Guest post by Melissa from Mom’s Plans
By the time my second child was born, I was a die-hard freezer cooking mama. I had my freezer cooking session every month, and we ate meals from the freezer every week. I couldn’t imagine it any other way.
After my third child was born, I relied on freezer cooking even more. I followed Crystal at Money Saving Mom® and Jessica at Life as Mom and had my freezer cooking day on the same weekend everyone else did. I loved feeling like I was part of a freezer cooking community.
But then I quit my outside job so I could stay home. Without my income, our family could not make ends meet, but I was willing to sacrifice so I could be home with our kids.
We trimmed our budget, but I still found it necessary to bring in some money, so I began to do work as a freelance writer and virtual assistant in the evenings when my kids were sleeping. God does provide, and slowly more and more work trickled in until I was making enough to supplement our budget so that it finally balanced every month.
However, I was no longer able to get all of the work done in two to three hours at night. My husband watched the kids on the weekend so I could go someplace quiet and write for a few hours on Saturday and Sunday in addition to my evening work time.
My weekend work time was when my freezer cooking time used to be. I could no longer find a place to fit a large freezer cooking session, and I was growing frustrated. Shortly before this, Crystal admitted that having a freezer cooking day was no longer working for her, and she turned to freezer cooking in an hour.
I loved the concept! Seeing Crystal’s flexibility created a new way of thinking for me. Instead of stressing about not being able to freezer cook, I gave myself permission to realize that in this season of life, it was no longer working for me.
The five o’clock hour with three small children still gets crazy, so I had to come up with another plan. Now, I prepare our meals based on the week. If it has been a chaotic week, then on the weekend I do what I can which may be only prepping some foods such as veggies to make dinners easier on the week nights.
Last weekend I had time to prep all of our upcoming meals for the week night and put four additional meals in the freezer. This will give me some leeway when I have another chaotic week. Other times I cook all week long, but I double each recipe so I have five new meals in the freezer for another week. In short, I do what I can, and it seems to be working.
Here are some of my favorite meals to put together quickly:
- Tacos – We make up a large batch of taco meat and put some in the freezer to pull out on a busy night. This meal is great because it takes no more energy to prep five batches of taco meat instead of one meal size serving.
- Chili – I love meals that I can double and put in the slow cooker. I just put one in the freezer to save for another night.
- Chicken “Dump” Packages – Simply put the chicken breasts in a freezer bag with the sauce of your choosing. Put this in the refrigerator to use later in the week or put it in the freezer – Simply toss it in the slow cooker in the morning.
- Meatloaf – I make three batches of meatloaf, bake them, and put two in the freezer for later.
Don’t forget if you work outside the home to take some of these meals and put them in the freezer in single serving packages. They make quick, nutritious lunches and will save you a bundle.
Also, I love to cook up a bag of dry beans and put the extra in the freezer. I just pull them out when I am cooking; it is like using canned beans without the extra price and sodium.
Thanks to Crystal’s inspiration, I have modified my cooking plans, which has lifted my guilt and made me feel less tense about meal preparations. It is still busy around our house, buy I am much more relaxed about feeding my family.
Melissa is a work-at-home mom to three little ones ages 7, 2, and 1. She blogs at Mom’s Plans where she shares her family’s desire to learn to live a fulfilling life on less.
silly question but when you make meatloaf to freeze do you put the topping(ketchup or whatever) on it or no?
I found this blog over the summer and started freezer cooking. I’m a teacher and have summers off so it was relatively easy to spend a few hours one or two days a week cooking, baking, and freezing while tending to the kids. When I returned to work, things got hectic so I started doubling recipes and combining that with inexpensive side dishes (after coupons and sales). A few nights a week, we have a homemade meal that has mostly been cooked from scratch and a few nights a week, we have frozen veggies, a piece of meat, and a cheap side dish. It works for my family and saves a ton. My oven element broke and I ran short on frozen meals at a time I needed them the most – my husband had knee surgery this week. I actually bought take-out for a few different meals. I spent as much in those few days as I do for a cart full of groceries and I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much. I can’t believe there was a time in my life when I wouldn’t have thought twice about take-out. I love freezer cooking.
Doesn’t the food get depleted of nutrients from being frozen? I’m curious because this sounds like an awesome idea, just don’t want to eat empty food. Thanks 🙂
These are great ideas! I love the COST method too. Cook Once, Serve twice (or more!).
