Do you have any tasks on your to-d0 list that are hard to be motivated for, but you’re glad you did it when you’re done? Like exercising? Cleaning the house? Freezer cooking?

As much as a I love cooking, even freezer cooking, this month’s freezer cooking session was hard to get motivated for. I am apt to bite off more than I can chew, and this time was no different. But, I had to do it.

1. Meal prep is getting more difficult without some pre-made items on hand. Read: I’m tempted to eat out more.
2. I know that a little elbow grease now buys me a lot of time later. Days later I’ll be glad I did.
3. My family wants to eat.

You see, this past weekend I ventured to the other side of the country on a very rare, but exciting blogging/homeschooling trip. Not only did I get to hang out with bloggers I love (Tsh, Mandi, Heidi, and Stephanie), but I also got to meet the woman partly responsible for my homeschooling lifestyle, one of my homeschooling heroes, Susan Wise Bauer.

Thanks to the great folks at Peace Hill Press, my lovely husband, and some frequent flyer miles, I was able to leave for four days and enjoy a lot of learning and talking and learning some more. This week now that I’m exhausted and a little bit behind on things, freezer cooking will help me catch up! My week’s meals are all made, so I won’t have to cook!

More, of course, on the trip later this month.

Getting the freezer filled.

As I mentioned already, when I set forth on this adventure, my list was a little ambitious. (You knew that about me, right?) The weather (gloomy), the grocery stores (missing things), and a few in-house squabbles (those kids ) were all working against me for a time, so I had to push through at a number of points.

I also had to shave my plan a little when I ran into snafus, but I pulled it off. In six hours, I got a lot accomplished. In the midst of it, I had to remind myself that it would be worth it in the long run. And it was or it will be.

Here’s what I did last week before I left town:

I made a plan.

Included in my cookbook are some great planning pages to help you plot a plan for your cooking session. I photocopied those on which to jot down notes and figure out a grocery list as well as a cooking plan.

I chose meals that I know my kids like and that would be easy for anyone to reheat. I also included a fair number of things to grill. My original plan looked something like this:

• Marinated Chicken and Pork Tenderloin
• Lasagna
• Red Sauce with Sausage
• Frozen Burritos
• Lawnmower Taco
• Queso Fundido
• Chile Verde Enchiladas
• Vanilla Maple Granola
• Cranberry Bread
• Double Chocolate Toffee Cookies
• Pumpkin Bread
• Instant Oatmeal Packets

Went Shopping

I decided that despite the sales I was not going to traipse around to a lot of stores, especially prior to a big trip. Before my cooking day, I had already made stops at two stores, so I made do with what was available at Costco and Vons.

That meant that I had to switch my plan a little bit mainstream. I bought pork strips instead of chuck roast due to pricing at Vons. I omitted the tenderloin from the plan altogether since Costco didn’t have any.

You can see the details of my shopping and how the costs broke down over here.

Started Cooking

I did a double batch of granola the night before my big cooking session, and got a chicken and beans cooking in the morning. I didn’t actually start my big cooking until the afternoon — after I took a nap!

Once I did start, I just kept pushing. Yes, there were interruptions: kids fought or needed something, the dishwasher repair man came, and you name it. But, I knew that I was committed once I had purchased the groceries. My refrigerator was bursting at the seams. Since I like to see bare shelves in my fridge, that was the motivation I needed to push through.

When I’ve got cold stuff that needs to be used, my heart can’t rest until it is ready for the freezer.

Cooking went something like this:

1. Start the red sauce and sausage.
2. Season and cool the Homemade Pinto Beans.
3. Bone and chop the chicken.
4. Shred cheeses.
5. Roll burritos and chill in the refrigerator.
6. Cook the ground beef.
7. Assemble the Lawnmower Tacos.
8. Shred the pork.
9. Fry the tortillas.
10. Assemble the Chile Verde Enchiladas.
11. Wash dishes.
12. Cook one pan of Lawnmower Taco and take a dinner break.
13. Cook the sausage.
14. Assemble the Queso Fundido.
15. Wash dishes.
16. Go to a hockey game.
17. Make the Cranberry Bread.
18. Make the cookies.
19. Wash more dishes.
20. Go to bed.

Cleaned Up

Yes, my kitchen was a wreck, but I had at least 20 meals accounted for! Whoohoo!

