What you need first is...RECIPES!!! Yep, I bet you didn't guess that one. Find your favorite recipes or look at your local library for some freezer cookbooks or online. Here are some books that helped me:
If your library has any of these books and more they will be a great help. And many of them tell you how to get started. Now, you can make these meals by yourself but just a note if you have kids, wait till dad is at home or a babysitter or do it with another mom and let the kids have a movie day. That way they have friends to play with and movies to watch.
Once you've chosen your recipes write down your ingredients and how much of them. Next, shopping. I don't know how else to say this so, DON'T GO SHOPPING HUNGRY OR WITH HUNGRY KIDS! There I said it. Once you've shopped it time for prep.
Prep is when you get all your counters, tables, etc.. clean of everything. Also you can go ahead and do your chopping, mincing, shredding, etc.. of your vegetables and cheeses. If your recipe calls for cooked meat go ahead and cook it. (TRICK: To save time if your recipe calls for cooked chicken, buy a rotisserie chicken before you leave the store.)
Cooking Day is just that, you cook. Get your recipe card or book ready and start. If you're recipe is soup, pasta dish that is all mixed up, meat with a marinade, etc... you can freeze them in freezer bags. Just make sure to leave a little room for expansion. If you have a recipe that is layered like lasagna, stuffed pasta shells, or a layered casserole you can place them in aluminum baking pans and top with heavy duty foil.
Now what I personally do (which is probably more expensive but makes clean up easy) I put all my recipes in aluminum pans and then in a freezer bag. Why both methods? One, because it's easier to thaw quickly in a freezer bag. Say for instance I forgot to put it in my sink in the morning then I will place it in my sink with hot tap water to thaw. Second, the freezer bag allows me to thaw it in a sink of hot tap water without the tap water getting into my meal.
Now you can also cook two of every meal for a month and put on in the freezer for a more relaxed method of filling the freezer. Well that's it. My two cents. Take or leave it and happy making meals.
1 comment:
I make freezer meals with my sister-in-law. We let our kids play together while we work fast getting our meals put together. It seems to work pretty good. Plus, here is a trick. Break your cooking days up by what meat you are having in your recipe. Like one day cook all your beef recipes, next chicken recipes, and so on. It seems to go a lot faster for us this way.
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