"100 Burritos": Preparing and Freezing Really Does Save Big $$$

[sabrinamari]

About a month ago I took a weekend and a few weekday evenings to make 100+ burritos from scratch and freeze them. I also bought super large packs of chicken breasts, salmon and tilapia and put meal-sized portions of each in ziplock freezer packs with a variety of marinades.

Downsides - really labor intensive, takes lots of time over a single weekend, kind of overwhelming!, big front-end expense to buy large packages of protein

Upsides - A month later, our freezer is still packed; food prep is much faster and easier for weekday evening meals; either M. or I can step in and make dinner easily as work flow demands; lunches are readily available as well as both good and healthy; burritos ended up costing about $.75 each and using up about 350 calories each; nobody has gotten sick of the frozen foods yet, because we have 1 or 2 evening meals out of every 7 from a non-frozen source, and...

We have about $500 more in our joint account right now than we did at this time last month.

Conclusions: save up for pressure cooker; do this about every 2 months; ask for help during prep weekends; watch what happens to fitness, ease and cost when I add home-grown garden vegetables

It pretty much gets the big thumbs up.

Comments

[skyefyr.livejournal.com]

We bulk shop and freeze all the time. It's wonderful just getting something out and thawing it and going from there.

If you want to continue doing this, you might also want to invest in a vacuum sealer machine. There are many benefits to this, including food keeping longer and better without freezer burn.

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. How much do these run, and how much storage space do they require?

[skyefyr.livejournal.com]

Mine was a more expensive one, but it was still under $100. I chose it because the "cheaper" model I had didn't work well. I believe my brand name is FoodSaver. Billy and I use it a couple times a month (because we usually only buy meats one or two times a month, we buy in bulk and we freeze in dinner sized servings). We've been using it for a couple of years now, and while it sometimes is a little tempermental, if anything happened and it died on us we would probably go out within days to replace it. That's how much we feel we need it.

The actual machine is probably about 6 inches wide and about a foot or so long. We keep ours in the box it came with along with rolls of extra bag material, but it can also be hung on a wall.

We discovered we prefer the rolls to the premade bags mainly because this way we can make them to the size we need and don't feel we're wasting the bags. Also, I believe they can be cleaned and reused (although we don't).

[citabria]

Did you ever post the recipe for your burritos? If you did, could you reply with the link? And if not, could you post it?

Right now saving $500/month would be a very good thing!

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

In all fairness, it's necessary to subtract about $150 for the upfront costs of salmon, tilapia and shrimp (about $25 per large package each) and burrito ingredients (about $75 for enough to make 100 or so).

However, I've STILL got about half of the burritos, some chicken and almost all of the salmon, so there are more savings yet to be added in.

I will post my recipe soon.

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

Just posted the burrito recipe for you. :)

[onyxtwilight.livejournal.com]

Operating on the theory that it would be nice, for the sake of variety, to also keep some fresh vegetables around for occasional non-frozen meals, allow me to turn you on to another money-saver with a slight upfront investment:

https://www.greenbags.com/

They really do work. I love them. Storage times vary depending on what it is, but I've literally kept carrots good for MONTHS in those things. Parsley's at the other end of the scale, usually only good for a couple weeks -- but that's compared to mere DAYS in regular plastic.

And you can wash and reuse them until they fall apart! :-)

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

Hey, thanks for this tip, honey!

[skyefyr.livejournal.com]

I've discovered I have the best luck with keeping herbs fresh by keeping them in a small vase in the fridge. I've had cilantro keep for a couple of weeks this way, and I've had really good results with parsley too. Tossing out the bags completely seems to work the best for me for fresh herbs.

[onyxtwilight.livejournal.com]

That works well, too. I've also been seeing, in higher end grocery stores, herbs in bags still rooted in a gauze-wrapped bit of dirt -- still alive and growing, right in your fridge. Also some salad greens can be found this way. The freshness is phenomenal, because it's still alive when you tear it off for salad. Or whatever. :-)

But for anything that usually decays too fast? These green bags. I'm tellin' you. :-)

[skyefyr.livejournal.com]

As silly as it sounds, a couple years ago my basil plants weren't doing well, and I picked up some at the store that still had the root ball on them. I didn't use all the basil so I thought what the heck? I planted it. It grew and flurished and was probably the best plant in my garden that year! So for the green thumb challenged, this is another idea!

[eoma-p.livejournal.com]

I've seen this method recommended in several books on herbs, and I use it very frequently.

However...I have a very dear friend whose family is from Cuba and one of her relatives keeps a glass of fresh herbs in the fridge to trap evil spirits, so my friend was REALLY freaked out that I was trapping evil spirits in my fridge the last time she saw herbs stored that way.

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

oh...wow.

[skyefyr.livejournal.com]

Wow, I've never heard of this before. What kind of evil were they trapping? Were there specific herbs? I'm always interested in the way different cultures deal with things and why....

[eoma-p.livejournal.com]

It was either cilantro or parsley, because those are what I usually buy and store, but my friend is a VERY devout Christian, and her relatives dabble in Santeria(sp?) so I didn't ask questions. She's also not into herbs enough to identify what I had or compare it to what her relatives had.

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

I would bet that it was cilantro. Latinos (with relatives who practice Santeria, I am assuming her ethnicity) use tons of cilantro but almost no parsley.

[sleepymaggie.livejournal.com]

What if you had a burrito making party, where everyone contributed ingredients and took away some of the finished product? You could share space and time and company while making lots of yummy things.

Pat and I have made burritos to freeze before and it is quite an undertaking. Our recipe was definitely less involved/fresh than yours -- we used canned beans, jarred salsa, canned olives, cheese, and tortillas. Either way they freeze really well. I think I want to try your recipe out.

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

You know, this is a great idea. Maybe a weekend burrito party is the way to get this going next time I need to do it.

I made smaller versions of this recipe with canned beans, and that was faster, but it was also more expensive.

If I used a pressure cooker, i could get this going alot faster.