Well, my freezer meal cooking has been a great success. We have loved all of the meals that I have made so far. We have gone through most of the meals and have found a few favorites. This meal listing is a compilation of our favorite meals with a couple of newbies added in. This time I will be making a double of each recipe, so the shopping list is for 2 of each meal. I hope this way I can make more meals in less time. I'm hoping that it will be easier to prep if I'm making doubles. We'll see! ;-)
Here's my process:
First Step:
Find & Organize Recipes!
This is probably my favorite part. I like to find new ideas on Pinterest or Facebook and I like to look through sites to find things that I think my family will enjoy. I also went through my previous 3 lists to pull out the recipes we loved the most.
Here are my recipes & shopping list:
Recipes: click here
Shopping List: click here
(REMEMBER THAT THIS TRIP IS A DOUBLE RECIPE LIST!!!)
Second Step:
SHOP!
I started by checking through my own pantry and through my frozen meat selection in my own freezer. Shopping in my stock piles first is great because I can use the items I have found on sale and this is friendly on my budget! The third benefit of stock-pile shopping, is that I use up the meats I have before they get freezer burned or become unusable.
This time my shopping bill at Aldi's was $90.04! I did have to pick up 2 cans of cream of potato soup, teriyaki sauce, soy sauce, and a can of green chiles from Walmart, so I think this trip was a total of $100. This time I used 9 recipes, but got 18 meals out of it because I doubled every recipe this time which means each meal costs around $5.56 total. So, for my family of 4 (sometimes 5), that is a cost of $1.39 (or $1.12) per serving. Best price around!
Here's the haul:
Third Step:
Prep It!
Now I dice, chop, measure, mix, and label everything! Again, I double-bag things in gallon freezer bags or I use my Glad Ovenware 9x13 or 8x8 pans. These are awesome and make organizing my freezer a breeze!
I have a pretty large kitchen so my set up is as follows:
I try to keep everything separate and clean in my kitchen as I work. I have 2 cutting boards and 2 knives in the meat-prep station: 1 of each for chicken and 1 of each for beef. I have 2 flexible cutting boards in the veggie station so that I can chop veggies and then carry the whole thing to the storage station to add the veggies to the trays or bags. Again, I do a lot of cleaning as I work so that my kitchen isn't a disaster the whole time.
Fourth Step:
Load up the Freezer & Clean Up!
With 9 recipes, I now have 18 meals ready after this cooking venture. Freezer is re-stocked and should last us until I have another break from school! Everything is organized in my freezer and ready to go. The last thing I do is create a checklist that has the names of the meals in the freezer. I put this in a magnetic frame on the outside of the freezer so that when we take out a meal, we check it off the list. This helps us to know what we have left to eat and helps me be sure I use everything I have in there!
Here are my completed meals waiting to be put in my freezer!
If you have questions, I'd be happy to share what I have learned from my own experiences. I can honestly say that we have enjoyed every meal I've tried with the freezer cooking method. I really enjoy doing this and feel so accomplished after a day of freezer cooking!
Addition:
One final thought......We try to plan our menu every week so that we have a game plan of what to eat each night. This helps us prepare ahead and to resist the temptation of fast food / pizza! It helps to make meal planning less like torture when we use the fun chalkboard tray I made a few months ago:
