This blog was inspired by a conversation with a client who was “frustrated beyond belief” at mealtime.
One time on a whim, I ordered a “20 Freezer Meals in a Weekend” package. It was a download that included 20 recipes, a master list of ingredients, instructions on how to prepare the food, and directions on how to freeze it. It also had serving suggestions (i.e., add a side salad or rice) and the nutritional value of each meal.
I was so excited because this was going to be “Me” time! It was also going to solve some of my all-too-frequent “Oh – it’s 4:30 pm and I have no idea what we’re eating for dinner” moments.
It also promised to only take 6-9 hours from start to finish. I could totally do that in a day (or split it across two)!
Until reality happened.
First, I shopped in my pantry, fridge, and freezer to see what ingredients I had. If you read my last blog (Part 1), you know that while I can and do cook, it’s not my favorite activity. So… shopping my ingredients at home took a little longer than I expected but it was fine.
Then I needed to take ‘to buy’ list to the grocery store. Since I’m not a regular ‘chef’, I spent a lot of time looking for some of the ingredients. For example, I am used to seeing long cinnamon sticks in clear baggies (in the craft store). When I finally asked for help, I learned that in a grocery store, cinnamon sticks are most often found in little tins…
Once I had all the ingredients, in between getting kids fed, bathed, and ready for bed, I attempted to cut, chop, slice, and dice.
Looking back, once you have all your ingredients washed, you could probably do most of the prep within 2-3 hours. But with kids underfoot, it took me a bit longer.
The next day, I followed the recipe directions and created each of the meals. I put them in freezer zip-top bags and marked them with permanent markers (meal and date). Finally, I squeezed the extra air out, rolling them ‘burrito’ style to save space in my freezer.
There was a little bit of prep work for the side dishes, but that didn’t take much time. And as long as I remembered to defrost the meal the night before we had ‘real meals’ ready to go!
While it truly did save a lot of time during the chaos of the school year after school activities… I found out that at the time, my girls were not quite as adventurous at eating as they are now.
We ended up with a lot of leftovers to eat throughout the week. While that can be a good thing, it wasn’t always… Since our girls didn’t want the meal the first time, they were probably not going to want it a 2nd or 3rd third time either…
So – the next time I decided to cook 20+ meals in a weekend (with new recipes), I split each meal into 2 freezer zip-top bags. We had twice as many meals to choose from!
I also posted the meal list on the fridge and asked people to rate the meal (I took notes, too). I noted which ones were big hits, which ones were ‘fine’, and which ones I would not be making again.
If you missed my last blog, check out another way to combat mealtime madness (Part 1) and click this link: Dinner Brainstorm List.
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