Passionate Homemaking

Since I received sev­eral requests for the freezer meal recipes we used for making meals for the needy family in our church, I would love to share them in a series of posts. I would con­sider all of these excel­lent frugal and nutri­tious meals! We have used these many times over for freezer cooking!

Chicken Divan

2 or more cups cooked brown rice
2 bunches fresh broc­coli, lightly stemmed & chopped
2-3 cups cooked chicken, cubed
2 cans cream of mush­room soup (see recipe below)
½ cup may­on­naise
1-2 tsp lemon juice
1 Tbsp curry
½ cup grated cheese
½-3/4 cup bread crumbs
1 tsp melted butter, optional

Since canned soups often con­tain MSG, I have learned how to make it from scratch, see below. It is also a lot health­ier this way, because you can use whole wheat flour and raw milk, if you like. Use one recipe of the soup to replace these cans. I start by mixing the soup, than add the mayo, lemon and curry. Keep the mix­ture not too thicken by adding fur­ther milk or water. Addi­tional salt may be necessary.

Layer rice on the bottom of a greased 13×9 pan. Cook broc­coli till tender, drain and arrange over rice fol­lowed by the chicken. Pour over chicken. Sprin­kle cheese on top. Com­bine crumbs and butter, sprin­kle over all. Bake at 350 for 25-30 min­utes. If frozen, you may have to cook 1 hr or longer.

Condensed Creamed Soup Substitute

2 Tbsp. butter
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1/4 c whole wheat flour
1 tsp. salt or more to taste
12 fresh mush­rooms, chopped
2 cups of milk (less for a thicker soup)

Heat butter and oil then add flour and salt, stir­ring to make a roux. Add mush­rooms and cook about a minute, just to soften. Add milk and stir until thick­ened. This is a sub­sti­tute (and a great one at that!) for two 10 oz. cans cream of mush­room soup. To make cream of chicken, simply omit mush­rooms, add 1 tsp. chicken base (a paste, like bouil­lon but with­out the MSG) and sub­sti­tute half the milk with chicken broth or stock. To make cream of celery, sub­sti­tute celery for the mush­rooms and pro­ceed as listed above.