Since I did some major dejunking a few months ago, I had fewer cooking pots and utensils than I have used in the past. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise. While I certainly had to stop and wash dishes more often, I didn’t have the massive accumulation of dishes that I have in previous cooking sessions.

Regardless of the mess, as a Facebook reader pointed out, “One day of hard work, and a huge mess for several days of easy meals…..” Yes, my sentiments exactly. While our nights won’t be completely dish-free, we should be free of dirty pots and pans for the most part.

Have you done any freezer cooking lately?

Freezer Cooking Days: A Workout to Be Thankful For Later is a post from: Life As Mom. © Jessica Getskow Fisher - All rights reserved.

You don’t have to be methodical to prepare a freezer full of homecooked meals. Freezer cooking suits a variety of kitchen styles.

This past week, motivated by ravenous wolves children who are always often hungry, I decided to get ahead of the game by doing an extended freezer cooking session. I know from experience that if there are meals and snacks prepared and waiting in the freezer, I’ve got major assets to draw from on busy days.

I can breathe a little easier — and keep that nervous twitch at bay.

I’ve been talking about how I want to work a little harder at buying more nutritious foods at the same time as keeping our grocery spending in check. My conclusions from a recent grocery spending audit was that I needed to:

• make more snacks
• bake more bread
• do a mega freezer cooking session
• consider once a month shopping
• shop the pantry
• strike a balance between good eating and wise spending (they aren’t mutually exclusive)

(If you missed the comments on my recent keeping it real and grocery audit posts, hop on over to Good Cheap Eats. The conversation was really helpful and thought provoking!)

Three Birds, One Stone

I decided to combine the first three objectives (homemade snacks, homemade bread, freezer meals) into one major cooking session this week. One fun resource that I had handy was this:

Can you even believe it?!

This is an uncorrected bound galley copy of my cookbook! What fun it was to use this to do my freezer cooking this week instead of from print-outs and scribblings. You can preorder your copy here. And yes, I do get a portion of the sale.

On a side note, I must say that it was soooo much fun to write. I gained ten pounds. And we discovered all sorts of fabulous, new favorite meals. You’re gonna love the Manicotti with Feta and Spinach. And the Roasted Vegetable Quiche. And the Caramel Key Lime Bars. And the…

Not only is the book full of delicious recipes (if I do say so myself) it’s got loads of cooking plans included to help you make the most of your time in the kitchen. I used one of those plans during my last big cooking session and even I was impressed at how easy it was to prep so many meals in short order!

Fly-by Freezer Cooking

However, this month I decided to take a more spontaneous approach. While it entailed a few extra trips to the store for items I ran short on, it was still just as productive, if not a little more “free-form.” Which just goes to show you, you can make freezer cooking work for you, no matter your style.

Here are my notes and haphazard lists of what I hoped to accomplish:

I spread my cooking out over several days. FishPapa was out of town for a couple days last week for work and so that meant I was chief cook, bottle washer, and everything else. We all survived and in the meantime we have a chock-full freezer.

Here’s the freezer before:

How sad. Applesauce, butternut squash puree, a few packages of hot dogs, frozen berries, juice bars, bagels, some chicken broth, and a meal or two from February’s Freezer Cooking. The freezer was “practically empty.” Sure, there was food there, but one can eat only so much butternut squash puree in one sitting.

So, here’s how this thing went down.

Day One

1. sort, rinse, and soak beans
2. spend the day at the zoo
3. come home and after piddling around the house for awhile, drain beans, chop onion, start Homemade Pinto Beans cooking in the slow cooker
4. cook 4 pounds of Seasoned Taco Meat
5. divide the meat into 4 portions, chill 3 to freeze and turn one into Lawnmower Taco for dinner
6. shred 2 pounds of cheese in the food processor
7. fry tortillas for enchiladas
8. assemble Cheese Enchiladas (3 pans)
9. chop more onion and start Red Sauce on the stovetop
10. bake Lawnmower Taco and toss salad
11. eat dinner and go to a hockey game
12. portion the red sauce (6 dinners’ worth)
13. season the cooked beans and assemble 30 Burritos to chill and freeze.
14. go to bed — it’s late!

