Feeding the Freezer

Most of us have heard about bulk cooking. No matter what you have heard it called; once-a-month cooking, frozen assets, OAMC or freezer cooking, I think we have all been intrigued by its promises. Come on, cook once and eat for a month. There are even stores that cater to this idea. You go in, they have everything ready and all you do is put the meal together and take it home and freeze it.

I have three children and like most of you a full schedule. I love cooking but hate that mad 5:00 rush or how about when things happen out of your control and you just can’t get dinner put together. You know what we do; head to pick up pizza, go thru the drive thru, or throw together something haphazardly. We feed our family an expensive / nutritionally deprived meal. That sure does wonders for the guilt of not getting dinner made. Who wouldn’t love the freedom OAMC seems to offer?

Then you find out what is involved: meal planning, grocery list making, chopping, cooking, and then oh yeah…. The big clean up. It doesn’t take long before you feel overwhelmed and give up without ever starting.

I went through the above step so many times! Then finally one day a several years ago I decided to start doubling a few recipes. The first was chicken pot pie. I had extra filing and did not want to waste it. I made an extra crust real quick, filled the pan, wrapped it and into the freezer it went. I then did the same thing the next time I made lasagna. I thought to myself, wow I can do this! I can easily double some of our favorite meals in the about the same amount of time while stocking my freezer with some great meals for days when I do not have time to cook.

Next I started applying my new found trick to other things. When making tacos I cooked and seasoned 8 pounds of beef. However I quickly learned to hurry and separate what was meant for the freezer from that night’s dinner, otherwise my family thought we were having all you could eat tacos and my extra was soon gone. Then came vegetables, I now never chop just ¼ cup onion. I chop up the whole bag of onions, peppers, celery, carrots or many other vegetables, then flash freeze it on a cookie sheet, when frozen bag it up. You can easily reach in and pull out just what you need.

Roasting a chicken soon, if you use a roasting pan set the chicken sideways and you can fit two in. Sticky chicken is a great recipe to do this with! The extra chicken can be frozen whole in a gallon size bag or pulled apart for later use in quesadillas, chicken pot pie or any other recipe you may have that calls for chopped or shredded chicken. You now have an extra chicken cooked and did not have to use extra energy or an extra pan.

Since taking the small steps listed above I have on a few occasions spent one day shopping and chopping and then the next day making two weeks worth of meals. My kids helped out and it was not near as bad as I had convinced myself it would be. But without having taken the baby steps first I do not think I would have ever gotten the nerve to try it. Later in the week I will try to get a post written with some specific recipes and tips to stream line some basic freezer meals you can pull out when needed. These are also great to take to new moms, the elderly, missionaries in town, or visiting pastors.