Dream Dinners!

Have you ever done Dream Dinners before? Dream Dinners is a place where you go and pick out what meals you'd like for the next month or so, assemble it there, and then take it home and freeze them and pull out whenever you want a quick meal. It's kind of fun because they have everything laid out for you and it makes the prep really easy. Jonathan and I did it once and it was kind

of like a date because it's fun to put everything together. It's more expensive than getting all the ingredients yourself but it's cheaper than going out so it's worth it for a lot of people. After Jonathan and I did it once, I really liked the food but I didn't think it was worth it for us to keep going since we love to cook and always have our kitchen pretty well stocked. I did really like not have to spend forever every night getting everything ready for each meal. So I thought, why not do it myself? I mentioned it to Colleen too and as always she was super pumped to join me! We tried it for the first time over the summer and it was a huge success. I made like 9-10 entrees in one afternoon. It was the best! Every time we needed dinner I just popped one in the oven for 30 minutes and dinner was done. The only problem was that I made the perfect amount for dinner and then we never had leftovers to take for lunch.

Well, we decided to do it again yesterday! This time around I decided to make larger portion things so we'd have plenty of leftovers for other meals. First up was chili! I made two batches chili: one with ground beef and the other with ground chicken which I'd never worked with before. I froze the first one and the one with chicken is cooking in our crockpot right now!



The recipe involved a lot of chopping, but look how pretty!

Doesn't look like much now but soon it will be delicious chili!



Colleen made a tortilla soup. I definitely want to try that next time!

I also made a pork marinade, combined that with some pork chops, and froze them for another day. I didn't take any pictures though.

Finally, Colleen had a great recipe for protein balls made with peanut butter, quinoa, agave, banana, dates, and other great stuff. Plus they were fun to make.



Ready to go in the freezer for an easy snack!

Even if it was a little messy....

And now I have homemade chili cooking in my crockpot as we speak. I can't wait to get home and be greeted with the wonderful smell of it cooking!


It looks so good! And pretty!

I already want to make more recipes! I am really really REALLY bad at planning ahead when it comes to cooking. I'm usually too lazy to plan and get all the ingredients ahead of time to make a specific meal. I usually just look at what I have on hand and figure out what I can make with it. Not that that's a bad thing, it's actually pretty fun most of the time, but sometimes that means I don't try new things as often. Plus, I have a bad habit about going out to eat when I don't know what to make for dinneror when I'm feeling lazy. Making my own freezer meals totally saves me with this! Anyone up for a dream dinners party? Any great recipes or ideas for the next one??

-Chelsey