Chili is good for turning into nachos or into buritos, A whole chicken can be turned into many things once you pick the left overs. Thanks for sharing! I love it!
I love freezer cooking and just my freezer in general. Some things I’ve found to work for our small family. I also make meals for an elderly family member.
I make about 2 sets of freezer bases every couple of weeks. Like ground meat mixes, chicken mixes, and meatballs. The freezer meals I regularly make are salmon quiche, lasagne, meatloaves, and meatballs. I also double soups and freeze the rest for another meal.
Before we got our chest freezer I did what I could in the little freezer above the fridge. I wrote about it on my website (not the blog). I was able to freeze quite a bit I just couldn’t really stockpile and put away the summer produce like I can now.
For our elderly family member I make mini quiches, lasagnas and meatloaves.
I also make cakes, cookie dough, cinnamon rolls, and muffin batter to freeze for when I’m feeling lazy.
The freezer is such a wonderful thing. I have to refrain from hugging mine.
This is a great article because sometimes if people are busy, they think cooking is not an option. Many of my friends that are constantly busy or work a great deal eat out all of the time. I like how this provides an alternative or answer to people who are busy but still want a home cooked meal. I’m saving this one.:0)
I would love to know the secret to cooking & freezing beans. When I’ve done that, they turn to mush when I re-cook them. Plus canned kidney beans are whole & intact, which is great for tortilla soup and such. But any time I cook dry kidney beans, they bust open every time.
I’ve frozen beans in recipes, just not alone and I’ve never found them to be mushy.
Are you cooking them in a pressure cooker?
I’ve found that kidney beans seem to be the worst for falling apart when well cooked. I guess if that bothers you, you could try cooking them for shorter time.
I guess mushy beans don’t bother me very much! 🙂
Like many of you, I don’t have time to spend an entire day preparing meals for the freezer. Often times, I don’t even have an hour! I just made some 3 Bean Vegetarina Chili last night. Although I don’t work and I don’t have young children at home, I have plenty on my plate. I like to prepare what I can in advance as much as possible, and make it easier for myself. For example, I roasted the red peppers and chopped them, as well as the onion, and garlic on Tuesday night when I got home and placed them in the refridgerator overnight. Wednesday morning I had 5 spare minutes so I drained and rinsed the 6 cans of beans and put them in the refridgerator. On Wednesday night I was finally able to complete the recipe. I made a double batch. Not only was it easier for me to break things up, I have a number of meals in the freezer ready for the taking.
I second the comment on freezing cooked beans – works perfectly.
Cooking extra whole grains and freezing them in quart size baggies works great as well. You can just throw them in a pan and stem with a little water to thaw, then heat them up. That’s even quicker than making 5 minute brown rice from a box, and it’s a healthier grain.
Yet another reason why I simply dig this blog! 🙂 Thanks so much for inspiring!!!!! and better yet, offering an outlet for others to share their testimonies of how God is still giving visions to keep everything together as best we can!
For anyone who finds themselves working so much there is never any time.
Try my approach that I have been using for years as a 60 year old Mama to seven children, I personally feel I have been in all of the above seasons in life.
I do whole chickens and turkeys as available and ground beef as well.
I make a tray of Lasagna every time the time arises (sometimes I make extra of these) Left over Turkey, chicken and ground beef really help and in a pinch I buy a ham (and use it for meals even letting everyone eat it cold) Try not to worry so much life is short and community is extremely important even if it is on line community.
I found that if I spent a whole day cooking I got so sick of the food by the end I had a hard time eating it. So now I do a half day at most, but usually just pick 2-3 things each week and do one every couple of days.
The best part about freezer cooking for me is not having to wash pans every night!
I’m right there with you with 4 kiddos, two that are three and one, so once a month freezer cooking doesn’t work for me. What does work is doubling or tripling nearly every recipe I make and freezing the extra for a future meal. I only have a one hour power cooking session about once or twice a week. This helps us keep our freezer supply going at all times. I’m always posting our favorite recipes and experimenting with new ones and sharing with my readers on my blog. Thanks for sharing your great ideas!
We have a deep freeze in the basement, and usually end up forgetting to utilize it. Once in a while, we do a freezer meal exchange with a few other families from church…that can either go awesome, or….um….not eating a whole lot that night. 🙂 But still need to remember to do it more!!
