Freezer Cooking

I find myself doing some freezer cooking more and more these days, and I'm loving it.

The convenience of having already cooked meals in my freezer is both time saving, as well as comforting as I live the day to day life of being a busy-stay-at-home-mother.

Freezer cooking saves time, energy, both the electricity and the strength kind, and is so much more healthier than anything you'll find in restaurants or in your local grocerer's freezer aisle.

So what is Freezer cooking?

I talked about it a bit in my "P-day" entry

(http://themojoidea.blogspot.com/2009/11/p-day.html)

about making more than one meal's portion each time you cook something.

Today, I'll explain it in more detail.

First, here are a few meals you can cook in abundance and portion out to freeze.

Spaghetti sauce

Hawaiian Haystacks gravy

Pulled BBQ chicken

Marinated Chicken

Curry Chicken

S.O.S. (ground beef and bacon gravy for over breads and biscuits)

Pancakes

Muffins

Chicken noodle soup

soups

homemade refried beans

chicken/beef fajita meat

Taco meat

Korean BBQ

Chili

Waffles

baked cookies

Breads (even in dough form)

Fruit breads (strawberry, banana, etc)

Cooked rice

(cook rice, and tightly saran wrap into one serving packages, then put into a large ziplock bag. You can have 10-20 pouches of single serving cooked rice in there. To eat, microwave single serving rice pouch for a min-1.5min, remove saran wrap and if needed, microwave another minute or so.)

Bonus: Did you know you can freeze milk?

Here's a few items of what NOT to freeze:

Foods containing potatoes

Cream cheese

So how do I freezer cook?

Step 1: Set aside a day where you don't have to go anywhere, and you're likely not going to have visitors or playdates.

Step 2: Plan---plan plan plan what you'll make and think of what pots can go on the stove at the same time. If you're going to be baking, schedule and plan so that you can bake a few things at once, or bake things continually. Think of your family's favorite recipes and plan to make a few batches of it at once!

Step 3: Begin cooking! (assuming you've already gone grocery shopping!)

Step 4: Make double, triple or even quadruple what you'd normally make for a meal. In essence, you're going to be making 3-4 worth of meals in one setting.

Step 5: Pour into separate containers/ziplocks and let cool

Step 6: put into freezer and wait until the day you're either stumped for a meal idea, or you're desperately in need of something QUICK, or even a meal to take to someone sick or needy.

Advantages:

1. you've saved so much TIME by cooking a few meals at once

2. you've saved electricity by cooking a large pot portion at once, rather than doing the same things a few times a month (turning on the gas oven each time you want to make something can be costly in the long run)

3. You're saving yourself from stressing when you don't have time or the energy to cook a healthy meal

4. It's A LOT healthier than going out to eat.

5. Did I mention it's a MONEY SAVER to cook in bulk? It saves a ton of money when you don't have to eat out because you either don't have time to cook or don't feel like cooking

and the list goes on and on.

Here are a few recipes that I have listed above

Freezer-Friendly Marinated Chicken

http://moneysavingmom.com/page/2

(thanks, moneysavingmom!)

Pulled BBQ Chicken

http://themojoidea.blogspot.com/2009/09/zesty-bbq-pulled-chicken.html

Strawberry Bread

http://themojoidea.blogspot.com/2009/10/strawberry-bread-recipe.html

There's many other sites and blogs that talk about and live the life of freezer cooking. Many of them also list ideas and recipes for people who want to freezer cook. It's really simple, but the satisfaction you get from 1. opening your freezer and seeing all those neatly stacked tupperware with your favorite and healthy meals in them and 2. being able to set out dinner in less than 10-20min. is a total thrill, not to mention SMART. And for those who are not stay at home mothers but work or are otherwise equally busy, setting aside a day too cook might pose a challenge, but even setting aside a couple of hours to prepare a couple of meals to freeze will save you many meals of eating out, money and time in the end.

Happy Freezer cooking!