I decided to start something new this month (I know it's still Jan. but I'm ahead of the game for a change LOL)  for meals.  I'm going to start doing freezer cooking.  What is freezer cooking?  Well it is basically preparing lots of meals in advance and freezing them.  The meals are either complete and need reheated or preassembled and just need cooked.  Oh, you also spend just a day or two doing all the cooking and assembling versus every night.  I found several good recipes online for food that freezes well and I had a few from my own collection that I have experimented with over time.  I've been thinking about this since the beginning of Dec. so I made some of my recipes and threw a portion in the freezer.  I took them out recently to see how they held up and tasted.  I'm picky I want my food to taste like I just made it or at least not like the freezer.

These are my reasons for trying this.  First there are days things get so busy around here that cooking just seems to get in the way so we end up going out.  Second the thought of a kitchen full of dirty dishes from cooking after spending all day teaching and running is just more than I can bare.  Thirdly there is nights I just don't feel like cooking.  Fourthly I really don't like convenience foods they are so packed with preservatives and salt the thought of putting it in my mouth makes my stomach turn and I find because of time constraints I'm doing this more and more.  There has to be a better way right.

Last night I started my great experiment to save time and cleaning.  This is what I have done so far.  I mixed up 3 meatloafs and flashed froze them.  I then wrapped them up and labeled them.  I also stuck a note in there about how to prepare it so I didn't have to go looking for the recipe ( I seem to always misplace them).  I made a huge pot of Italian sauce for things like spagehitti, lasagna, and cheese ravoli which came out to six bags of sauce.  I made 2 recipes of beef strogonof and beef noodle bake.  I also browned up some ground beef w/ onions and some with out for recipes like tacos, homemade hamburger helpers, and other quick recipes I have 3 of each now in the freezer.  I browned some sausage for homemade pizzas, biscuits and gravy, and other things.  There is 3 batches of this now in the freezer.  So that gives me a total of 24 meals in the freezer where most of the work is done already.

Today I'm going to be making 3 batches of fried chicken, 2 chicken fajitas, 2 beef fajitas, 2 orange sticky chicken, 2 Italian meatroll, 2 parmesan chicken, 2 sweet and sour chicken, 12 chicken burritos, 2 cream cheese chicken, 12 beef burritos, 4 pumpkin bread, and some cooked cubed chicken for salads and chicken salad sandwiches.  Tomorrow I want to takle some pork recipes probably for a total of 12 meals.  I'm also going to be mixing up some rice mixes, pancake mixes, and some homemade bisquick mix so all I have to do is add the liquid ingredients.  I also want to get some muffins, cookies, and dinner rolls in the freezer.  So hopefully when all is said and done I will have a total of  53 meals in my freezer for dinner and lunches.  The burritos are for my dh's lunch.  I also have some meats in the freezer that I won't precook for when I have time to make a nice fresh cooked meal.  These meats include tuna, fish, shrimp, dinner sausage, bratwurst, a pork loin, a turkey, beef roast, pork roast, and ribs.  I think I'm pretty much set for the next 2 months.  All I have to go to the store to get is fresh produce, milk, and diapers.

The thing I discovered doing things this way is the money I am saving.  I was able to buy things in bulk and meats that were on sale.  I planned my menus around those items.  Incase you didn't notice chicken, ground beef, and pork loin was the big sale items this week.  I did have a few things in my freezer already from previous sales but I only spent $352.37.  I think that is fairly good ecspecially when you consider I had to buy things like freezer bags, foil, cat food, diapers, cat litter, tp, paper towels, and other such things and that I have enough meals for at least 2 months now.    The money angle wasn't something I was thinking about I was just concerned about being more organized with feeding my family and minimizing my workload.  I must say I'm excited about this.  I can save money and have less cleaning on a daily basis.  Why didn't I think of this earlier!