What I like to do though, is do shortcuts to make putting meals together a breeze. My crockpot holds 2 roaster chickens, so I’ll cook them one afternoon, pick the chicken off, freeze in 2 cup bags (the amount asked for in most recipes), and then throw the bones back in the crockpot with extra water and simmer overnight to make broth.
Other ideas (some already mentioned):
– do 2 lb. of beans in the crockpot and freeze in portions (also rice, barley, etc.)
– brown multiple pounds of beef (with or without seasonings)
– I’ll bake multiple loaves of bread and freeze the extra. Saves time and heating the oven an extra time.
– This time of year I buy deeply discounted pumpkins and squash, have a cleaning out,baking, pureeing fest, and freeze in 2 c. portions (again, most recipes I have ask for that amount- what’s left over I’ll toss in things like pasta sauce). Then I have real pumpkin w/o preservatives all year.
Can I ask how you do rice and barley in your crockpot?
Whoops! I wasn’t clear. 🙁 I do my rice and barley on the stove, but I make extra to freeze. I was referring to the freezing, not the cooking in the crockpot. If anybody else has tried either with good results though, I’d be more than interested in hearing about it!
Last night I mace mac noodles and tomato soup together, the noodles sucked up most of the soup so it’s more like a goulosh (sp??), so before we ate I took the “leftovers” and threw it in a bread pan and froze and made a little container for my 2 year olds lunch today. It’s nice knowing sometime next week I can pull out that pan and put some cheese on it and pop it in the oven.
I do however do OAMC around the 1st or 2nd each month. My mother and mother in law trade days and take my girl for the day so I get my grocery shopping done before hubby goes to work and when I get home he brings her to grandmas for the day and picks her up on his way home. It makes life much easier, even with it only being us 3 in the house, we always have friends over. Now I can spend time with them instead of cooking and cleaning up the whole time.
My question is……Can freezer cooking really help for a LARGE family? There are 10 of us and Im just not sure if its worth it to us to try this. between the freezer space to store it all and the time to do it would it really be saving me time? Anyone with a large family done this?
Tonya, see my thoughts a few below this. I don’t have much freezer space to devote to casseroles and large meals. I buy 1/4 beef at a time, so much space is devoted to raw meat. Doing some of the prep work in advance is easiest for me. If I don’t have to brown meat and can just defrost in my micro, it comes together really quickly without the storage factor. Also, I don’t have to buy a month’s worth of food at once, so it’s much easier on the budget. I’d suggest trying the meat thing when you see a whale of a deal- fill the crockpot full of chicken breasts and see if that works for you.
And for me personally, I enjoy being in the kitchen, so if I didn’t have anything to do in there for dinner but pull something out of the freezer and put it in the oven, I’d feel like I was missing out on a part of my day.
We have six and I double and triple nearly every recipe while I’m preparing it already. Then I freeze the extra and we always have something going in the freezer;)
There are 7 of us in our family, so it isn’t quite as large as yours, but freezer cooking definitely works for us! Having pre-cooked, pre-portioned bags of frozen ground beef or chicken has saved dinner on more than 1 occasion! Even having 1 or 2 casseroles or other complete meals can help…it doesn’t have to be 30 meals that you are freezing. You may not have the space to do multiples of lots of different casseroles or other dinners, but any little bit that can be prepped ahead and frozen will save time and sanity on those hectic days when all the kids have activities on opposite sides of town.
Something that really helps to save freezer space is to just freeze part of a meal. For example, I like to make casseroles with pasta in them. When I double or triple it, I pull out the freezer portions of sauce (with the meat & veggies or whatever is in the sauce) and freeze those before adding pasta to the portion we’ll be eating right away. Then I label those freezer containers with masking tape and a marker “Add 2 C. noodles, cooked” or what-have-you.
That not only saves freezer space, it also eliminates the mushy frozen/thawed noodle issue!
I went to Crystal’s menu plan looking for the chicken tortilla crockpot soup. The link is no longer working, so I went online and found another recipe with enchilada sauce too that was delicous. I also made the italian breadsticks and chocolate banana bread. Crystal, we have opposite taste buds. Loved the soup (although it wasn’t quite what you made) and didn’t care for the breadsticks or the bread. Go figure.
I would LOVE to get into freezer cooking. However, we only have a small freezer above our fridge. I do cook up chicken breasts as soon as I buy them, and wrap them in plastic wrap (so they don’t stick together) and keep them in a big freezer bag. Since I made almost 50 containers of freezer jam this summer, though, we just don’t have the space for extras in the freezer!
