Freezer Meals

Freezer Meals are an absolutely great idea!! I wanted to tell you some of the things that I have done and figured out today.  First of all, I want to tell you that there are a lot of people that do this online.  I stole everything for this day at Who Needs a Cape? blog. She has a post called 40 Meals in 4 Hours.  She actually put up all of the recipes--to double so you can get 40 meals.  And then she put up a grocery shopping list.

Second--you really need to block out a day--this took me WAY more than 4 hours!  The grocery list was so helpful because making that the last time I did this took sometime.

Third--make sure you have a good spot in your kitchen with a bunch of room.

Fourth--make ones that fit your family.  I love crock pot ones because I don't have to be home to start it 90 minutes before we want to eat.

Fifth tip--I'm not sure where I read this but it made a lot of sense to me--put the meat in last!  This actually really helped me with this, because I did the first half of some of the bags one day and then put the meat in the next day.  It also puts the meat at the bottom of the crock pot.

Sixth tip--Come up with a schedule and put together a binder.  I put all of these recipes in a binder and then we pick one or two each week to plan on having a certain day.  I have to start defrosting the night before so having it scheduled ahead of time makes sure that we actually use them! And this way I can mark what we might change, what sides worked, etc.  So I can do it all over again eventually.

Finally, label your freezer bags before you get started.  This helped me to make sure I got everything in the bags that were suppose to and then you have it on the label for the freezer too.

Here's my pictures :)

This is my command center--the kitchen table!

I filled up my whole bottom two shelves of my freezer!

Brian got a picture of me working away.