Freezer Meals

Just like so many others who value their time, money, and eating healthy; I have made my fair share of freezer meals. Meal planning has always been a bit of a struggle or avoidance for me. I don't really enjoy cooking or even thinking about cooking. On a typical day, I start thinking about supper between 5-6pm and we usually eat at about 6:30pm. So that means that anything I make needs to be quick and easy. There have been plenty of exceptions to this norm and my family is by no means going hungry, but on the whole we have about 20 different meals that we eat regularly and I can put together quickly. 

With that said, I work full time and finally getting home at 5pm and then having to cook supper is usually the last thing that I want to do. Hence the appeal of freezer meals. There are a few "freezer meal" groups at our church that get together each month and make meals together. I haven't joined one of those groups mostly because I work and because of the distance to drive to church. I find it pretty easy to plan my own meals that my family will like, shop, and put the meals together. With school starting next week, my goal was to get at least 15 meals in the freezer. And I did it!

Here is a list of the meals I have made:

Stuffed Shells - 3 meals

Potato soup - 3 meals

Cheesy Meat and noodles 

Honey Sesame Chicken (crock pot)

Chicken and Dumplings (crock pot)

Meat Loaf - 2 meals

Cheesy hash browns potatoes (side dish)

Chicken and rice with veggies

Pulled pork

Taco meat - 3 meals

Beef and gravy - 3 meals

 I'm most excited about these freezer to crock pot meals. I've never tried this before so I hope they work out and taste good. They were so easy to put together because I didn't have to cook the chicken first.

I'm not going to list all my recipes. I got all of them off my Pinterest page. Reposting these recipes would just be redundant and a lot of work for me. But just so you know my process, I first go online and find all the recipes that I want to make. I go through the ingredients and make a list of everything that I will need to buy. I go shopping. Then make the meals as soon as possible. I put a list of meals on the front of the freezer so I can remember what's in there.

 

Here is a picture of our freezer currently, most of the meals are on the top shelf and the rest is full of meat. We butcher our own meat at a local meat locker, so getting a half a hog or a 1/4 of beef fills up the freezer pretty fast. So in addition to the ready made meals, I always have pork chops, ground pork or beef, steaks, and other cuts on hand. 

I hope to make a lot of apples sauce this fall so that will have to be canned since there is not room in the freezer :)