I also struggle to get leftovers. My husband eats like a teenager, his teenage brother lives with us, and my (almost) 2-year-old eats like a teenager some days! Plus, I’m pregnant again and consuming everything within sight! =D For instance, tonight, I made a big pot of soup for us (my biggest pot, which isn’t really that big, but it’s all I have), hoping for some leftovers. The only reason that there’s about 1 serving left is because my hubby is sick and didn’t eat much. Aaaugh!
Any advice from someone who’s been here?
My husband is the same way. It doesn’t matter if I make an entire lasagna, he’ll eat it all if he sees it. A trick I started doing was to put the ‘leftovers’ away before dinner. I pack enough away for a lunch or two in the fridge. That way, when the food on the table is gone, I still have something to send with my husband to work the next morning.
As a Mom who raised five kids I can tell you that if it is on the table they will eat it! If you are making double of something like a casserole then do two dishes and put the one for the freezer in the fridge or freezer before dinner so it is out of sight. We are now empty nesters and don’t eat alot and no matter how little I cook we seem to have masses of leftovers that are piling up in the fridge. That is even worse than no leftovers to me as I don’t like to eat the same things day after day!
Oh yeah, I’ve been there. Like the other reader said, freeze the leftovers before hand. Or if you area making something like a lasagna, put it in two pans and only cook one. Freeze the other for dinner another night. On your small freezer: We lived in a place with the worlds smallest fridge for a couple of years. When you freezer cook, you just have to think smaller scale. Now that I finally have a deep freeze, I will freezer cook for a month or two. When I had the small freezer, I would only freezer cook for a week. Also, think smaller containers. It may be more worth your while to cook the other half of the lasagna and put them in individual Tupperware containers to freeze for lunches. Good luck!
Freezing items flat in quart size bags is the most space-saving way. Perhaps you could ask for a small chest freezer from sams on ur christmas list. They run 178 and well worth the space.
Crazy timing on this post! I’m preparing for a hundred pounds of chicken that I’m picking up on Tuesday.
For the last three days, I’ve been planning for my first ever OAMC marathon.
After all that goes into this, I think I will have to start doubling batches like you suggest for all the non-chicken meals I make and stock that way.
A really quick and easy way to use lots of uncooked chicken….I always use to boil mine and shred it and then put it in the freezer. I have discovered baking it. No seasoning or anything. Put it on cookie sheets and cover with foil, then bake 350 for 20-30 minutes. So moist and i don’t like chicken breasts plain. Shredding is the hard part, but you could always refreeze the cooked stuff and shred it as you pull it out and defrost it.
Also, go to food.com and look up OAMC dump chicken and you will find several recipes where you just dump the chicken in the bag with the sauce. I think Crystal has some recipes like that here too. That will save you some time when trying to process all of that chicken.
I’ve decided to boil the chicken with veggies and chicken base so I can save the broth. One of our go-to meals right now is baked bbq chicken. My favorite part of that is I can put the chicken in the oven frozen. No thawing required. When I make tamales, I use the crockpot to cook the chicken all day, makes shredding a breeze!
About half of the meals I am planning are dump and freeze. The rest are casseroles to save time on making sides. I am excited to see my new (and currently empty) deep freezer fill up with meals ready to go when I am.
ooh, maybe you’re a good person to ask, Kimberly!
I’ve done several attempts at cooking up to 3lbs of chicken breasts in my crockpot and all of them, after freezing and then thawing, end up dry!! 🙁
Here’s what I’ve done, please read and let me know what’s wrong!!
>Start with 6quart crockpot and add a bag of frozen chicken (2-3 lbs fills the pot two-thirds full).
>Add one cup water and one quartered onion.
>Cook on low for 8 hours (usually overnight).
>Pull out chicken pieces and let cool then put in freezer bag (2-3 pieces per bag).
>Strain broth and freeze in separate container.
This has been the fastest way I’ve found to cook 3lbs of chicken at a time but, like I said, the thawed product is always dry. HELP!!
If you do shred some chicken you can put the boiled chicken in a food chopper or processor, just cut the chicken breast up into about 4 pieces, this is so much faster than shredding it yourself. Its great for chicken salad, chicken tacos, in a salad and quesdillas.