Day Two

The second day was not as methodical as the first — and that’s not saying much. This was the day I had to ditch my plans. So, I cooked in snatches throughout the day. I can’t really remember the order that I did things, but this is what we got out of it:

• Coconut Ginger Granola (8 cups)
• Maple Vanilla Granola with Almonds (8 cups)
• Spiced Carrot Bread (4 loaves)
• Berry Baked Oatcakes (24 cakes)
• Artisan Bread Dough (enough for 8 loaves of bread)
• Instant Oatmeal Packets (30+)
• Slow Cooked Chicken (about 3 1/2 pounds of cooked chicken, for 4 meals) – I cooked two chickens in two crockpots overnight and was able to debone and chop in the morning.
• Chicken Gravy (2 batches, made from the drippings in the slow cooker)
• Baking Mixes for Cinnamon Coffeecake, Drop Biscuits, Mix-and-Match Muffins, Bulk Pancakes, Waffles

I am trying, trying, TRYING to include my kids more in the kitchen. I have to do this. To survive. It’s hard to loosen the control, but I’m just going to have to let them loose and hope that we don’t waste too much food in the learning process. Sounds uptight, doesn’t it?

My nine-year old loves to mix the Artisan Bread Dough in 5 minutes. We mixed up a double batch to eat as boules and for pizza dough. The other two were dying to stir, but he wasn’t into sharing. The next day, however, they got to bake cookies. Look at those faces!

Day Three

The third and final day was a little more low key. It was a leisurely day mixed in with some errands, hockey practice, produce run, etc. I had mixed up the cookie doughs the night before, so all we had to do was bake them. The kids really enjoyed participating. Again, I need to do this more!

The marinated chicken took just a few minutes to mix the marinades and drop the chicken tenders into the bags. The mac and cheese resulted from my using up leftover pasta that was taking up valuable real estate in the refrigerator.

• Orange-Ginger Cookies (3 dozen)
• Double Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies (3 dozen)
• Jesus Cinnamon Sugar Cookies (3 dozen)
• Marinated Chicken (4 dinners)
• Macaroni and Cheese (1 meal)

Whew! That all seems totally crazy, doesn’t it?

Please note: I didn’t spend three whole days cooking. I spent portions of each day rather than trying to do it all in one day when my husband was out of town, my daughter needed to go to the pediatrician, we had two hockey events, a broken dishwasher, and a water heater with an unlit pilot light.

Trust me when I say that the freezer cooking portions of this program were some of the least stressful moments of the week!

The kitchen was in a constant state of mess, however, a far cry from the deep cleaning I had given it just a few days prior.

But I have a full, full, FULL freezer! I can’t tell you how happy this makes me. I feel like I’m ahead — in just one area of life. And it feels so good!

This is most of the new stuff that I added to my freezer stash this week. So, now it looks like this:

We are set with breakfast, lunch, and dinner for a few weeks, if not more. I’m pretty sure that we’ll be able to follow the month’s meal plan and maybe save some time at breakfast and lunch time as well.

At least you can’t say I didn’t try.

What’s your style in the kitchen?

The Fly-by-the-Seat-of-My-Pants Freezer Cooking Session is a post from: Life As Mom. © Jessica Getskow Fisher - All rights reserved.

Making your own breakfast items to freeze and enjoy in the weeks ahead can be a great way to save money.

Raspberry Baked Oatmeal(Cakes)

Last month I did a big day of cooking with my kids and freezing the fruits of our labors. We’ve eaten well, yet we still have a lot left in the freezer. I had tried to stretch out the meat dishes with simpler, cheaper fare like beans and rice, quesadillas, and pasta. I guess I did a pretty good job as last month’s freezer cooking is going to last well into March.

So, for my freezing cooking this month, I worked on breakfast.

Breakfast is a challenging meal for me. My kids wake at different times of the morning. They range in age from three to fourteen, and their appetites are about as varied. Lately, however, it seems like everyone is having a growth spurt.

