Good morning! Today's post is a guest blog by our very own Jessica - She is a licensed social worker, who is preparing to meet a very lovely little belly bean in a few short weeks. She is a frugal mama, who has very sweetly offered to share her freezer meal work up with us! Take a moment to see more about who she is by stopping by her blog
here and her website
here, then swing on down to see how she does what she does!
From Jessica ~
Well
hello there! If you have not tried freezer cooking before, you are missing
out...yes it requires work and planning up front, yes it is a big mess, yes it
is a long day of cooking, and yes your grocery bill will look bigger up front,
BUT then it’s DONE! Done meaning, all you have to do is throw it in the crock-pot,
oven, microwave, or warm in up stove top and dinner is DONE! Done also means
you don’t have to go back to the grocery store for a few weeks to a month, and
even then usually just for essentials (milk, bread, eggs, etc). DONE also means (this one is high on my list)
that there is not a huge stack of “prep” dishes to do every night!
For
right now, it is me and my hubby, so I make almost all of our freezer meal
portions for two, so most of the recipes are for 4-6-8 servings so I portion it
into smaller servings (and therefore get more meals). I have done 3 rounds of
freezer cooking and each one has turned out a bit different as a result, but
generally I get 30-40 meals, not including breakfast and lunch tacos/foods for
$200-300.
TIP: Check out your
Sunday circulars...meat is what makes meals expensive, so we try to plan around
sales on ground meats, chicken, and pork. I often swap the meats in the recipes
for whatever is on sale to make it cheaper!
OK,
to get started you need to choose your recipes. (You can follow that link, or select Freezer Meal Recipes from the left hand side of the page.) This past time I chose about 15
and the time before that about 10 or 12. These do include some sauces and soups,
which I made large portions therefore getting more meals. Again, it depends on
how many you are cooking for. Smithlive often doubles, triples, or quadruples
her recipes to make about 25+. Either way, the goal is usually a month’s worth
of meals in one day, factoring in a day or two of leftovers and eating out.
TIP: Look for recipes
that call for the same ingredients, especially if you are just starting out. For
example, if chili powder, ground mustard, soy sauce and rice vinegar are not
staples in your house, buying these for just one recipe is not efficient. This
is also true of things you might not use all of (canned adobo chilies, cream
cheese, bbq sauce, etc). Try to find 2 recipes that will use the same
ingredients to help lower cost!
Because
I have done 3 rounds of freezer cooking now, I am going to list all of the
recipes that I have used; again, it’s up to you which ones you want to use,
maybe even start with 10. Also, a good portion of your favorite recipes can be
modified into freezer meals, so if you have something you love, try freezing
it! Disclaimer:
a few of these recipes are new this round, so I cannot vouch for how they
taste/turn out.
TIP: I print my recipes
and put them in plastic sleeves in a 3 ring binder. This means I can take them
out (of the binder, not the sleeve) easily and they are protected from the mess
I make in the kitchen!
Last
thing before the recipes...decide how you are going to package things. I LOVE
LOVELOVE LOVE my foodsaver system and use this for almost everything except
casseroles. If you don’t have a Foodsaver system, ask for one for Christmas,
and until then use heavy duty quart and gallon freezer bags.
OK,
here is my list:
PORK
Chile
Verde Carnitas
BBQ
Pineapple Pulled Pork
Egg
Muffins (BREAKFAST ITEM)
WW
Breakfast Burritos (BREAKFAST ITEM)
CHICKEN
Monterey
Chicken
Cafe
Rio Chicken
Lemon
Garlic Chicken
WW
Chicken Burrito Wrap (LUNCH ITEM)
Baked
Sweet and Sour Chicken
Brown
Sugar Chicken
Sesame
Chicken
Creamy
Chicken and Rigatoni Primavera (can also leave out chicken for veg dish)
Cilantro
Lime Chicken Tacos
BEEF
3
Packet Roast
Beef
Stroganoff
Best
Ever Beef Dip Sandwiches
Goulash
GROUND MEAT (We use turkey and
chx a lot because it’s healthier, but it is not cheaper!)
Spaghetti
Sauce
3
Bean and Beef Chili
Sweet
Sloppy Joes
Almost
Lasagna
Baked
Penne
NO MEAT/VEGGIES
Taco Dinner Mac and Cheese
Twice
Baked Potatoes
Spicy
Roasted Vegetable Mac and Cheese (can add meat if you wish)
Lentil
Soup
RECIPES
They
are in alphabetical order. I have made notes in red-
either changes I have made or notes on how to cook. If the majority of the
directions are in red- do the directions in black and then stop when you hit the red. As with ANY recipe, read
through all of the directions prior to
beginning.
COOKING
Use
your judgment when cooking based upon the time you have and what you are using.
Crockpot meals can be adjusted based on time and temperature. ALWAYS make sure
to cook all meats thoroughly when reheating. If baking, usually 350 for 20-25
minutes is good and stovetop over medium high heat until cooked.
Please leave a comment or two - adding other great freezer meal information, or what you loved about this one!