Out of curiosity, why does all the chicken have to be processed before it goes in the freezer? Has it already been frozen raw once? I buy chicken in bulk when it goes on sale (nothing to the tune of 100 lbs). I just freeze in portions what we’d use for a meal and then pull it out and thaw and cook it as I need it. I’ve done this with chicken breasts (boneless and bone in) and whole chickens. I use the bone-in and whole chickens to make meals that have double portions I can freeze (soups, pot pies, etc.).
I am freezing half of the chicken as is, just separating, bagging and freezing. The rest I wanted to make up quick and easy dinners in preparation for the crazy holidays ahead. We have succomed to eating dinner on the go more than I’d like to admit with our schedule lately and it’s just getting busier. I thought this would be the perfect time to give it a go and try my hand at stockpiling the freezer. Since I haven’t done it before, I think it will be just the head start I need to get me motivated.
Any recipe that I can, I double when I make it and freeze the second portion. I started doing that when I was pregnant with my first child and it has worked well for us. I always have gallon freezer bags, and disposable casserole pans on hand. I usually freeze 2-3 meals a week, and we eat one every other week as we need to. It has been a really great system for us!
Good suggestion! I don’t aim to double recipes every time, but some recipes, especially soups, make such a large batch, it is easy to freeze some for later.
I recently had to alter my freezer cooking routine too. I use to do it monthly with a couple of friends. But, I was the main organizer and it got to be more work thinking of taken all the ingredients to the local church that we were using. So, now I do it a home when time arises. But, honestly, I don’t do it all at once. For example, while the baby is eating in his high chair, I will quickly mix up the dry ingredients for 1-3 recipes. If there’s time, I’ll do the rest, if not, I put a lid on them and wait till I get another window of opportunity. This approach helps me to keep from getting overwhelmed…and it allows some time to get caught up on the dirty dishes.
I really liked your post. I don’t do whole meals, but when I make lasagna I always make a big one. I freeze individual servings and take them to work for lunch. This works out great and saves me money as I don’t buy a frozen dinner! Also, when we have ham I dice up the leftover and freeze it to use in different meals.
That is smart. Not only are you saving money, but you are not eating all of the preservatives in the boxed frozen meals. I bet yours tastes better too!
I really like this idea!! We are always in a scramble to pack a lunch and end up eating out for lunch way too often.
Freezer cooking in a hour is such a great thing for us. I can’t even fold a load of clean laundry without getting interrupted 23 times, so there’s no way I could devote an entire day to freezer cooking.
Very nice reminder that it doesn’t have to be all or nothing! OAMC was too taxing on my brain, but frying up 3 pounds of hamburger at a time works well for us.
I haven’t done that for a while so thanks for the inspiration!
I have a few questions about freezer cooking.
1. If my ground beef is already frozen can I cook up the meat and refreeze it?
2. The same with chicken?
My problem is time. 2 days before leaving for San Francisco for 3 weeks I hit an amazing deal on fresh chicken breasts!! I ended up getting 30lbs. for under a dollar a pound!! Problem was time. I had no time to prep them before our trip so i had to just freeze them.
would i be able to make meals and refreeze?
We buy a 1/4 side of cow every 12 to 18 months, so all of our ground beef is frozen. I unthaw it in the refrigerator and use it for my freezer cooking recipes such as meatloaf or taco mix, etc. I cook it up and then freeze it and we have had no ill effects. I think the key is to put it back into the freezer in an already cooked state. I believe chicken should be the same way. If you do a dump chicken recipe, you could put some of that chicken you got a great deal on in sauce before you put it in the freezer and then you would have a meal to pull from the freezer and put in the crock pot. 🙂
I recently read that the USDA says if you thaw meat in the refrigerator, you can safely put it back in the freezer. This was great news for me because, like you, we buy our meat in bulk and it comes frozen. I didn’t know how I was going to make that work with freezer cooking. But, now I can.
http://stilltasty.com/questions/index/151/page:1
Sorry if this is so obvious, but how much chicken (as in chicken breasts) can I put in a crockpot at a time? If I fill it to the top, will it all cook through without burning the edges?
every crockpot is different so read your instruction manual. Most instructions for most pots say to fill up to 2/3rds full…never all the way. My 6 quart pot will fit 3lbs of chicken breasts and my 5 quart fits 2.5lbs.
I agree with Sara below….you shouldn’t thaw meat and then thaw again. Once thawed, it needs to be cooked and THEN that meal can be thawed and reheated/eaten.
