Freezer Food Friday-Marinades

Happy Friday!

Today's frozen food tip is marinades. You can do one of two things: make a super-batch (say, 5 or 6X the normal amount) of your favorite marinade and 1) divide it up into ziploc baggies and freeze; OR 2), actually add the meat of choice and freeze them together. The easiest thing I have done is buy those bags of boneless, skinless breasts; I make the marinade, divide it up into the bags and then throw 5 breasts into each bag. They go back into the freezer and I forget about it until we want to eat it.

It's great if you have people coming over for dinner. You can just pull out a couple bags of chicken, make a salad and/or veggie, cut up some French bread and serve ice-cream sundaes for dessert. So easy.

I have two recipes to share, one for chicken and one for pork chops.

Chicken first. My kids LOVE this. I like it just fine, but I keep making it because my kids say things like this to me when I make it: "Mom, thank you so much for making this chicken, I love it," like we are in a commercial or something. I like that kind of positive reinforcement, so I keep on making it. You can grill it, bake it, or even cook it in frying pan, slice it and use it in fajitas. I have tried all three ways, and they like it any way I serve it.

Marinade for 6 chicken breasts:

• 2 tsp. Salt
• 1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
• 2 Tbsp. Dry mustard
• 1 cup oil (any kind)
• 1/2 cup Red wine vinegar
• 3/4 cup Soy sauce
• 1 tsp. Pepper
• 1 tsp. Minced garlic
• 1 1/2 tsp. Parsley flakes

Put chicken in a Ziploc bag with the marinade; let marinade for an hour or so and cook it anyway you like it.

And now for the pork chop recipe (I think this would be good with chicken as well):

Pork chop marinade:

Enough for 6 pork chops.

• 16 oz. Pineapple juice
• 1/2 cup Soy sauce
• 1 tsp. Ground Ginger
• 1/2 tsp. Minced Garlic
• 1/2 cup Italian dressing

Grill, broil or pan fry pork chops until no longer pink in the center.

If you like either of these recipes, they can easily be doubled, tripled, quadrupled, etc. I usually multiply the recipe by 5 to have enough for 30 servings; I prepare 5 pieces of meat that day and then I divide up the rest (5 pieces + 1/5 remaining marinade in 5 Ziploc bags= 5 easy meals). When Guapo isn't home to fire up the real grill, I prepare the chicken or chops on my George Foreman Grill. I prepare a salad and veggie while the meat is grilling so the whole process only takes around 20 minutes start to finish. Easy, Easy, Easy.

If anyone has a great marinade recipe, please share! I would be happy to post it next Friday (or link to your blog).

Have a great weekend!