My freezer cooking this past week has focused on breakfast. Here’s what I’ve cooked up to freeze ahead of time:

• Slow Cooker Applesauce (we got 30 pounds of ugly apples from our co-op)
• Basic Pancakes (baked as well as in mixes)
• Spiced Whole Grain Waffles (baked as well as in mixes)
• Raspberry and Cream Scones
• Ginger Coconut Scones
• Maple Granola with Oats, Nuts and Seeds
• Milk and Honey Granola
• Raspberry Baked Oatmeal (Cakes)

The Raspberry Baked Oatmeal (Cakes) were a huge hit. In fact, the first batch didn’t even make it to the freezer. While I loved the baked oatmeal in a 9×13 dish, the rest of my crew was reticent even to try it. However, once I baked it in muffin pans, no one was the wiser. Huge score! Ready to make batches and batches of these to freeze.

Rather than spend a lot of time on one day, I just made big batches of everything when I cooked breakfast each morning. Worked like a charm. Little minutes count!

How has freezer cooking gone for you lately?

Share your experiences, questions, or link to your recent post in the comments section.

Make Your Own Breakfast Items (Freezer Cooking) is a post from: Life As Mom. © Jessica Getskow Fisher - All rights reserved.

Freezer cooking, or bulk cooking, can be a great way to economize on time, money, and resources. And the kids can help cook!

As I mentioned last week, I’m on a mission to make my boys a little more independent in the kitchen. So, it only made sense to include them in the freezer cooking this month. Heaven help me!

Instead of asking each guy what he wanted to make, I let them choose from a variety of cooking plans that I created for The Cookbook (coming later this year). I figured this was an easier way to choose meals as well as have the grocery list and cooking plan already to go.

Providentially, the plan that they chose, the one with the most meat, of course, also featured cuts of meats that were on sale this week at my local stores. Yeah! Shopping, however, involved trips to three four different stores. In recent years it’s not been unusual for me to shop at six different stores in a week, but lately, I’ve not been that crazy in my shopping. This freezer cooking gig required me to stretch a bit.

Note: I could have shopped at probably just one or two, but I would have spent a lot more money. As it is, I believe my grocery total for these meals hovered around $200.

some freezer meal groceries + extras

(Peek in at Good Cheap Eats tomorrow to see how that shopping broke down and what a month’s worth of dinners looks like in groceries as well as dollars and cents.)

Here’s the cooking plan as it looked before we started cooking:

Sorry, no links for most of these. I guess you’ll have to wait to buy The Cookbook.

• Mediterranean Style Steak
• Seasoned Steak with Gorgonzola-Herb Butter
• Mexican Beef Tortas
• Spicy Shrimp and Tomatoes
• Tortilla Soup with Shrimp
• Fish Chowder with Red Potatoes and Corn
• Quick and Spicy Marinara Sauce
• Jamie’s Spice Mix
• Teriyaki Chicken Skewers
• Herb Butter Chicken Tenders
• Caribbean Pork Tenderloin
• Herb-Crusted Pork Roast
• Soy-Ginger Pork Tenderloin
• Cozy Cheese and Potato Casserole

Preorders should start in a month or so. Wait for it….

I gathered all my plastic ware. The Glad plastic boxes and Pyrex or Ziploc glass dishes with plastic lids are my favorites.

I also decided to jot down notes from each day to see how it all worked out, freezer cooking with kids — or how it didn’t.

Thoughts the night before:

Quite honestly, I’m not sure how this will go. I’m hoping that I can assign big boys to different prep tasks and go back and forth from their stations, offering advice and helping. But, the three littles may either help or hinder this process. It’s anybody’s game.

In the past, I’ve told the boys they were “helping” me, but then that didn’t really happen. So, I’m a little skeptical that this will work. I still have some shopping to do in the morning and then a fairly ambitious list to work through.

And there’s always the risk that someone will make a mistake and we’ll have a bulk batch of Oops! But, then again, I’ve been known to do that on my own — without any help.

It should be interesting.

And here’s how it panned out.

Successes on cooking day:

Be my own prep chef – One of the keys to a productive batch cooking day is to do all the prep work in advance. I often neglect to do that, I’m so eager to get cooking. But, this time I made a point to prep everything before I started assembling the meals. This entailed chopping vegetables, cooking potatoes, and grating cheese and lime zest. The result really streamlined the experience. The meals came together super quickly that I surprised even myself, creating 25+ meals in about 5 hours.

Tasty recipes – Our house was filled with good scents all day long. And everything we tasted was delicious! I did veer a little from my original plan, subbing in a pulled pork recipe for the Soy-Ginger Tenderloin and making a chili instead of the Tortilla Soup. Many of these are fairly low maintenance to pull together: marinated meats, soups, slow cooker meals. It’s all a matter of coordinating the different tools in your kitchen.

