freezing is pretty much just freezing things in a single layer for a few hours so they become solid/frozen. Then, when you’re ready to bag everything up, it’ll prevent the food from sticking to each other. It’s a good idea to do it with anything that you’re going to want to pull out individual servings of like berries, pancakes, brownies, etc.

      Reply
  3. AvatarAngela Paris says

    July 17, 2013 at 4:33 pm

    Jazmin,
    I’m stopping by today from the “From Dream to Reality” link party. I have so been there – starting to make one thing, and ending up in the middle of four different projects! You inspire and make me feel ‘normal’ 🙂
    Hope you’re having a great day,
    – Ang
    http://www.jugglingactmama.com

    Reply
    • AvatarJazmin Rode says

      July 17, 2013 at 10:08 pm

      I’m glad I’m not alone in biting off more than I can chew sometimes! Thanks for your sweet comment!

      Reply
  4. AvatarThe Thriftiness Miss says

    July 19, 2013 at 10:52 pm

    Yum! Those brownies look killer 🙂 Great idea with the pancakes and the homemade hot pockets!

    Reply
    • AvatarJazmin Rode says

      August 3, 2013 at 11:01 pm

      Thanks! I plan on making the hot pockets again this week because they were such a hit. 🙂

      Reply
  5. AvatarJenn says

    August 3, 2013 at 4:44 am

    I luckily stopped myself from making from scratch cinnamon rolls at 8pm or I’d be up until past midnight tonight! All of your goods look scrumptious – especially the bread. By the way, do you freeze the pie whole or do you freeze individual pieces? We usually freeze the pie whole but want to freeze slices instead just don’t know how to do that without the pie falling apart. Any ideas or tips for me?

    Reply
    • AvatarJazmin Rode says

      August 3, 2013 at 11:00 pm

      Mmm Cinnamon rolls would so be worth slaving away for hours. Now I have a craving! 😉 I actually didn’t get to freeze the pie. We decided to leave it out so we could eat it throughout the week. But my initial plan was to freeze it whole.

      Reply
  6. AvatarSweetPea says

    February 25, 2014 at 10:40 pm

    Take your pancake batter & bake it in the oven- super simple! Pour batter on greased (or lined w/ parchment) baking sheet that has a lip around the edge. Bake at 350 for about 10-15 minutes. They won’t be exactly “golden”, and you have to cut them (square pancakes are okay too! or use cookie cutters) but they are still yummy & way easier then standing at the stove top all night.

    Reply
  7. AvatarSusie Q LaLonde says

    May 3, 2014 at 6:28 pm

    I am brand new to your website, I actually found it looking for cheap knock off recipes and I am so glad I decided to come browsing today. I loved this article, it’s the first one of yours that I read and it’s so funny! Loving your idea for your empapockets because I never know what to do with my left over scraps either but have been wanting to make empanadas forever. Well…just wanted to say Well done on the blog and I’ll be following along and reading everything now that I’ve found you.

    Reply
    • AvatarJazmin Rode says

      May 5, 2014 at 2:02 pm

      Thank you so much for your kind words, Susie! 🙂 <3

      Reply
  8. AvatarMaryna says

    November 12, 2014 at 5:52 am

    We are in South Africa and groceries are very expensive here. I am now looking at some serious means to save on those costs. I found your blog via a google search and reading loads of info (am on info overload at the moment 😉 )
    My question: If I freeze bread and defrost it later, will it still taste fresh or will it be soggy?

    Reply
  9. AvatarKara says

    December 21, 2014 at 9:50 am

    I can’t tell you how often I’ve made the same mistake and gotten a little to overzealous about the freeze-n-bake! Love the empapocket idea- will have to try it. It’s not too far off from my recent pasty-making obsession. Hubby wants me to try making up some meatball pockets sometime soon, so why not make up so hamand cheese ones too while I’m at it?

    Reply
    • AvatarJazmin Rode says

      December 21, 2014 at 3:39 pm

      Meatball pockets sound like a great idea! And the most difficult part of making the empapockets is the dough, so it’ll be a breeze since you’re already making dough for your meatball pockets!

      Reply
  10. AvatarCharity says

    January 13, 2015 at 1:35 pm

    Hey, so I see all this awesome baking and than I had to sneak over to your recipes to see hope you got your bread and pie so perfect, but alas, I was saddened to learn that there are no recipes floating around for all this scrumptious food. I have been trying my hand at this bulk baking thing and have done ok, but would you be willing to share your recipes?

    Reply

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