Freezer Cooking 101

One of my friends recently asked me why our husbands and kids think they need to eat every single day.  I had to chuckle at the question, as it truly does seem like half my life is spent planning meals, finding new recipes,making grocery lists, shopping, cooking, cleaning up. . .

It makes my life considerably easier when I have meals prepared ahead in the freezer.  They are nice to heat up on a busy day, or to use when I missed a trip to the grocery store and the pantry is looking a little bare, or to share with someone who has suffered illness or had a baby.  I usually try to have at least two meals frozen for unexpected events, but it's even better when I've purposefully filled the freezer with several meals.  Recently some younger friends were asking me for tips about how to get together once a month and spend a day cooking.  I was pretty happy when they invited me to spend the day cooking with them--it was just the motivation I needed.

We decided to use the method in which we each take a turn choosing the meals and doing all the grocery shopping for one month.  Jenna got this job for the first month which means for the next three months, all she has to do is show up to mix together two of the recipes.

We chose to make eight different meals (which allows us to eat two freezer meals per week) and multiply that times the four families so we made 32 meals in about 3-4 hours.  Here are the eight meals Jenna chose for this month.  She also suggested we rate them as we eat them so we can decide if we want to make them again in the future.  Her scale is 1 (never want this again) through 5 (I would eat it again tomorrow).  We haven't tried all of them yet, but I'll try to update this post with the ratings over the next couple of weeks.

• Lasagna in a pot  My family wanted to give this a 6, but we'll settle for a 5.  Jenna didn't like the texture, so rated it a 3.  The others haven't tried it yet.
• Ravioli 4
• Teriyaki Chicken  3.5 (My family rated it a 3, but we also just aren't fans of teriyaki in general)
• Crock Pot Fajitas3 (we prefer them fried, lol)
• Million Dollar Casserole  5
• Easy Cheeseburger Casserole 3.5 
• Sloppy Joes   3 (a little sweet for us)
• Chicken Tacos 4.5 

We had fun chatting and chopping and I'm looking forward to another day spent cooking with them.  It's Jamie's turn to choose the menu and do the shopping next month!