So despite the fact that I haven’t been posting many recipes or creations on the blog, I have been cooking… A LOT… However, we haven’t necessarily been consuming everything that I’ve been cooking… instead our freezer has!  For the last few weeks, I have begun (both mentally, physically, and emotionally!) preparing to go back to work after having 4 months off for maternity leave.  My mom will be watching Emily when I return to work and I am very fortunate for that.  I am also fortunate to be returning to work on a part-time schedule for around 32 hours a week.  However, that still means I will be out of the house for 32 hrs at work + 6 hrs of driving time… Needless to say, I have been thinking about how to maximize my one on one time with Emily and minimize the time spent in the kitchen and doing household tasks… I’m striving to have an organized approach to both house (cleaning/shopping), family (R&R time), work (enough said!), & taking care of myself (aka getting in exercise time, whether that is treadmill running or taking a stroll with Emily around the block)… I had read online about a few different concepts…

• Feeding Your Freezer – involves making meals ahead of time when you have extra time and freezing them for a later use
• Cook Only Once A Month – involves setting aside one full weekend every month to cook & freeze enough meals for one full month
• Monthly Meal Planning – involves coming up with a full menu for thirty days ahead of time

As I have mentioned on the blog before, I have always planned out meals a week in advance before doing my grocery shopping, but would often run into the problem that I sometimes did not necessarily stick to the meal plan because I lost my sticky note that had what I was planning each day!

Meal Planning Approach

After reading in depth about each approach, I decided that I would probably attempt to do a combination of feeding my freezer & monthly meal planning, incorporating a few “fresh-cooked” meals as well.  What is neat, to me, about following this approach, is that after time, you can re-use your monthly meal plans if you wish, taking some of the guesswork and planning out of the mix.  I probably won’t completely recycle the meal plans but instead I will probably recycle dishes and ideas based on how much we liked certain dishes because I usually forget about new recipes that we have tried and really enjoyed!  At first the concept of planning out 30 days seemed really daunting to me but it got easier when I really sat down and did it…

Helpful Tips

For example, I think it helps me to have one day a week that we have a standard theme of dinner… aka pizza night… I decided to do pizza night + salads every Thursday… To keep things interesting, I will make ww pizza dough ahead of time in my breadmaker so that it is ready to be topped with whatever veggies and protein we have in our fridge… On those busy Thursdays, I plan to have some healthy frozen pizzas stocked, in case I didn’t have time to make the dough!

Additionally, I plan to cook at least one meal each Friday when Emily is napping specifically for the freezer.  I also plan on cooking a casserole every Sundays that we can enjoy on Sundays + Tuesdays, saving my frozen dishes for those chaotic Mondays + Wednesdays… On Fridays + Saturdays, I plan to cook one of those meals at home and go out/take out for the other…

For me, I feel that this approach will work and it takes a little bit of the anxiety out of the daily mix, knowing that we will have healthy meals ready for us to simple heat up when we get home (around 5′ish) so that we can still spend quality time with Emily each night before her bedtime (which is between 7:30 and and then allowing us to have downtime for a few hours before our bedtime (around 10)… I don’t wait to have to rely on take out all the time, although I know on some nights it may happen, knowing that I don’t have to spend time in the kitchen after work each day (unless I WANT to) if we want a home cooked meal provides a calm organized state of mind for me, especially because I am a Type A personality to a T!

Getting Organized ~ The Tools

One Central Spot

I stumbled across a website called “Organized Home” after googling freezer cooking and read about the author’s concept of creating a household notebook.  This appealed to me because there were multiple printable templates available for not just monthly meal planning, but daily to-do lists as well as a master to-do list as well (among many others – check them out here). I set to work and grabbed a binder and printed out 10 copies each of the daily to-do plan & 2 copies of the master to-do list (more on this later in another post), as well as 6 copies of the monthly meal plan.  Here is my completed binder…

Scour Recipes

As I read blogs, I have created a folder to bookmark certain recipes to try either on the weekend or during my next month of planning.  I bookmarked these recipes and then reviewed them when making my meal plan to pick and choose what recipes to make.  This also helps in picking recipes that can use similar ingredients or spices so you can also save a bit of money by buying in bulk as well as selecting recipes based on what is on sale in the weekly circular.  I did this with multiple recipes that you may have seen on other blogs like Jenna’s Quinoa Salad (which I will have the veggies chopped and prepared the night before so it can be tossed with fresh quinoa for a quick meal).  Tip:  On a side note, you could even prepare lots of grains and keep them in your freezer for an easy side dish or base for a meal.  I did not know this until reading it on 101 Cookbooks!

Materials Needed

Obviously, you need a freezer and preferably a separate unit if you plan on storing a lot of meals.  We keep our daily food in the freezer in the kitchen and I’ve been trying to keep all the excess in our large freezer in the garage.  We purchased a large freezer around Christmas time from Lowe’s which was discounted because there was the tiniest dent in it.

Over the last 3 weeks, I have been trying new recipes (namely casseroles) so I have been doubling the recipes and freezing the extra servings…

Next up, you need a storage method for your meals.  You could choose to use foil trays to store your freezer meals, but since I have a decent amount of Pyrex and Corningware with lids (and in an effort to be semi-environmentally friendly), I chose that approach.  However, I still did use Press N Seal to cover the dish before putting the airtight lid on for extra protection against freezer burn.

Sticky notes are key!  Labeling is a MUST or else this approach will not work.  For each dish, I wrote on a sticky note what the meal is, how many servings I anticipate to get out of it, as well as cooking instructions.  The cooking instructions are also critical because honestly, you could spend just as much time trying to look up how to cook your meal when you could have been cooking a meal!

Keeping a stocked pantry/fridge/freezer… This is not necessarily crucial for freezer cooking or 30 day meal planning considering that the concept is that you only buy what you need for your strict 30 day meal plan, but it’s highly important to me because I am keeping at least one dinner meal open a week and I really only have time to do food shopping once a week… Among my staples, I like to ensure that I have lots of frozen veggies, fresh greens in my fridge, fruit in my fruit bowl as well as long-grain brown rice + beans in my pantry, so that if need be, I can throw together a quick meal in 30 mins or less… I know most of you probably follow this approach because it’s obvious but just thought I’d share anyway!

Food Safety:  Make sure when you are cooking meals ahead of time that you research the best approach.  Make sure that you research whether or not it is best to cook the meal fully, partially, or freeze uncooked.  It really does differ based on the recipe.  For example, I did make two meatloaves and read that many home cooks believe that freezing it uncooked is a much better approach.  Also, if you do decide to cook your dishes and then freeze, ENSURE that the dish has completely cooled before wrapping up and freezing.

The Results?

Well, that is TBD at the moment, so you’ll have to wait and see.  I plan on starting to dig into this approach on May 1st… I will be providing an update at least every Friday as to how this approach is working for us & if it is truly a timesaver as well as the recipes I have used, my monthly meal plans, and my thoughts on how the freezer dishes tasted coming from the freezer!