This post brought to you by American Frozen Foods Institute and the Frozen Food Roundtable. All opinions are 100% mine.
Being the first our friends to purchase our own home made us the designated party planners by default. In addition to our annual Halloween party, we usually try to get everyone together a few times a year. Because we’re spread far and wide across the state our get togethers are usually over night or weekend long get togethers. Honestly, Jake and I wouldn’t have it any other way. But that doesn’t mean entertaining our friends isn’t work!
We usually kick off the weekend with a dinner on Friday. Usually I spend the day stressing out about what to cook up and then working on the mound of dishes I created. But a quick trip down the frozen food isle and I realized just how wide the variety of easy to serve foods are offered there. One of the benefits of frozen foods is that I buy options that come in ready to serve packaging because as you know, dishes are my least favorite household chore.
Recently my sister and her husband came over for one of our favorite southern meals. Baked chicken and fried green tomatoes. As delicious as they are, it’s not the most filling of combinations so I supplemented (and made the meal a little healthier!) with Stouffer’s Mac & Cheese. With 100% real cheese it was super cheesy, just the way we like it. Then we added Birds Eye Steamfresh Corn to round things out.
It’s hard to believe that almost the entire meal was just thrown in the oven! Bonus the Stouffers and Corn came in their own heat and serve containers so clean up was easy.
In our family, we were raised with the motto that a happy guest is a well fed guest. So in addition to great meals together, I also like to keep things on hand that are easy for guest to grab themselves. You never know when one might have to hit the road early, miss lunch or get a light night craving.
Did you know: Freezing foods in seconds at temperatures well below zero degrees immediately locks in nutrients and flavors until your food is ready to be enjoyed. Frozen. How Fresh Stays Fresh!
A great breakfast option for guest, or even busy mornings, are Delights by Jimmy Dean Turkey Sausage, Egg White and Cheese English Muffin Sandwich. One of the differences between fresh vs frozen is that to put these fresh breakfast sandwiches together myself would take quite some time. That I really don’t have, but the frozen option come in individually wrapped pouches and take just a few minutes to make – easy and convenient.
Even better, these breakfast sandwiches are only 250 calories and contain 17g of protein and 20% of your daily calcium. The great thing about Freezing is that it naturally pauses inspired recipes made with fresh, quality ingredients and suspends them there until the moment you’re ready to enjoy them, locking in freshness, flavor and nutrients.
For a lunch or dinner option guest can help themselves to a Café Steamers. My sister’s favorite is Kung Pao Chicken. This is one of the best examples of freezing acting as a natural pause button. This dish made with real chicken, rice, water chestnuts and peppers among other veggies was flash frozen in just seconds to keep the just picked veggies at the peak of freshness.
How do you keep guest happy and full while saving time, energy and mess?
That Mac N Cheese looks delicious!!!!
That macaroni looks so good. I really want to have some of that right now.
We also have the house that people congregate to for holiday parties and BBQs since we have a grass backyard. I have learned to use several crockpots over time to cook things up in to keep the dishes down. For me it doesn’t matter how prepared I am, I still stress over it. I do love those Stouffer’s frozen meals though.
My husband likes Kung Pao Chicken too. I love how easy flash freezing makes entertaining.
I like having frozen food in the freezer as it is convenient for a busy family. I like that the kids can take something out and make their own food.