Freezer Meal Party

Holy freezer meal party! Talk about stockpiling for a rainy (or snowy) day–we cranked over 50 meals out of my kitchen today! 8 women, 3 bottles of homemade red wine (thanks Lucchese family) and some fancy kitchen gadgets make for a fun way to spend a Sunday afternoon. After we sipped, chopped, cooked, ate and shopped we all left with 7 separate freezer meals. Some of the girls with smaller families divided the meals into two and left with 14 total meals!

Let me give you the scoop on what goes down at a Pampered Chef Freezer Meal Party!

The Pampered Chef Consultant, ours was Sarah Miller–she is awesome, gives you 3 menus to choose from. We all agreed on the menu with the following meals: Easy Beef Stew, Saucy Beef Chili, Cheesy Shells and Italian Sausage, Barbecue Chicken, Quick Chicken Cacciatore, Lemon Greek Chicken, and Potato Corn Chowder.

Once you decide on a menu you place a small ordered with Pampered Chef, for example, we had to order spices, a rosemary-infused olive oil and a cherry balsamic vinegar. You also get an ingredient list for the grocery store. Pampered Chef does a nice job of breaking the list down into sections, like produce, dairy, meat, etc. It made the grocery shopping a lot less tedious and you could hit up each section in a breeze.

Before the party you have to prep some of the meat ahead of time which is no big deal. You basically show up to the party with your meat, freezer bags, and other ingredients and then the consultant walks you through everything step by step. Sarah brought every single cooking utensil that we needed for the workshop and had everyone’s stations all set up before they arrived. To be honest, I was expecting it to be a lot more chaotic than it was–Sarah did a good job of moving from station to station, answering questions, and showing us how to use the Pampered Chef cooking tools.

We also got to see the Rockcrok Dutch Oven in action–Pampered Chef’s exclusive cookware that can go from stovetop to the microwave, grill, oven and broiler. You can sear, braise, simmer, slow cook, fry, boil, bake, broil, grill and microwave all in one pot! Sarah demonstrated how to make fajitas in the Rockcrok; she layered red and green bell peppers, whole chicken breasts and a Smoky Barbecue Rub (same rub for the BBQ Chicken meal above) and then microwaved it for roughly 15 minutes–1/3rd of the time it would take to cook in the oven. She then used the Salad Choppers to shred everything when it was done! I am totally buying the Salad Choppers and am 100% sold on the Rockcrok. I may even just have to recreate the fajitas for my first Rockcrok meal.

Pampered Chef is known for their stoneware and some of my friends at the party said their families swear by the Stoneware Large Bar Pan–apparently it can be used for everything! Basically, you can use the bar pan for anything that you would use a baking dish or cookie sheet for and the benefit is that the stone produces completely even heat, meaning your food will be evenly cooked! If you have ever baked cookies on an unevenly heated surface you know what a pain it can be!

I didn’t realize how much fun a Pampered Chef Cooking Party can be. Sarah did such a great job and isn’t pushy at all–I highly recommend her if you are thinking about hosting a regular Pampered Chef Party or a Freezer Meal Party. Feel free to contact me for her information.

When it was all said and done we were all a little hazy eyed! We put a lot of work into our meals! I do have to say, cooking is WAY more fun with your girlfriends! 7 complete meals, a glass of wine and chicken fajitas for lunch all in about 4 hours isn’t too shabby in my book.

I feel like this needs to be a quarterly event! Who wants to host next??? Make sure I get an invite.

What is your favorite Pampered Chef item? I know I am going to get the Rockcrok and the Salad Choppers but I haven’t finalized my order yet–wondering what else I HAVE to have?