How Freezer Friendz Conducts Their Freezer Swap

One question that I get a lot is, "What does a freezer swap look like?"   We captured our swap with our camera this time so you could see for yourself.  This is the swap we just had on Friday.  There are currently five members of our group.   Each member cooks the same meal five times.  She keeps one and brings one for each of the other four members to the swap.  You may notice that the person on the end did not get the buns.  That is my pile.  I made the meal with the buns, so I already had my meal in the freezer. 

As you can see in the photo, we have a tent card for each member.  When a member arrives for the exchange, she brings her cooler inside and starts placing a meal next to each member's name card.  After all members have passed out their food, we all start to pack our coolers.  The whole exchange takes about ten minutes if everyone arrives on time.  Most of the time we all leave and go on with our day.  Occasionally, we may make it a bit more of a social time. 

Our swap occurs once a month.  It is always held at the same house, on the same day of the month (2nd Friday) and at the same time.  Keeping things consistent helps to eliminate confusion and ensures that no one will get frustrated by constant changes to the schedule.  We have 2 full time teachers in our group.  They cannot attend the exchange because we hold ours during the school day.  No biggie!  They just drop off their meals to one of our members to bring for them.  They then arrange to pick up their coolers full of food at a later time.  It works beautifully. 

Do any of you do a meal swap?  Is yours similar?  We'd love to know how you conduct yours!

Parmesan Chicken by Amy

You can find the recipe and leave comments at this link: http://freezerfriendz.blogspot.com/2010/12/parmesan-chicken-by-amy.html

Enjoy!

Rerun: Sloppy Joe Muffins by Jackie

You can find the recipe and leave comments at the following link.  Enjoy!
http://freezerfriendz.blogspot.com/2009/05/freezer-sloppy-joes.html#comment-form

Spice Rubbed Pork Loin by Erica

Ingredients:
3-4 pound pork loin
4 tbs. brown sugar
8 tsp. sweet and smoky chipotle powder
3 tsp ground cumin
3 tsp. dried thyme
3 teaspoons garlic pepper

Assembly:
In a small bowl, combine dry ingredients. Place pork evenly on plastic wrap. Rub spice mixture evenly on pork. Bring up the sides of the plastic wrap to enclose pork. Freeze.

Serving Day:
Defrost completely.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line a baking dish with foil and coat foil with nonstick cooking spray. Unwrap pork and place on baking sheet. Coat pork evenly with non stick cooking spray.

Cook loin for 1 1/2 - 2 hours. Internal thermometer should read 160 degrees.

Remove from oven, cut and serve.

Rerun: So You Forgot to Defrost Chicken! by Jen

The original recipe is from Fix-it and Forget-It Cookbook and was written by Mary Seislstad. I have made slight adjustments for freezing.

Ingredients:
6 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves (original recipe calls for frozen chicken)
2 10 3/4oz. cans cream of chicken soup
4 oz. can sliced mushrooms, or 1/2c. sliced fresh mushrooms
3/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
Egg Noodles or Rice

Assembly:
Place chicken in gallon Ziploc bag. Mix remaining ingredients in separate bowl and pour over chicken. Freeze standing up, so it will fit in the crock pot when you are ready to cook.

Serving Day:
Cook from frozen. Remove plastic bag from frozen meal. Place meal in crock pot. Cook on low 10-12 hours. Serve over cooked egg noodles or rice.

Freezer Friendz: I included egg noodles.