All of this extra time has me nesting extra hard. I've been making freezer meals to have on hand.
I made pizza bagels, chicken and biscuit casserole, chicken and broccoli casserole, ham, apricot and goat cheese paninis, beef & bean burritos, swedish meatballs with mushrooms (for the crock pot) and stuffed french toast!
Here is my method for freezer pizza bagels. You'd think it would be very straight forward. It's not. There was a lot of trial and error involved in getting pizza bagels that don't come out of the oven mushy with sauce soaked into the bagel, or over bubbly with the sauce and cheese everywhere but the bagel! Follow all the steps, trust me!
Ingredients:
- 5 bagels from the bakery, unsliced
- 20 oz pizza sauce, spaghetti sauce or plain tomato sauce
- 1/2 bag of pepperonis, or about 3 oz, if getting it from a deli
- 2 cups shredded mozzarella
- take the bagels home and slice them yourself. Don't be tempted to buy presliced bagels, because they are too smooth and don't have the nooks and crannies to hold any sauce.
- lay the bagels on cookie sheets, cut sides up and freeze. If you put sauce on them right away, the sauce soaks into the bagel and makes it soggy when you bake them.
- place 4 paper towels on a microwave safe plate. Scatter pepperonis all over the paper towels, and microwave for about 30 seconds. When you pull the plate out, the paper towels will have turned orange from all the grease they soaked up. The pepperonis will feel dried out, but they will be OK
- make little stacks of pepperoni and cut them into tiny dices, about the size of a pea.
- place pepperonis into a bowl and stir in sauce.
- once bagels are frozen, pull them out of the freezer and top each one with a few tablespoons of pepperoni sauce mixture.
- top with shredded cheese. Press the cheese on top of them a little to get as much as possible to stick to the sauce
- place all of the bagels, still on cookie sheets, back in freezer and freeze until sauce and bagels are frozen together
- remove from freezer and wrap individually in Saran wrap. If some of the cheese falls off, carefully lay it on top of the bagel before wrapping. To prevent freezer burn even longer, store in a plastic freezer bag.
- to bake, preheat oven to 350. Unwrap however many bagels you want to cook and place on cookie sheet. Bake 10 minutes, rotate baking sheet, and bake 10-14 more minutes.- 5 bagels from the bakery, unsliced
- 20 oz pizza sauce, spaghetti sauce or plain tomato sauce
- 1/2 bag of pepperonis, or about 3 oz, if getting it from a deli
- 2 cups shredded mozzarella
- take the bagels home and slice them yourself. Don't be tempted to buy presliced bagels, because they are too smooth and don't have the nooks and crannies to hold any sauce.
- lay the bagels on cookie sheets, cut sides up and freeze. If you put sauce on them right away, the sauce soaks into the bagel and makes it soggy when you bake them.
- place 4 paper towels on a microwave safe plate. Scatter pepperonis all over the paper towels, and microwave for about 30 seconds. When you pull the plate out, the paper towels will have turned orange from all the grease they soaked up. The pepperonis will feel dried out, but they will be OK
- make little stacks of pepperoni and cut them into tiny dices, about the size of a pea.
- place pepperonis into a bowl and stir in sauce.
- once bagels are frozen, pull them out of the freezer and top each one with a few tablespoons of pepperoni sauce mixture.
- top with shredded cheese. Press the cheese on top of them a little to get as much as possible to stick to the sauce
- place all of the bagels, still on cookie sheets, back in freezer and freeze until sauce and bagels are frozen together
- remove from freezer and wrap individually in Saran wrap. If some of the cheese falls off, carefully lay it on top of the bagel before wrapping. To prevent freezer burn even longer, store in a plastic freezer bag.
