Inexpensive Healthy DIY Frozen Entrees

Happy Hump day everyone!

We run a very tight ship in our household.  Not only do we live by our schedules, we constantly strive to eat a healthy balanced meal…yes, that’s every meal from breakfast to dinner.  And no, mom, plain oatmeal in the morning alone is not a balanced meal for the boys!  I love creating frozen entrees for the family.  This saves us a lot of money and time.  It also allows us to use better quality ingredients and controlling the cooking method.  We know that we will always have a supply of quick and tasty dishes on hand that we actually like to eat!  I don’t cook and freeze a whole week of meals just the entrees.  Twice a week I cook a lot of entrees like pasta sauce with meatballs, lasagna, roasted chicken, pork chops, etc.  The logic behind this is that I know I have the entire week’s entrees taken care of for the family.  All I need to do for every meal is to just cook the rice (you can do this first thing in the morning and just let it cook in the rice cooker) or pasta, and prepare a vegetable or salad dish.  And voila, you have yourself a balanced meal!  The only dish that I never cook and freeze is fish.  It just doesn’t taste the same when it’s been frozen.

For this week, I’d like to share my baked spare ribs that I normally cook in bulk and freeze.  I love cooking this dish.  Not only it is easy to make it is also high in protein which our boys currently need for their growth and development.  Our twin boys just turned 2 and they no longer drink milk.  Well, only half a cup a night before bedtime.  So, as parents we are stickler about them getting enough protein to help them grow.

I’ve tried the boiled and then baked spare ribs method on many occasions but it’s just a lot of work.  Besides, the boiled ribs do not take the marinates well.  So, I decided to try a different method…marinate and bake.  You can marinate with any sauce you like.  The above meal took 15 minutes to prepare.  The frozen spare ribs took 5 minutes (place the ribs in refrigerator the night before to thaw) to heat.  The rice was already cooked first thing in the morning.  The veggies took 10 minutes to prepare and cook.  Below is my recipe for just 6 slabs of spare ribs.  This takes care of 3 entrees for the week.

Thank you for visiting and have a fabulous day!