Fill The Freezer!

A few weeks before Evah-Kate (our 4th baby) was born I got the wild idea to fill our freezer with food. I had never made any freezer meals before but I had restless energy and I hate cleaning, so I had to do something. I also remembered that I had to make dinner just 2 hours after I came home from the hospital with Jonas (baby #3). I wasn't willing to do that again. I set a goal of 50 meals, but actually ended up doing around 30 before she was born.

I was kind of worried that the food would be gross after it had been in the freezer for a while, but it was all very good! It's such a good feeling to know you can have a homemade meal even on a crazy, busy day (or a lazy day, when you just aren't in the mood).

A few tips:
-Buy a bunch of foil pans. A bunch. At least 2 different sizes.
-Expensive, heavy duty aluminum foil is worth the extra money.
-Buy 2 different sizes of freezer bags (quart and gallon).
-Freezer bags with slider seals are better than the regular zip-top.
-When you get ready to make a freezer meal, make at least 2 or 3 of each. It takes 30 minutes to make one lasagna. It takes 40 minutes to make two lasagnas. Your kitchen is going to get dirty anyway, you might as well make the most of it.
-It's better to freeze realistic sized portions. Chances are, a family of 4 isn't going to eat an entire 9x13 casserole. Divide it into 2 smaller pans and you can get 2 dinners from one recipe.
-Swallow your pride and buy paper plates and plastic forks. When you use a freezer meal, just use the paper plates and throw away the foil pan after dinner. It's less tempting to order pizza or go out for dinner when you know there is no clean-up involved in eating at home.
-Even if you aren't into doing full meals for the freezer, just try browning 10 pounds of hamburger and freezing it in 1-pound bags, or cooking, shredding, and freezing 5 pounds of chicken breast. So handy for quick meals.


Some of the freezer meals/recipes that I made are:
-Chicken Fajitas
-Italian Beef
-Lasagna
-BBQ Meatballs
-Swiss Steak
-Pork Chimichangas
-Steak & Pepper Kabobs
-Chili
-Stuffed Pepper Soup
-Hashbrown Casserole
-Oatmeal Raisin Cookie Dough
-Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough
-Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough

I'll be sharing these recipes in a series of posts over the next few days.