Recently, I've been asked a lot about my freezer cooking. I LOVE how easy it makes my days. I've had several questions about how it all works and I thought I'd write about a couple of good resources for freezer cooking that I have found.
Freezer cooking, once a month cooking, whatever you want to call it, is where you prepare meals in advance, freeze them, and they are ready to pull out and reheat when you need them. With a busy 2 year old running around, and the fact that I work part time a few nights a week, means that I really appreciate NOT having to chop veggies or brown ground beef every night. My husband (bless his heart) is also NOT a chef of any kind. In fact, I have a sneaking suspicion he's actually afraid of my kitchen. So I can't count on him to whip up a meal when I'm tired or at work for the evening. Enter freezer cooking. I plan and spend one day each month or so (usually about every 5-6 weeks) cooking ALL. DAY. LONG. When I am done, I have a whole month's worth of meals in my freezer, ready to be reheated for a quick dinner.
I started freezer cooking with 30 Day Gourmet. I like this method because it's very organized. I got the book from my library and in the back are all kinds of worksheets and spreadsheets. Worksheets make me happy. There are also a lot of recipes online on their website. I don't like this method because the recipes are not particularly healthy - heavy on "cream-of" soups and breadcrumbs.
I found a couple more books for freezer cooking by some local authors:
Don't Panic, Dinner's in the Freezer. I like this method because the recipes are healthier, and a bit more adventurous than plain old casseroles. Things I don't like about it are that I've found some of the recipes don't really reheat all that well.
Most recently, I found onceamonthmom.com, and I am really liking it. The recipes are pretty healthy (with a few tweaks of my own) and easy to prepare. I LOVE that all the planning work is done for me! Every month there is a new menu with breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The grocery list is done for me and the "game plan" so I know who needs to do what on our big cooking day (I usually cook with a friend). The only thing I found is that the grocery list seemed to be off for this month. We ended up with 2 huge bags of cheese left over and didn't have enough green chilis. I think I'll do my own grocery list for next month.
2 comments:
Hi!
Your post intrigued me and I was thinking of trying the website you recommended, looked at for a while, and quickly realized that the recipes don't match our eating style.
We are "real food" "Weston Price" types and cans of refrigerated biscuit dough just doesn't happen.
I haven't looked very long yet, but already came across the blog which is doing the monthly cooking "real food" style and you might be able to find some ideas there...another resource?
http://www.authentichomemade.com/2010/03/oamc-once-month-cooking-real-food-style.html
Thanks for the comment and website suggestion! I try to make our meals as unprocessed as I can, and usually end up making quite a few modifications to the recipes we use. Which is all well and good, but does take a bit more time in the planning stages. I'm excited to peruse another website for freezer cooking, especially healthier "real food" recipes! Thanks!
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