 Is that new here? So today I have a monthly meal prep video and if you're new around here, basically around every two weeks I do a nice stash of stuff for my freezer. A lot of this stuff is for in between dinners because I tend to make dinner almost every night. Sometimes I have some freezer meals. I just did a video on three freezer meals for dinner which I can leave the link in the description box but a lot of this stuff is for like lunches and things for my kids, healthy options, all of that. And so I spend some time making a list of things and then I find the recipes that I need and I get all of the ingredients and just try to get it all done as fast as I can. Today's video is a little bit different for me just because I am doing this first thing in the morning. A lot of times I film in the afternoon but today this is just how my schedule worked out which I'm kind of okay with because that means that I'll get all this stuff done probably before lunch and I don't have to worry about the cleanup going into the evening. I also have a recipe that was requested by a subscriber so I'll be telling you about that here in a little bit. If you ever have any ideas or requests or things that you might like to see me make in these types of videos you can always leave them in the comments. I do read them as much as I possibly can between being a mom of three and I do take into consideration and some of you guys have given me some pretty good ideas. Also, if you're new here we do have some gluten sensitivity in our household so I do tend to go on the gluten-free side. There are times that I will tell you what you could do if you aren't gluten-free or other options as we go along. Most of the stuff I'm making today is new recipes. I think there's one or two things that I have shown you guys before but we like variety and don't always do the exact same thing. I also wanted to tell you guys that today's video is sponsored by Freshly which this has been such a cool opportunity because I've actually looked into this before and I actually have been using them for a few weeks now. I wanted to test it out and just really know that it's something that's quality and something that pretty much anybody would eat. Cory and I actually have both been eating their meals. They are just so convenient. You guys don't know this, my husband's a contractor and there's a lot of times between jobs that he stops here at home and eats lunch and sometimes I'm in the middle of something or whatever, it's kind of unexpected and it's so great to be able to pull one of these out and just put it in the microwave, heat it up and the thing that I have been so appreciative about this is you can tell that it's never been frozen. It's so fresh, it tastes like the type of meals that I make myself and they are all pretty much gluten-free which helps out so much, especially considering that my husband is so sensitive to gluten. Here are a few of the meals that I selected for this week and it is creamy chicken casserole, spring chicken pilaf, white bean turkey chili and a buffalo chicken dish and they have nutrient dense ingredients, high quality protein and complex carbs to keep you energized and feeling really great. For somebody that's on the go a lot, I know that eating healthy can really be compromised just by grabbing what's easy and I feel like this is a great alternative. I know a lot of times we push off eating healthy but this is one way that you can get started right away. So some of the things that you get with Freshly is access to a rotating menu that is created by nutritionists and chefs. Freshly's food philosophy is less sugar, less processed food, more nutrition without compromising great taste. Each meal is between $7.99 and $11.99 depending on how many meals you get for each week. This is one of my personal favorites just because our schedule can be super crazy and I don't always have everything planned out to the teeth. They are packaged in a way that they are fresh for an entire week before needing to be frozen. It tells you how long to microwave it for which is always three minutes or under and then of course you can see that it is gluten-free and it gives you all the nutrition facts. But if you check out my link in the description box, you will get $30 off your first two weeks with Freshly. As a busy mom and somebody with a very fast-paced lifestyle most of the time, I just highly recommend this. It eliminates having to do a lot of food prep especially for yourself as a mom and if you aren't eating healthy right now and are really looking into a healthier lifestyle this is definitely the ticket. All right, so all of that being said now that I told you about my little gold mind over here with Freshly, let's go ahead and get started. So the first thing I think I'm going to start off with today because as you guys know whenever I do my meal preps I'm always keeping my oven going. I'm always trying to kind of strategize so that I can make the best of my time as I'm cooking and prepping making sure that I'm keeping my stove going if I've got stuff I need to go on the stove. And so today's recipes, I would say go between like really easy and maybe like some medium skill particularly this first one we're gonna start off with and that is doing some pizza pockets that are gluten free. I've never made this recipe before and as I told you guys before is stuff flops or doesn't work out I like to show it to you. So we'll see how this goes. The recipe I found on Pinterest she said that it works out every single time. So we will see and let's go ahead