Cooperative children – My boys were (mostly) great about their kitchen experience. One particular person dragged his feet a little bit, that one who likes to push buttons, so really his behavior was par for the course. He warmed up pretty quickly, though, since he wants to be a chef someday.

I asked each of the bigger boys (14, 11, and 9) to choose two recipes to prepare. Then when I got to one dude’s recipe in the cooking plan’s order, I called him over to walk him through the recipe. It was pretty much a private cooking lesson at that point as I explained what was supposed to happen and what he needed to watch for, add, etc. I tried to let them do the work, with me supervising.

Lots of (labeled) meals for February – We were able to make everything on the list in about 5 to 6 hours, resulting in over 25 meals for the coming month. I also made a point to label everything. The pantry challenge showed me some of my recent laziness. No more mysteries!

What I would do differently:

Communicate my goals to the kids - Things didn’t go exactly as I planned. I think I envisioned a little more enthusiasm on the part of my kids. But, since I didn’t explain that to them ahead of time, they had no idea that I really wanted them to embrace the experience. Everyone did what was asked of him. But, no one went overboard. hehe.

Multi-task more - Next time, I’ll multi-task a little more, getting more than one child going on his task at a time and then “hopefully” roam the kitchen, helping and advising. I definitely could have had more than one cook in the kitchen.

Well, we’ll see next time.

Related Reading:

Here are some of my favorite posts that will help you get started in Freezer Cooking:

• A Quick Start Guide to Freezer Cooking
• How to Create a Freezer Cooking Plan
• Freezer Cooking Recipes You Can Count On
• Freezer Cooking Q & A
• Storage Length and Methods of Packaging

How did freezer cooking go for you?

February Freezer Cooking (With Kids) is a post from: Life As Mom. © Jessica Getskow Fisher - All rights reserved.

I love my freezer! I’m not ashamed to say it.

I remember years ago my younger sister turned up her nose at the idea of making food ahead of time and freezing it. Truth be told, I think she just had bad memories from our childhood when our parents or grandmothers stockpiled food that didn’t see the light of day for months, years, decades.

Quite honestly, it was kinda creepy that Gramma had canning jars full of stuff in her basement that were so old, the dust was growing thick on their tops.

Probably one of the problems of the prosperity that most Americans experience (in comparison to the rest of the globe) is that we have excess.

Typically, we have more than we need, we buy more than we need, and we don’t always use what we have. I have been guilty of this many times over.

This month I’m hosting a Pantry Challenge over on my food blog, Good Cheap Eats. I was stunned to see so many comments and folks signing up to participate on these posts:

• Join Me for a Pantry Challenge
• January Meal Planning and the Pantry Challenge
• Goals for the Pantry Challenge
• Daily Log – Pantry Challenge 2012

Clearly, I’m not the only one with a little excess in the cupboards, fridge, and freezer. So, we’re shopping our kitchens before we go shopping elsewhere.

This is a wonderful opportunity to use what you have, rotate your stock, and make sure things don’t go to waste. In fact, I found a good handful of freezer meals to use up this month, like Soy-Balsamic Burgers and Turkey Tortilla Soup, Carnitas Tacos, homemade barbecue sauce and Chicken Tamales. Obviously, freezer cooking helps me year in and year out. We’re reaping the benefits of work I put it weeks ago!

Freezer cooking is helping me take time off this month. Without the scary food experiences that haunt my kid sister.

Try the Make Ahead and Freeze Method

If you don’t already practice freezer cooking, I encourage you to give it a go. Not only does it help you save money through bulk cooking, but it will help you save time and put your feet up more often.

Not sure where to start? Here are some of my favorite posts that will help you join the Freezer Cooking Craze:

• A Quick Start Guide to Freezer Cooking
• How to Create a Freezer Cooking Plan
• Freezer Cooking Recipes You Can Count On
• Freezer Cooking Q & A
• Storage Length and Methods of Packaging

Did you do any freezer cooking this past month?

We’d love to hear about it. Tell us in the comments, or if you posted it on your blog, share the link below.

