So last weekend… before me and Alex took our mini-vaca to St. Augustine, we dabbled in what many in the blogger/pinterest world call “freezer cooking”. AKA preparing meals in advance in order to save time and money during busy times of the year. And since we start back to classes on Monday (while I’ll still be working both jobs….) I need as many time/money saving solutions as possible–i.e. not fast food either! (gross!)
My inspiration blog came from here: http://www.lovingmynest.com/learning-activities/freezer-crock-pot-cooking-day/
She does an amazing job explaining how to double recipes and prep beforehand in order to get the most out of your cooking day! She even explains how she shopped in preperation for her freezer cooking. My kitchen looked similar to hers– all the cans and veggies stacked high!
So I used that inspiration at work one day to put together a list of about 40 recipes that could work for the crock pot or quick oven meals (pre-assembled casseroles…) and I presented them to Alex. Alex then scratched off the ones he wouldn’t eat and I got to picking the ones that sounded like they would turn out good. The recipies we ended up making were:
- x2 chicken tortilla soup
- x2 homestyle chicken & rice soup
- x1 Chunky chili w/ veggies (made 2 meals worth)
- x2 baked ziti (8 disposable pans worth)
- x2 lasagna (8 disposable pans worth)
- x3 Crock pot chicken fajitas
- x2 Honey Sesame Chicken
- x3 Italian Sausage w/ peppers & onions
- x3 Turkey Meatballs
- 3x Bisquick Waffles (a bunch of single-serve bags)
My math ended up being a little bit off with the chicken, so I think there was a recipe that I ended up only making a single batch of… but that’s still a rough outline of what we did. I also purchased the stuff to make a double batch of pumpkin chocolate chip muffins but I never got around to actually making them… but soon I will! 😀
Me and Alex ventured across town to Save a Lot for our groceries. They were having a sale on Tyson chicken breasts and had a ton of fresh produce for CHEAP! I usually don’t buy from Save a lot because their products don’t last in my refrigerator as long as the stuff from Publix (and since it’s only me and sometimes Alex it takes us a while to get through fresh produce…), but I knew I would be freezing it all that day so we definitely took advantage of the deep discounts.
One thing we decided to do was use dispsable pans for the lasagna and baked ziti. We were going to do large 9×9 pans for these, but then I saw these bad boys at Save a Lot:
They are perfect for us to make 3 single servings- one for each of us for dinner and 1 for me to take with me for lunch the next day. That way we don’t have a ton of left overs that we won’t eat sitting around in the fridge until garbage day. The smaller pans were a bit more expensive than the larger ones– but I think it is well worth it since we won’t be trashing as much food! And if we have more people over or we decide we want left overs for the next couple days we can always make 2.
We bought a bunch of canned goods (only some of them pictured below, there were a few more before I remembered to take a picture- and I had some of the beans and tomatoes before we started, but we still bought quite a few cans worth at Save a Lot), 3 large packages of chicken, 3 1.25lbs packages of ground turkey, 3 packages of Italian sausage, 10 green peppers, 8 onions, scallions, celery, a few boxed items, a bunch of mozzarella and ricotta cheese, and those disposable pans. The cart was almost overflowing at Save a lot and the total only came to $124. (Note: you must bring your own bags to save a lot–no one told me this and I felt kind of stupid lol!) I really wish I got a picture of the cart but I totally forgot!
I apologize about the lighting but my overhead kitchen light went out when we started cooking (just my luck) so we were stuck with the light under the microwave and a lamp on the other side… it was quite a sight! I still have yet to get a new light bulb for there….. lol
After shopping I went home and prepped the kitchen. Alex ran to Walmart and purchased about $20 worth of stuff we couldn’t find at save a lot (sesame seeds, canned pumpkin, ground Italian sausage…)
Prepping the kitchen was one of the best time savers I could have reccomended– having all the dishes clean and put away, ready for when you need them saved me time. I also was sure to sharpen my two large knives I would be using most of the day. I also set up 2 “stations.” One for meat prep and one for veggie prep. I did not do as Jessica at My Loving Nest did and prep everything for all the recipes at once because I split my cooking into two days (I had to work the night we started, so I got about 4 recipes done then had to stop and get ready for work…) but rather I prepped as I went– next time I might prep everything ahead of time, but it was a lot to take in at once.
here is me sharpening my knife! 😀
And I was also sure to, at this point… clean out my freezer. I actually did this before we went shopping so I didn’t buy anything I already had sitting in the freezer. I pulled all the meat out and let it thaw while we went to the store (just enough so I could divvy it into the freezer bags and not actually thaw it out all the way to refreeze it… if that makes any sense.)
For a visual reference here was my freezer before we started cooking:
Okay… so we were all prepped and ready to go. I simply went recipe by recipe and “dumped” all my ingredients into the bag. I trimmed all my chicken before putting it in the bag and a lot of the recipes were easy “dump” recipes. I also, before placing the ingredients in the bag, labeled what it was and any instructions for cooking that I had. for example:
Chicken Tortilla Soup
Thaw, add 2c water and 14oz chix broth
cook low 6-8hrs/high 3-4hrs
shred chicken and serve w/ tortillas”
Drum roll please!!!!!!!
Once we were out of food to cook we tag teamed the kitchen for clean up! The kitchen looked like a tornado went through to say the least…. I wish I got a picture of that too (I’m lacking in the picture department today guys!). Alex started on the counters and I wiped the cabinets down. Alex swept and mopped and I did the dishes. It went from a disaster zone back to normal in about the time it took the baked ziti to cook. And what makes me really happy about that is that my kitchen will stay looking that nice until the next time we have to stock the freezer (at least a month away, if not 6 weeks or even two months away.) I’m excited to do this again and apply what I’ve learned to this experience to my next one.
Overall it was well worth it. If I were to do it again I would skip the lasagna and baked ziti because they took almost 2 hours of prep each… while I could have doubled a couple more of the dump and go recipes and saved myself time AND still have gotten more meals out of it. Plus the lasagna/baked ziti were more expensive to make with lots of cheese and meat while some of the dump and goes were quick–just cans of veggies (cheap!) and chicken. And lasagna/baked ziti really aren’t that healthy for you, but I hope they’ll come in handy for impromptu dinner parties and special treats!
If you would like any of these recipes just ask and I will be happy to give them to you! 😀
We’ve already tried the Chicken tortilla soup and Alex loved it (I thought it was okay…) and the baked ziti–pretty good but very fattening, only for special treats! We had already made the chicken fajitas before we started freezer cooking and they are delicious– that’s what’s for dinner tonight actually!
I hope this post actually made some sense–if not read some other blog post about it, it is actually a REALLY good idea for busy people or even people that are trying to save money! for $150 I got a month’s worth of dinners and lunches done (and that’s with only using boneless skinless chicken breasts and canned tomatoes– if you are adventurous enough to use chicken thighs or bone-in chicken breasts, or even can grow your own tomatoes the cost could be significantly less!!!!!!!)…. pretty impressive if I do say so myself!
I have a pinterest board titled “crock pot love” where you can find some of these recipies– or just ask me for them and I can send them to you along with my review of them.
Thanks for stopping by,
till next time…
xoxo
Chrissi
chrissiculver 