Now I'm not talking about the freezer meals you get in the freezer section of your grocery store. I'm talking about homemade freezer meals. Lately I haven't been the best about cooking. I would rather bake and eat out. I decided I needed to do better and thought having meals ready to go would be ideal. To help me prepare for this I checked out some freezer meal cookbooks from the library. The one I liked the most was Once-a-Month Cooking by Mimi Wilson and Mary Beth Lagerborg. I found some really yummy looking recipes in this book. I also used Don't Panic, Dinner's in the Freezer by Susie Martinez, Vanda Howell, and Bonnie Garcia. One I didn't use initially and found later was The Everything Freezer Meals Cookbook by Candace Anderson. I will be using recipes out of this book in the future. I also used the Internet. These books are really nice because they all talk about how to get prepared, the different methods of freezing food, and they have really good recipes.
To prepare I picked out about 17 recipes and made a list of ingredients I would need. I then looked in my pantry and my spice cabinet to see what I had and what I needed. I was pleasantly surprised to find I had a lot of what I needed. The next time I do this I will look at the weekly ads to see what is for sale. Since I decided to do this kind of at the last minute I just went to Sam's Club, Aldi, and Walmart. Sam's Club is good for buying in bulk for a good price, Aldis has great prices, and Walmart is Walmart.
I had a weekend off a few weeks ago and decided to do it then. I went shopping on Friday and decided to do my cooking on Saturday. Some of the recipes I choose didn't need to be cooked before freezing. Like the Italian Beef, Beef Goulash, and Beef Stroganoff. I just had to put the meat in freezer bags with the ingredients that went with it and put them in the freezer. I did all that on Friday night. On Saturday I got up and started my cooking marathon. It took from 9am to 9pm but I made over 20 some meals up to freeze. They came in handy when I went to AZ and left my hubby at home to fend for himself.
I have only made a few of the meals and as I make them I will blog about them. I will by making more freezer meals in the future. It takes a whole day of cooking but having several meals already made and ready to heat up after a long day of work is priceless. I highly recommend it.
I tried the once a month cooking and it was really hard work, but well worth the effort. You should try their corn chowder recipe.
ReplyDeleteI found the corn chowder recipe in the Everything Freezer Meals Cookbook. It sounds really good but we need to make it healthier. One serving has 744 calories and 34 grams of fat. Thanks for becoming my first follower.
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