My sister and I had talked about the possibility of doing some meals together because she likes the ease of freezer meals as well. This past week I noticed that three different kinds of meat were on sale for reasonable prices. Probably not what I would consider the best prices...but decent, and we were both okay with that. We talked about it after viewing the ads and decided that it would be a good week to do it.
So we started trying to figure out what we could make with ground chuck, pork loin and chicken. We came up with a lot of recipes (which we would later find out was probably too many). A lot of the recipes were things either one or both of us had previously tried. A couple of them were new to both of us.
We then both went through our cabinets to see what we already had on hand and what we would need to purchase. The bulk of both of our purchases was the meat. For me, this was made possible by a gift card to Kroger from my grandparents for Christmas (Thank You!!) and about a week's worth of grocery money.
The night before our big cooking day, we both browned the ground chuck that we would need for our meals and also cooked up some chicken for a couple of the recipes.
We figured out a plan for the day as to which order we would make things. We got the pork into the crockpots first thing because they would need to cook most of the day. We ended up tackling all of the easier meals first and the more time consuming/difficult for the end. We're not sure if that was a good idea or not...we were SO tired by the end of it all that maybe next time we'd consider doing the opposite. The thought process with starting the easier meals first was to lower the quantity of raw meat sitting in my fridge so that we had more space in there (it was PRETTY full). We also used the porch as a temporary fridge.
So after close to 9 hours of cooking that day, this was the result...
Over 20 meals!!!
These are the things we made. I linked all of the recipes that I could (...and don't think we followed each of them to perfection...because we did NOT!).
Taco Meat
Sloppy Joes
Plain Chicken, cooked & cubed
BBQ Pork for Sandwiches
Pork for Tacos
Roasted Pork Loin
Marinated Pork Chops
Plain Pork Chops--will probably use this for these
Unbelievable Chicken
Lemon Garlic Chicken
Lime Chicken
Chicken Mozzarella
Lasagna
Goulash
Pizza Pasta Casserole
Taco Casserole
Green Chile Chicken Enchiladas
Chicken Macaroni Bake
Tacos in Pasta Shells
Cheese Filled Shells
Sweet & Sour Meatballs
Sweet & Sour Meatballs w/ veggies
So all in all it was a very successful day! All 5 of the kids (9, 7, 4, 3 and newborn) did really well for the most part. They got a little crazy later in the day but some TV cured that! HA!
The one thing that I think we would definitely change for next time is quantity...we had too much for one day. Had we not cooked our meats the night before, I really don't think we would have finished out all of the recipes we had lined up.
I really enjoy cooking on a regular basis so doing the whole "once a month" cooking type thing has never really appealed to me in the past. I don't think we'll use one of these meals EVERY day but I am really looking forward to having these meals available for when I need them over the next few months!
If preparing meals for your freezer is something that is of interest, check out these sites. They are so helpful for ideas that are family friendly!
Once a Month Mom
Freezer Friendz
You could also do an online search for "freezer cooking" or "once a month cooking" to get more ideas!
So what do you think? Have you ever done this? If so, what are some of your favorite things to put away in your freezer?
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