A few years ago, I attended a neighboring ward's Relief Society's Enrichment Activity where they discussed freezer meals. This lady blocked out one day a month for shopping preparations and clean up and produced 30+ meals for the month. She calculated the time for that day vs the time she used to take daily for dinner prep and realized she was saving herself an amazing amount of time. Also, she realized that her monetary commitment to food each month dropped drastically as well. I had dabbled around with the idea, but never really put it to use. One draw back for me was the amount of casseroles that were in her set of recipes. Don't get me wrong, I can eat me some cream of junk concoction loaded with cheese and fat any old time, but not night after night.
I have made may be 10 dinners at a given time to freeze and I always pre-cut my meat and separate them into individual baggies for each intended dinner, but that was the extent of my attempts. For some reason, I had the drive to try out her little experiment Saturday night. I started with the chicken dishes and popped out 6 meals (well, the main dish portion of the dinner at least) I guess I also should mention that there were 3 recipes that I made double batches. I then made 3 lasagnas. Since I was on such a roll I figured I would prep some more dinners. In the 3 hours I worked, I prepared 23 dinners and cleaned my kitchen and felt pretty proud of myself. I reveled in the fact that I still had the freedom to cook whatever sponanteous dish I am in the mood for or could rely on a back up as needed. I removed that annoying "What's for dinner" question and have saved hours of prep time.
In the end, I was left with the feeling of remorse for not trying this earlier and the drive to do this again and again. I can't wait to add to my repertoire so feel free to leave your tried and true freezer meals in the comment portion.
10 comments:
Wow! I have been wanting to try freezer meals so that we aren't going out to dinner but maybe once a week. I'd love to get the recipes from you. Way to go for making 23 meals!
I am impressed. I have never managed this, but certainly love the idea. My main aversion is the casseroles. One thing I have found useful is to make spaghetti sauce and taco meat in large batches and then freeze in family servings. It's quick to boil some pasta or put together tacos or taco salad.
I have never tried this because my freezer is the size of a toaster oven, but the idea appeals to me. Let me know how well the meals turn out!
Inspiring. I don't have any helpful recipes for you at this point but now I want lasagna for dinner.
That is so great. I need to do more freezer meals. The only thing I really do is lettuce wraps. You can google the recipe called PF Changs lettuce wraps. I just triple it and freeze whatever we can't eat in the first night. Good luck. I hope you'll post some of you favorites!
That's amazing. who was watching your kids? LOL!
I am super impressed, but a little confused. How do you have that much freezer space, and how do you have enough pans to store all of the dinners in? Way to go!
Can you do a post with all your freezer recipes, too?! I can't even think up one dinner idea let alone 23! This sounds awesome. I could always do with a little more time and a little less stress in my life. But I echo the commenter above me, how do you have so much freezer space for 23 meals?!
cream of 'junk'? sounds delicious! lol
one of my favorite freezer meals is tombstone pizza!! :)
I've actually seen them, very cool (no pun intended).
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