and get started. This recipe for the dough part of the pizza pocket seems so incredibly simple. So if you have a gluten free flour that you like that's your favorite you can get that. I just got the kind from Walmart that's a great value brand. So this does have xanthan gum in it that is one other ingredient but she said if you're a mix it has xanthan gum in it to not add more. So it has gluten free flour, baking powder, salt and then you add in some yogurt and some water to kind of make a dough mixture. So we'll see how this goes. I'm gonna whisk the dry ingredients first and then slowly add the wet ingredients. Popped into the oven and now I'm going to be making a party mix that's pretty simple. I tweaked it around a little bit. I will leave the recipe below that I am following. One of my girl's favorite nuts is cashews. I think she had something else in there. I can't exactly remember if it was like walnuts or pecans or something. And then I have gluten free pretzels and then rice squares. And I know in the recipe she had done half corn squares, half rice squares. I just grabbed a box of rice squares and then the other part that I'll be heating up on the oven to mix into it is onion powder, garlic powder, salt and Worcestershire sauce. I think I said that right. And then a stick of butter. Okay, my overall opinion of these is that they turned out really well. They're really hot. So I'm gonna have my girls try them in a little bit for lunch. But I think they turned out well. The biggest thing I think was just learning kind of a method of how to fold them over and make them into more of a pocket size. Or I could even make them into a longer like stick size, that kind of thing. So I think I may actually make a double batch of these again in the next few days just so I have a good amount in the freezer. But this was a good trial run and they smell really delicious. If you're a subscriber or you're somebody that watches my videos pretty regularly then you know what I'm about to do. So this is a recipe that's been tried and true. I've made it quite a few times. And it is a copycat for Chick-fil-A nuggets and it works out so well. It is gluten free and it's just delicious. Even my husband really likes it. So basically the first step to doing this is putting the pickle juice you can get. I like to get dill pickle juice. Somebody had been asking me that of what kind of pickle juice I get. And then I just cut up tenders into like, you know, nugget size, put them in here, dump the pickle juice over them. Then we just eat the pickles. And I let them marinate. Now I don't really think there's an exact science to this. I just kind of let them marinate till I'm ready to put them in the oven. Sometimes it's a few hours, sometimes it's an hour, sometimes it's just, yeah, it just depends on the timing. I don't really like have any certain amount of time that I think is good. So I'm gonna get these in here and then go to my next recipe. If you'll notice as I'm working, I'm using the same bowl because I'm just washing it so that I don't have a huge stack when I'm done trying to keep things cleaned up as I go. So the next thing I'm gonna make is something that my girls love, love, love, love, and they're standing behind me waiting for me to make these. So they like cake pops, of course, generally from Starbucks. And so we're gonna try to make a healthier version of these today with almond flour, dates. It does cough a cashew butter in the recipe, but I'm going to use peanut butter because that's what I have on hand. Vanilla, and then I got these. I've used these before in my food prep. I use them. This is kind of my go-to for chocolate chips, but it's from Walmart and it's the Bake Believe brand and they are stevia sweetened so they don't have a bunch of sugar in them. So you do need a food processor for this recipe which I don't have. So the main thing you need to food process is the dates. So I'm going to see what I can do. I may end up throwing them in my blender or using my hand blender. I'm gonna chop them up first and then go from there. And then these are the only sticks I could find. I was at Walmart. They're all a little on the thin side so I may end up using two of them kind of stuck together to try to hold them up and then I just grabbed some small sprinkles. I just figured the smaller they are, the less sugar it is, and it's just fun for them. Go to Starbucks and ask them, is that what you just said? Well, they don't make them like this. We had a bit of a fail situation with the cake pops but how do they taste, Abby? Good. Good, yeah. She tasted them, she said they're really good and then they also ate a bunch of these. So I'm gonna definitely be making more of these and then just like flash-freezing them, putting them in bags so that they can be heated up really fast. So I think what I'm gonna try to do to salvage these is put them in the freezer, let them freeze and then try putting a stick in them. And if not, I guess you guys can just eat them with your fingers. What do you think of? You think that? So they love these little guys. You like those little guys? Okay, all right, we're gonna put them in. Also, the party mix is done so I am going to put half of this into a snack container in the pantry and then the other half I'm gonna put into a Ziploc and just stick it in the freezer so that it doesn't get stale. That is something else you can put in the freezer, is just dry snacks and things like that to help them not go stale. So I've got the chicken nugget station kind of moved. I washed everything, sanitized everything and I have the first batch in the oven. If you guys watch really often, then you know that when I make these, I usually make them on my baking rack and today I decided to use my leftover parchment paper from the party mix and just put the nuggets on there. I'm kind of curious to see if I think they bake as well on there or get as crispy kind of since they won't be sitting up on the rack. So we're testing that out. So we'll see how that goes. We're gonna do something with these in just a little bit but I just pulled these out of the freezer. I did put them on some parchment paper because I was kind of afraid they would stick. They seem pretty solid. So I'm gonna try putting a stick in them and then putting them in a Ziploc bag and back into the freezer because it says you can store them in the freezer and these will be kind of like a dessert treat for the girls or I may just put them in the refrigerator. So let's see if I can get a stick in them. Okay, they're not quite as I envisioned them and I think this recipe would have worked out a lot better had I had a food processor because I think it would have blended up the dates better and made the dough or batter, whatever you wanna call it, stickier and then obviously more dense and I think it would have all worked out a lot better. Plus I think having a little thicker sticks also would have helped me. But either way, my girls are gonna think that these things are awesome and actually they love anything with sprinkles and a little tip for you if you have a little one that is just not doing very well at eating their food, just putting a little bit of sprinkles even on like mashed potatoes. I know it sounds kind of funny but it makes them wanna eat it. I've done it before, put sprinkles on a lot of things and sometimes it even helps them try new things that they think will taste gross and then they end up liking it. So just a little tip but I know that the girls are gonna think these are great. Are you excited? They're not, they don't quite look like Starbucks but they look a little similar, huh? You think they'll make a good treat like after dinner? Okay, so moving on to these sweet potatoes. I just did something that I have never done before and that is I cooked these in the microwave. Yes, I did not even know that that was possible. I didn't know you could do that. So basically I just stabbed them all over with a fork and then put them in the microwave for about like seven minutes, something like that. I'm not endorsing doing this because I don't necessarily know if it's actually safe to do. You could look it up online but this is what the recipe called to do so I decided to try it, take my chances and it worked out great. So I can't remember if it was the last meal prep video or the one before that but I made some broccoli tater tots and the girls really loved them and it was an easy way to get veggies in them because they're finger food, they're bite size and you can dip them in ketchup or ranch or something like that. So this time I'm going to be making a spinach sweet potato tot. So I'm going to put all of the ingredients in here like with everything else, the recipe will be below and then I'm going to chop up the spinach, put it in here and then put it on parchment paper in tot form and stick it in the oven to the requested recipe. So somebody requested that I would make some fruit leathers in my oven. So thank you to that friend on here that suggested that and I've actually considered doing this before but kind of forgot about it so I was so thankful for the suggestion. So the recipe I found has raspberries, blueberries and strawberries and lemon juice. The reason I chose to do this last is because it's something that has to sit in my oven for quite a while and I think I'm going to be making two sheets of it. I have enough berries to do that so I'm going to go ahead and do that. So I'm going to pull out my blender, put it all in the blender. I mean it seems pretty simple and we'll see the results and how it turns out. All right, these are done. I had flipped them over one time and they've worked out perfectly. They remind me a little bit of the broccoli tots I made but they smell really, really good. So I'm curious to see what my girls think of these. I'm sure they'll like them. They have Parmesan in them. I did Parmesan instead of the cheddar just because I had that on hand and threw it in. So I will flash freeze these just like I do the nuggets and then put them in a baggie and then I can just heat them up really quickly. So now I'm going to take the fruit leather that I blended up and I'm actually going to replace this parchment paper on this pan and put them in both pans and stick them in the oven. And I'm going to finish up this video now. What I'm gonna do is if you go on my channel page at the top of the channel page you can see like videos and things like that. There's a tab called community and for a lot of you may not know this I actually post a lot of things on there just telling you whenever a video is gonna be a different day or like whenever it's gonna go up late and those sorts of things. So I will post a picture of the finished product of those fruit leathers whenever I post this video so you guys can go check it out there. Thanks a lot for watching. If you're new around here I would love it if you subscribed and joined my channel and also don't forget to check out the description box to try out freshly for yourself. If that is something that interests you give a comment below, give this video a like and I'll see you in my next video.