Our First Freezer Cooking Day

My mom, sister, and I decided to start freezer cooking about once a month.  All of us need quick week night meals that will prevent us from eating out, which is both healthier for our bodies and our wallets!

I have read many, many blog posts about freezer cooking.  So I thought I had done the appropriate level of research.  But apparently there is always more to learn.  

First, we started with our plan.

Instead of trying a bunch of recipes that we had never had before, we went with a few tried and true family favorites that would freeze well.  We planned out our grocery list, then a plan of attack!

*Here is where we learned that you can't plan to make multiples of 9 meals in one day! It's way too much going on at once.  Instead, it would be easier to make several of only 3 or 4 meals. 

Here is our lofty list!!! We didn't get all of it accomplished. But what we did do, went well!

Here's the french fries that we made:

The veggie cutter that my mom had
definitely came in handy! So much
quicker than by hand

The cut potatoes!

Next we partially cooked the fries in oil.

Then let them drain and cool.
After they cooled, we placed them
on a cookie sheet lined with wax paper
and popped them in the freezer.
Once they were partially frozen
and wouldn't stick to each other,
we put them in a freezer zip lock bag.
Once we are ready to use them,
just preheat the oven, and pop them
in to crisp up. I added a little cooking
spray to mine to help get extra crispy.
So good!!!

While the potatoes were going, we also browned ground beef, and cut and cooked onions.

We have a whole beef in the freezer and
it's so nice to have fresh beef whenever
you want it! Much cheaper too.

We cooked the meat and put into
freezer bags to make quick
spaghetti or tacos.

Those skills I learned from my stint
at the Art Institute's culinary program
pays off.

After cooking the onions til soft, we
set aside what we needed for the recipes
and put the rest in quart size freezer bags
to use in future recipes.

Next, cooking our homemade spaghetti sauce.  My mom has always made her own spaghetti sauce, no Ragu for us!  This proved a challenge for making it in a large quantity, because she doesn't have a recipe! It's a little of this, some of that kind of thing.  But we kept track of the amounts that were going in so we can replicate it in a large quantity again. 

We decided to freeze some of the sauce,
and can the rest of it.  We did not add
the ground beef into the sauce, so
it only needed a water bath to can.

Next was Chicken Parmesan:

Grated Parmesan. Much better
than the canned stuff!

Fresh mozzarella! Yum.

The finished product! We also made homemade
marinara sauce. So easy and tastes wonderful.

*In the future, we will use shredded mozzarella
because it got a little watery after frozen then thawed.
Another thing will be to not pre-cook the chicken breasts
as they got a little overcooked and tough.

Lastly, we made chicken spaghetti!

Because it was near the end, this is the
only picture I got! This is smoked chicken
that my dad smoked for us the day before.
Added such great flavor!!!

Also not pictured, was the "Bisquick mix"
that we made.  All you do is add eggs and milk
for pancakes, or just milk for biscuits.  Super easy.

So, that's about it! Like I said, next time, we won't plan so many different meals, but stick to a few, or ones that have similar ingredients.

Have you experimented with freezer cooking before? What do you think?