Join the Freezer Cooking Craze! is a post from: Life As Mom. © Jessica Getskow Fisher - All rights reserved.

December can be a FULL month. Make it easy on yourself by filling your freezer with meals to help you during the dinnertime rush.

Now is the perfect time to load up your freezer with some ready-to-go meals. Anytime is a perfect time, but December is especially chaotic with all the extra festivities that we cram into our schedules at the year’s end. And an hour or two in the kitchen — or even a full day, if you can swing it — can do wonders for your dinnertimes this month.

Last weekend I spent some going through what I had on hand, running through Costco for a few staples, and then did some quick cooking. I actually did it all in a few short sprints that I started on Sunday and have peppered my week. I’ve just had so much going on, that it worked best to spread it out throughout the week.

The Plan

Here’s the literal snapshot of my cooking plan and how I’ve bought myself some time this month.

Granola - Oats, Sugar, and Spices combined into a double batch of Cranberry Orange Granola. I didn’t have oranges, but I had some lemons fresh from my dad’s tree which worked just as well.

Taco Meat - I took spices from the cupboard and mixed up a big batch of Taco Seasoning. Then, I cooked up a big pot (3 pounds’ worth) of seasoned taco meat and divided it into meal sized portions for tacos, burritos, and chili throughout the month.

Marinated Chicken - Chicken was on sale at a local store, so I bought a ton. Or close to. I mixed up these different marinades and bagged meal-sized portions in the marinade for quick stirfries and grilled meals later.

Seasoned Pinto Beans - I read an article about the badness (is that a word?) of BPA in our canned foods, and was reminded how EASY it is to cook my own beans. So, I set pintos to soak and cooked them overnight for Seasoned Pinto Beans. We’ll enjoy these in burritos, taco bowls, and chili this month.

Butternut Squash Puree - I had a huge butternut squash from a produce box from earlier in November that needed to be used up. I peeled and cubed it, drizzled it with olive oil and seasoned it with salt and pepper. It roasted in the oven while I worked on other things. I pureed it to sneak into other things and froze them in 1-cup containers.

Thankfully, I tasted it before I’d pureed it all. It was so yummy just cubed! So, I added it to my salad with a bunch of other yummy things, like bleu cheese and pomegranate arils that night. It was amazing! That butternut squash’s big brother arrived this week, so I’ll be doing a repeat again soon.

Homemade Pizza - Pizza Kits are an easy way to pull homemade pizza together in a flash. I cooked up a big pot of sauce and divvied up five pounds of shredded mozzarella so that I just need to pull out a bag of sauce and a bag of cheese come pizza night. (There’s already a stockpile of pepperoni in the freezer from a recent sale, so we’re good.)

Tamales - Tamales are on the list for today. We’ve got friends in town to help make them. (Not sure if that was their plan, but it is mine!) Tamales are a regular thing at our house during December. I’ll freeze a bunch of them and we’ll enjoy them for snacks as well as on Christmas Eve.

I didn’t get to the Breakfast Cookies, but we’re planning a big baking brouhaha in the next week or two where I will attempt to allow my children more freedom in the kitchen, whether or not we get a dozen kinds of cookies prepared.

How did YOUR freezer cooking go?

Are you a regular in filling your freezer? Just starting out? Wondering why you would want to anyway? Tell us in the comments.

Freezer Cooking Daze – December 2011 is a post from: Life As Mom. © Jessica Getskow Fisher - All rights reserved.

Freezer cooking has been a way of life for me for quite some time. My friend Jessika and I first tackled “once a month cooking” when I was 8 months pregnant with the first FishKid almost fifteen years ago.

Yeah, I’m old.

And there were seasons in my early years of motherhood when it wasn’t really a habit. I might do a cooking session one month and wait six months before I did another. Now it’s a way of life.

For the last few months, I’ve used shorter, power cooking sessions to get the job done. But, now that the busier fall days are upon us, I realized last weekend that I just needed to suck it up and do a Big Un. I planned the entire month’s worth of breakfasts, lunches, and dinners, and then I set to work to make ahead as much as I could.

If I’m going to keep up with all that’s on my plate, I want dinnertime to be easy, tasty, and budget-friendly. “Make ahead and freeze” is my answer to that.

veggie patties from the freezer – yum!

