This recipe was so simple to make, easy to freeze and tasted so yummy when re-heated!

Here is what you need for a family of 4-6:

1 24 oz frozen shredded hasbrowns, 1/2 cup minced onion (about 1/2 med. onion), 2- 10.75 oz cream of celery soup, 1- 8 oz cream cheese, 1 1/2 cups Monterey Jack cheese, 1 1/2 -2 cups cooked, cubed ham (about 1/2 lb total), 1/4 tsp. pepper, 1 cup cheddar cheese (optional)

Step 1:

Soften Cream Cheese (notice I had 4 laid out b/c I made this meal for my co-op group) and Cube your ham

Step 2:

Cream the cream cheese and 2 cans of cream of celery soup together.

Step 3:

Stir in chopped onions, ham, cheese and pepper to the soup mixture

Step 4:

Break apart frozen hashbrowns, gently stir in.

Step 5:

Place in a gallon freezer bag get as much air out as possible, label and Freeze!

Reheating Directions: Thaw, place in a greased baking dish. Bake uncovered 1 hr at 350 degrees, uncover and top with cheddar (optional) and return to oven until cheese is melted!

Every one in our family loved this dish. I honestly thought it was great, but next time might use it as a side dish instead of the main dish. This would probably be great for a brunch meal as well! To make this meal a bit healthier, opt for the low fat/no fat cheese!

*Freezer Cooking Tips I learned from making this recipe:

• If you are freezing using a freezer bag, freeze with the bag laying flat. This will allow you to stack your frozen items easier and give you more freezer space!

• Also, I label my freezer items with the 1. Recipe name, 2. Date Made & 3. Reheating directions (listed above). By adding the reheating directions, I can simply pull it out and know how to reheat w/ out having to look anything up! If you are a part of a meal co-op this will also make it easy to pass on reheating directions to others

• This freezer recipe has already frozen potatoes in the ingredient list. Already frozen potatoes tend to work great in a freezer meal, but baking potatoes/red potatoes do not tend to freeze/reheat very well!

• This recipe called for cooked ham. Instead of baking the ham, I bought the already cooked 5 lb ham from Wal-Mart. It cost about $6.00 for the ham and I only used 1/2 of it to make 4 of this recipe. I then took the leftover ham, cut some into cubes and some into ham steaks and froze in freezer bags. Now I have ham ready to pull out to use for omelets, dinner or another casserole. Plus I didn’t have to do anything but cut it up before freezing!

• Expect your kitchen to be a mess when you are done making this meal for a co-op group. I made 4 batches of this dish and I used about every open space in my kitchen as a “station.” I had a cutting station, mixing station, labeling station and freezer bag station. I didn’t even have to pre-cook anything for this meal and my kitchen was a MESS! Just take a look…

This is just one side of my kitchen. You can’t even see the other half of the mess. Let me tell you, though it was worth it to have my freezer stocked with 4 meals!