It's always amazing to me how much time seems to speed up in the midst of every day chaos. After running to doctors appointments, pre school, dance class, swim lessons, jazzercise (one little thing I manage to get in for myself because lets face it...who doesn't love to dance AND burn a ton of calories all at the same time??) and juggling household chores, all of the sudden its 5:30 and I haven't started dinner yet. With my husband working night shifts I have to be organized to get dinner ready on time before he leaves for work.
One way I have been really successful with this is to plan and prep for the week. I already talked a little bit about the importance of meal planning from a budget/shopping standpoint...but it's also VERY helpful in making sure I'm on track throughout the day.
To keep track of my meals I have 3 pleaces I always have them written down: 1. The entire weeks worth of planned menues written down on a meal planning work sheet with which cookbook and pg to find the recipe, what side dishes to have with it, and what method of cooking (crock pot, oven, stove top, etc). 2. On my Daily "To-Do" list that goes into my household management binder and 3. on my monthly calendar white board in my kitchen. That one helps the most because I can glance up and see what I had planned for tonight and then my family knows what to expect for dinner :)
I generally do my grocery shopping on Fridays. On Friday or Saturdays I look over my weeks worth of meal plans and try to prep as much of the meal as I can, especially meals that are planned for busier days. I will cook up the chicken overnight in the crock pot, shred and freeze in zip-lock bags. I will also brown hamburger or slice meats and freeze those as well. Onions, Peppers and other items like those can also be prepped ahead of time and frozen.
I have played around with the once-a-month freezer cooking and found that it doesn't work for me as my main method of cooking. I LOVE to cook and try new recipes (yes this is still a shock to my mother who thought for the longest time I was a lost cause in the kitchen...which I was!), so cooking all in one day just wasn't a good fit for me. That being said, I do love having a few meals already put together and waiting in the freezer for a night that I get behind. One way I've been able to do this is to pick a recipe each week to that freezes well and double it, so I can serve that meal and freeze the other half for a later date. I also do this with breads, muffins, cookies, mashed potatoes and other items that take a bit longer to make from scratch. It's so handy to have those ready to go!
Example: Tonight I had to switch my menu plan around a little bit due to schedule changes. I had planned on Savory Beef for our dinner on Tuesday but ended up serving it tonight. So when I chose that recipe for this week, I bought double of everything and was able to "batch" cook tonight, meaning I made extra, served one meal for dinner and froze the other to pull out some night in the future when I need it. The even bigger bonus was that I was able to pick up the meat during Dillons' BOGO (Buy-one-get-one-free) meat sale a few weeks ago and freeze it until I needed it. So I got two meals for the price of one, which worked out to each meal costing about $4.50. That's an awesome price for feeding a family of 4!! (And yes, baby Olivia counts as the 4th despite being 8 1/2 months old...she can eat like a champ with her two tiny little teeth!)
The other benefit to having a few meals on hand in the freezer is for when things come up: A friend with a new baby, illnesses, surgery etc. It's nice to have a good, home cooked meal ready to bring over when someone needs it!
Cooking Ahead:
One of the most cost effective ways to use large amounts of chicken or meat is to not let them go to waste! I recently was able to buy a few bags of frozen chicken breasts for around $5/bag (an AWESOME price for giant bags of frozen chicken!!) I stocked up on these bags of chicken. I took one entire bag and tossed all of the breasts (still frozen) into the crock pot along with roughly 1/2 cup of water, a little salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Cooked on low around 6-8 hours (overnight). In the morning I shredded half and cubed the other half and froze in one pound baggies. So anytime I have a recipe calling for cooked chicken, all I have to do is pull a bag out of the freezer and it's ready to go! No cook time required!
I also do this when meat goes on sale. If I can get a giant roll of ground round at Dillons for around $2/pound, I will buy 2 or 3 3-pound rolls. I will fry up 3-6 pounds of hamburger with some onion and garlic and freeze these in 1 pound baggies. These are great for throwing into soups, chili, tacos, spaghetti sauces, casseroles and other things called for browned ground beef.
Tomorrow I will try to put together some recipes/ideas for things that can easily be cooked and frozen in batches, saving you tons of time and money!! Happy Cooking!!
~*~ Erica ~*~
This book is a great addition to any cooks kitchen...This book started me on the basic concept of freezer cooking. It is full of TONS of great, healthy and affordable meals with a wide variety. I try to pick a recipe or two from this book every week to build up my freezer stockpile of ready-to-go meals. She lists out the recipe, the prep work, grocery list and even what containers work best for storing these meals. All of the work is done for you except for the cooking :0)
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