We too buy a side of beef so it’s a challenge to use recipes that call for freezing but I just prepare all the ingredients besides the meat and put into a freezer bag and note on my instructions to myself that it still needs the meat. Then, when time to cook, I know what may be missing….having the rest of the meal prepped is still a time saver!!!
Rachel, I would have replied below your comment about the crockpot chicken but I think there is a limit to replies. So to make sure you were notified, I thought I’d answer you here.
What I’ve found with my crockpot is that if it isn’t at least 1/2 full, the food burns (and dries out) very easily. Chicken breast is prone to drying out as it is.
When I cook my chicken, I place a cup and a half of water in the bottom of the crockpot and mix in 1 teaspoon chicken base (you could use bouillon as well). I then layer 1-2 sliced onions and then top with enough chicken to fill up the crockpot at least halfway. I’ll set this to low for eight hours.
The two things that may be drying out the chicken is too much extra space, try cooking more at a time, or lack of moisture, just adding a little more water should do it. If the top of the crockpot isn’t steamed, there isn’t enough water.
Hope that helps. 🙂
I’ve heard (and practice) the general rule that you can freeze meats raw 1x and cooked 1x. For example, I buy ground beef in bulk when it goes on sale. I break it in 1 lb portions and freeze it. Then I pull out what I need to make a double batch of chili. I then break the chili into meal-size portions and refreeze. I’ve been doing this for years with no food poisoning. Hope that helps!
The timing on this is perfect…I was telling DH today that I think I need to do some kind of freezer cooking again, because I am exhausted by dinnnertime these days. I’ll have to do mine in batches as well right now. I appreciate the encouragement!
What do you prefer to store your meals in and how do you thaw them?
I store most of them in gallon size freezer bags. I suck the air out of the bags and lay them flat on a cookie sheet to freeze them so I can stack them to maximize freezer space. Otherwise, I store things like meatloaf in plastic wrap and then wrap in foil. I try to unthaw it in the refrigerator for 12 to 24 hours. Some soups I can pull right from the freezer and break up and put in the pan. . .
Okay,, thanks!
I prefer quart size bags frozen flat four liquids, marinated meats and soups to take up less space and I use a plastic shoebox in the fridge to thaw everything in. They fit nicely and they can be used for a cold-water thawing box (add cold water) in the sink for speedy thawing. I find gallon bags take longer to thaw. I blog about freezer cooking also.
Yes, the quart size bags are good too. I use the gallon for family size portions and the quart size portions for lunch for me and my two little ones at home. It is like having our own frozen meal. 🙂
I work full time (teacher) and have 2 small children. My husband works most weekends and honestly, when he is occasionally off on a Sunday (almost never a Sat.), we want to have fun as a family instead of me cooking for hours while he watches the kids. Last Sunday, we enjoyed lunch with our Sunday school crowd after church and an afternoon at the farm/corn maze/pumpkin patch, for example. What I try to do is always double casseroles when I make them and freeze one. I make a casserole a day for a week (double loads) before school starts and freeze one (sometimes 2 if we have so many leftovers we don’t eat one right away). Right now, we have nothing in our freezer– :-(.. It gets like this in between breaks. Over Thanksgiving (5 day weekend), I will probably make 1 casserole a day except Thanksgiving and freeze. And since we will probably eat a lot of turkey leftovers Fri., Sat., and Sun., I will probably be putting lots of double loads in. Then I will stock up again over Winter break. Our quick go to is pasta with jarred sauce and a salad.
I do this, too, when time permits. Our kids are grown and, to speed up retirement savings and mortgage payoff, I am back to work full time. I try to find a couple hours during the weekend to get some crockpot meals and marinated meats into the freezer for easy weeknight meals. Whatever I find on sale is what’s for dinner and I put it together as soon as I get it home. So much easier than freezing then thawing to do this!
Do what fits each season of your life! It changes all the time.
Love your blog! I make huge pots of soup to divvy up for those on the fly meals. When I make stews, chicken dumplings, etc. I sometimes triple or quadruple the ingredients to divide up for freezer meals. Those weeks of pre-made meals quickly add up without much effort and with not much more expense. To me it is easier to make the mess of cooking once versus several times allowing me to do other things!
That’s so true! It is much better to clean up a big mess once rather than a dinner cooking mess nightly. That just adds to the nightly chaos.