Mom-To-Be Freezer Meal - Sweet Potato Chili

I have to tell you honestly, I'm doing my first taste test as we speak you read. My very first response to this recipe,  http://chocolatecoveredkatie.com/2012/01/05/sweet-potato-chili/ was a little less than enthusiastic. The recipe is super simple and really easy to follow - toss the prepped ingredients in a pot, boil, turn down and simmer.

I love finding recipes that have a little something different to offer and that aren't the exact same as every other recipe out there, which is why I found "sweet potato chili" intriguing. I love sweet potatoes, I'm a fan of flavour and spices, it's a healthy recipe - and what goes better with chili than a side of corn bread?

First response after the first taste? "Meh." I really thought that my favourite part of tonights meal would be the corn bread. The chili was still quite hot, which I think was part of my issue. My theory is, that with it being so hot, it tasted more bland than it actually is, because once it started to cool a little, I ended up liking the chili more and more - even though the corn bread was probably still my favourite part... but I love my carbs, and well, corn bread is pretty much awesome.

After being frozen, the sweet potato and the zucchini were pretty mushy, so I'd suggest that if you plan on serving it to guests, serve fresh the day of or the day after. (Katie said in her blog entry that she thought the flavour of the chili was better the day after.)

My freezer meal method for this recipe is the same method I use for my stocks and soups. the muffin tin method!

For my muffin tins, I know I can fit 1/4 cup of whatever I'm baking/freezing, which makes for easy single serve meals and easy measuring when I'm making a soup and need to measure out the amount of stock I'll need. It also makes it easy to take out the exact amount I need, instead of a bigger batch than I actually need.

Once whatever I'm freezing is frozen and ready to be packaged, I take out my tins and place them on the counter for a few minutes for things to loosen (If I'm in a rush, I'll put some warm water in the bottom of my kitchen sink to encourage quicker loosening - although, I'd make sure to have the extra few minutes for blended/smooth soups, since they loosen pretty quickly and if you place the tin in warm water, even for a few seconds too long, things can get messy and your soup moulds could end up frozen together once they're packaged and refrozen)

Once things are loose and I can turn the mould around while it's inside the tin, I know it's ready to come out. You can take the moulds out a few ways, I usually opt for grabbing a butter knife and popping each one out - but be careful, if you have really nice tins, you can scratch the sides and/or bottoms and they can rust if you let them air dry. Or, you can flip the whole tin over and let them fall out onto your counter or a big cookie sheet.

Then I toss my prepared frozen moulds into a freezer bag, labelled with the contents, cooking directions, the date it was packaged. If I'm giving packaged freezer meals to a friend, I will include a list of ingredients in case they have an allergy I forgot about and I might include the website or the written out recipe in case they like it and want to make it themselves.



All in all, I think I would make this recipe again, and wait for it to cool off a little bit before I started eating again so I can enjoy all the flavours right from the beginning.

In my next entry I'll be sure to include the recipe for the corn bread I enjoyed so much with dinner tonight. It comes from one of my favourite recipe books.

Do you have a favourite or go-to chili recipe?
Have an awesome day and thanks for reading!

Oh! And don't forget to scroll down past the comments section and feed the goldfish - I think it's been a while since they've been fed :)