Freezer Meals

Freezer Meals

 

  

    I have taught classes on this subject several times now and didn't realize how many people out here have never even tried it.  With our busy lives now days and so many who work outside of the home this can be so helpful when dinner hour comes along. Many still want to feed their families good nutritious home cooked meals and enjoy the bonding time that comes to a family eating together.  This makes it a little easier to put something together on a Saturday morning or your day off for just investing a 2-3 hours of your time. Cooking this way makes it possible to prepare a month, two weeks or just a few nights worth of main dishes all at once and freeze them.  You can tailor this method of cooking to your own families needs.  So it is very flexible.

    Even it you're not a gourmet cook or hate spending lots of time in the kitchen, you'll find that by planning your meals ahead you will be able to spend more time with your family and actually be able to sit down at the dinner table and enjoy the meal with them or share the meal with a neighbor or friend in need.

    To serve a meal, you will simply thaw the dish and heat it or assemble it with minimal effort.  Meanwhile you can turn your attention to preparing a vegetable, salad or perhaps a dessert to serve with it.  The time-consuming preparation and cleanup is done all at once on your cooking day. 

    Tools used are minimal, they usually require gallon ziploc freezer bags, a sharpie marker and either disposable tin trays or pyrex dishes. If you are using your refrigerator/freezer, be sure to make room by cleaning it out the day before you cook.  Although this will limit the amount of space you can store ice cream and such.  you will soon have space for these things as you begin to use your entrees.

    Below are the 4 easy steps you'll want to follow to have success with this.  Remember don't do too much at first or it can get overwhelming (perhaps start out by making up to one weeks worth of meals, incorporating some quick fix dishes in as well).

 

 

   Step 1- Menu Planning

    Sit down and create a 1 to 2 week menu plan ( I use the following print outs for planning all of my meals- My Menu/Shopping List and for a whole months worth of meals planned out I use the menu planner from enlightenedhomemaker.com ). 

   

    Choose meals that your family already loves and add in a couple of new things to try every so often. There are lots of great resources for freezer meals on the Internet and many cookbooks written on this topic.  For the most part I just experiment until I find things that  are simple to make and freeze well.  You can click on the right side of my home page for the label Freezer Meals and find some of our favorites. When planning your menu consider how many meals you will actually use if you eat out occasionally or use up leftovers on a regular basis.  I kind of like consistency so I plan a months worth of meals and use it as my Master Menu: Monday is Comfort Food, Tuesday is Italian or Mexican, Wednesdays is Breakfast for Dinner, Thursday is Anything Goes Night (leftovers), Friday is Pizza Night, Saturday is Eat Out Night and Sunday is Family Traditional Meal.   I hang this on the inside of my cupboard door.
   
     If your brain is still cramped trying to think of what meals to plan pop on over to one of my favorite blogs "Living Well and Spending Less",  she has some awesome plans entitled "10 freezer meals in one hour".  They all look delicious and easy to make.  I think you'll become a fan like I am.

 

    On my menus I always include side dishes so that when I pull out a particular main dish I already know exactly how to balance the meal out.  This one step saves you so much time and stress at dinner hour or when unexpected company arrives.  From these menus you will create your shopping list.  I usually do this at the same time.  That way I only have to pull the recipe out once and add everything to my shopping list.  

 

    You can also try using headings like Beef, Chicken, Seafood or Other  when planning your menus, according to what is on sale in your ads for the week.  For instance meals such as lasagna, spaghetti, chili and beef enchiladas would all be listed under the heading Beef.  This also helps you to categorize everything and speeds up preparation on cooking day.

 

Step 2- Shopping Day

    Try to save your menus in a binder or on your computer. You can use my shopping list at the link above or go on the Internet and find one customized to your needs.  Make your shopping list from the menus you have already planned.  If you can, include household staples, snacks, breakfast and lunch items

   Before going to the store run a copy of your shopping list.  Check off the things you will need and in less than 10 minutes you are ready to go.  The nicest thing about this is it saves you money and no more worry about that forgotten ingredient. 

   

Step 3- Prep Time

    Try to schedule this task shortly after returning from your shopping or the day before you assemble you meals.  In this step you do all similar processes at once: browning meat, chopping onions, cooking chicken, grating cheeses and chopping vegetables only once rather than several times a month. This will save you hours of time. 

    My sister and her husband simply did this step rather than preparing entire entrees.  They would come home from the store and stock all of these pre-prepped items in their freezer.  This made it easy when preparing a meal on the fly.  They would simply pull out the ground beef already cooked and add in whatever they needed like spaghetti sauce or taco seasoning.  She says it saved them a ton of time while raising their three busy boys.

 

Step- Cooking Day

    Prepare for this day ahead of time by having your recipes, ingredients and cookware all easily accessible.  Also think about what time of day you feel most energized. For me that is in the morning. So I block out 3-4 hours in the morning time.  Make sure you plan it on a day that you have someone to help with the kids (if you have little ones).  One group of Moms I read about planned a playdate for their kids once a month.  Each of them brought ingredients for a favorite meal and times it by 6 (the number of women in their group) then during the playdate each would assemble her meals as they visited with each other.  This way they all took home a weeks worth of meals BRILLIANT IDEA!

 

  Some other good tips include:

 

•  Placing an empty trash can in the center of the kitchen to avoid running back and forth to throw things away.
• A sink of hot sudsy water so that you can keep pans and other dishes washed as you go.  It helps to take time to wipe up messes as you go, to make the end of the day clean up easier.
• Always use a timer or two to remind you when something is in the oven or boiling for a certain amount of time.
• Cook all like recipes together.  All beef dishes first, then move to your chicken dishes and so on.
• Keep spices near your work station.  Also use one set of measuring cups and spoons for wet ingredients and another for dry.  That way you'll need to wash them less often.
• If you haven't already done so perform all similar tasks at once.  For example grate, chop and slice all the carrots, celery, cheese and onions.  Set them aside in separate bowls or plastic bags.  Cook all the chicken, brown all the ground beef and sautee' all the onions at one time.
• As  you complete a recipe, set it aside on a table to cool enough so it doesn't heat up the other foods in your freezer. After cooling, label each dish with a sharpie pen.  Be sure to include the name of the dish, the date you prepared it and cooking directions, so you won't have to find the recipe when preparing to serve it.
• If a recipe calls for cheese or crushed croutons to be sprinkled on top the last few minutes of baking, include the cheese or other topping in a small freezer bag and tape to the dish.
• Make the best use of your 13x9 inch pyrex dishes.  Spray a dish with nonstick spray, line the dish with heavy aluminum foil, seal the entree' and freeze it.  When the dish has frozen completely, remove the foil and return it to the freezer, so that your dish can be used for something else.
• When sealing food for freezing use good quality aluminum foil.  Remove as much air from the container as possible and seal it airtight.  This will keep the food tasting fresher.  Label ziploc bags before you insert the food.  If you are pouring soup into a gallon bag use a gallon tin can or plastic pitcher and line it with your bag to make the soup easier to pour. To stabilize it in the freezer use a rectangular plastic container and stack all soups together in it. 
• Remember each evening to pull the next days entree from the freezer and put it into the refrigerator to thaw. If you are in a hurry thaw in the microwave a bit or add extra cooking time as you would for a frozen entree from the store.

 

       * For a list of foods that don't freeze well go to this link - at menus4 moms or check your      Internet search engine.