Freezer Meal: Meatballs and Gravy

I absolutely love freezer meals.  I started looking at websites for recipes probably 6 months ago but was intimidated by the once a month cooking many women do. Not to mention our grocery budget is pretty tight, so getting enough money to buy a months worth of food at one time is a challenge in itself.  However, before I gave birth to my son I decided it would probably be a good idea to have some meals ready because there was no way I was going to be in the mood to cook in the weeks following the delivery, and i'm so thankful I did.  I went with the basics and the easiest of meals to freeze.  I didn't want to try anything I wasn't sure would freeze well because I didn't want to waste any food.  I ended up making meatloaf, bbq pork chops, chili, chicken enchilada soup, the filling for stuffed peppers, chicken in italian dressing marinade, and I had a turkey breast and roast ready to go.  my mom made sloppy joes, taco meat and veggy soup to add to our freezer as well.

Anyway the other night I decided to try out a recipe I found online for meatballs with gravy and then tweeked it a little to use what I had on hand.  I'd never made meatballs before so I was really hoping it turned out good and oh my goodness it was delicious.  I only wish I had gotten a picture of it to show, sorry.  Here is the recipe in case someone would want to try it.

Meatballs with Gravy

Meatballs
1 1/2 - 2 lbs ground beef
salt
pepper
italian seasoning
minced dried onion
seasoned bread crumbs
2 eggs

in medium bowl mix all ingredients.  I didn't measure any of my seasonings exactly (because I never do), I just put how much I thought looked good haha.  I didn't measure the bread crumbs exactly either but I probably put about a cup a them in.  You just need enough so you can make a ball out of the meat and it sticks together nicely.  Form meat mixture into balls (you can make them as big or small as you want) mine were about 1 1/2 inch balls.  In a pan over medium/low heat put about 1tbs of butter in your pan and let it melt.  Place your meatballs in hot pan and cook through.  Remove your meatballs when cooked thoroughly but leave the grease in the pan for the gravy

Gravy
1/4cup flour
3 beef boullion cubes
1 1/2 - 2 cups water

Blend flour into grease left in pan.  Add boullion cubes ( I didn't have cubes so I used boullion granules, either one works) and add water about 1/2 a cup at a time while stirring constantly until thickened.  Put meatballs back in gravy to heat.

I made this recipe into two batches.  I prepared the meatball mixture and only cooked about 8-10 meatballs.  With the rest of the mixture I formed about 7 more meatballs and placed them on a cookie sheet lined with wax paper and put this in my deep freezer until they were frozen.  Then I put the frozen meatballs in a ziploc freezer bag and put them back in the freezer.  Now i'm ready for the next time we want meatballs and gravy or spaghetti and meatballs.