Freezer Meals

Yesterday Becky and I made freezer meals.  She wanted to do this last winter before Amelia was born so that she'd have some easy meals while the baby was brand new so we did it and it was great.  It was a lot of work but for me, when it came to midterms and finals it was so nice to have something in the freezer ready to go. I'm sure my family appreciated having dinner during those weeks as well.  So, I decided we should do it again for this semester.  

Here are some rules/suggestions to follow if you'd like to do freezer meals:

1) You need a good friend to work with.  Here are my helpers:

Becky and Amelia (who was decidedly bored with the whole process) and Tiernan and Joshie. Tiernan is very often my sous chef. He does a fabulous job. 

(The junior helpers aren't as much help as you'd sometimes like but they do make the day more entertaining! Oh! And they think they are loads of help!)

2) Good music that you play really loud. When the junior helpers arrived I had to turn it down a little, well, quite a bit, but you still need fun music. And I'm not talking Kenny G put-you-to-sleep stuff, I mean something that makes you want to dance and keeps you going.

3) Plan ahead. You need to plan the meals you want to make, make a good shopping list and shop the day before. Don't forget things like foil pie plates or pans and good quality freezer bags. If you are really on top of things (we weren't so good at this this time) you will plan ahead far enough in advance so that you can watch for sales on the items you'll be using.

4) You need an apron. Ok, maybe you don't but I sure do. I think I'm perhaps the messiest cook ever. The apron is in the washing machine as we speak. 

5) Back to planning, you should take a few minutes to make note of where each dish will be cooked and how much time it will take.  Stovetop, oven, crockpot, etc. You can't have everything on the stovetop all at once so you have to coordinate. 

6) Have fun. I realize that to some of you this sounds like drudgery (and by the end of the day you're body will agree) but you'll be so glad to have a freezer full of good things to eat. And when you have a really super crazy schedule, as is prone to happen on occasion around here, you'll be even more glad that you have them in your freezer!

Here are some of the things we made:

Breakfast Burritos

Tuscan Bean Soup

Split Pea Soup with Ham (left) and Taco Chili (right)

We also made (but don't have pictures of) Spaghetti Pie, Chili Verde, Texas Beef Skillet, Chicken Caesar Casserole, and Florentine English Muffins.  In the end we each left with 10 dinners. I did the burritos before they arrived (because Becky had just made those at home) so I also have those in my freezer. And, because we're crazy, we also cooked and shredded about 22 chicken breasts so we each have a nice store of shredded chicken breast in the freezer.  

If we were just doing our meals it would have taken from about 9:30am to 4:30pm but since we did the chicken too that took until about 7:30pm. Next time we're probably not doing chicken on the same day. Right? 

And my dad was gem and cleaned up the kitchen last night. Let me assure you, I had already done 3 loads of dishes and taken the trash out 3 or 4 times and swept twice (I mentioned that I'm a messy cook, yes?) so I don't mean to imply that we left everything for him to clean up but the stove was rather a mess and there was yet another pile of dishes. And I planned on scrubbing the stove this morning but I sure am grateful that Dad got the jump on that! :)