The Plan

I went into this month’s cooking session knowing that most of the dinners I’d planned for the month would more than likely be cooked the day of or taken from my existing freezer stash. I already have marinated chicken and tri-tip stashed in the freezer and enough red sauce to feed a small nation. All the suppers on November’s meal plan feature the crockpot, the grill, the pasta pot, or the pizza pan. Easy, right?

So, I wasn’t as worried about dinner as I was the rest of the day. I planned a breakfast bar as well as a regular lunch rotation. These are very flexible meals that can be varied based on the seasonal fruits and vegetables that we work into the mix.

Since dinners were already done, I focused on a freezer cooking plan to handle breakfast and lunch. Here it is:

November Freezer Cooking Plan

Cranberry Orange Granola

Instant Oatmeal Packets

Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes bread dough (stored in the fridge)

Mix and Match Muffin Mix

Pancake Mix

cooked and frozen Pancakes

Waffle Mix

cooked and frozen waffles

Biscuit Mix

Cornbread Mix

Cinnamon Crumb Coffeecake Mix (recipe coming)

Frozen Burritos

Seasoned Pinto Beans

Let’s Get Cooking

I spent about three or four hours puttering in my kitchen last weekend. FishChick3 was up before the sun. Therefore, I was as well. So, I started on a batch of granola. This recipe is a surefire way to get your house smelling divine. It also makes a great gift.

And can I just take a moment to say a word about this new pan? It rocks! I bought a boxed set (half-sheet with lid, rack, and quarter-sheet) at Costco and I love them. The half-sheet holds my silpat mat just perfectly. I’m going back for more. No more warps-and-wiggles-in-the-oven-kind-of-pans for me!

Then, I assembled the pancake mixes and prepped a double batch to cook for breakfast. Whoever was awake before the pancakes were all cooked and cooled enjoyed pancakes for breakfast. I wrapped the cooled pancakes in stacks of eight in plastic wrap and then placed the stacks in a gallon size freezer bag. While they aren’t as tasty as freshly baked, they will make for quick breakfasts on school days.

I moved on to the waffles and did the same thing. Whoever was awake before I stashed the waffles, had waffles for breakfast. You see a trend here?

Ditto with the granola. Hubs awoke in time to eat warm granola while it cooled on the countertop. I had to hurry to have something to store!

Then I worked on the rest of the mixes until I ran out of sugar. Hit pause until I can run to the store.

Later that day I finished off the baking mixes and assigned jobs to my able-bodied children. FishBoy9 stirred the bread dough while FishBoy10 sorted the beans.

Once the bread dough was done with its first rising, I stashed that in the fridge.

The beans soaked overnight and cooked the next day in the crockpot. Beans are rather independent creatures. They don’t need much fuss.

Once they were done, I quickly assembled two dozen burritos, portioned out the rest of the beans in freezer containers, and called it quits. This really does not take much time at all, especially if you buy the cheese pregrated or use a food processor. These were bean and cheese burritos making them super quick to fix. Watch the video if you’re not sure how to fold a burrito.

Breakfast and a few lunches are handled for the next month! (See our meal plan if you don’t believe me.) Here are some of our goods for the next month. I’ll supplement them with fresh fruit, hard cooked eggs, yogurt and the link. Head here to read about our breakfast bar.

Going forward, I’ll be looking at this month’s sales with a mind toward December’s freezer cooking. Basically, I’m planning, buying, and cooking a month in advance. Our November meal plan is set, so as sales come through this month, I’ll be thinking toward what to do with those items next month.

Freezer Cooking Day

Freezer Cooking Day is evolving once again. I’ll be posting on the first Saturday of each month, specifically about freezer cooking. Join me and share your freezer cooking adventures, link up your own freezer cooking post or recipe, ask questions in the comments section, and otherwise share with us what works well for you and your family to have homecooked meals without a ton of work.

The Cookbook is entering some of the final stages of production. I’ve got another round of edits later this month. I’m so excited to share it with you! There are over 100 new recipes that you’ve never seen. And I’m almost afraid to tease you with them since it will still be a short while before you can go buy the book. I hope you will! I think you’re gonna love it!

Well, that’s all I got. I can’t wait to see how you’re using freezer cooking to help your “life as mom.”

Freezer Cooking: November is a post from: Life As Mom. © Jessica Getskow Fisher - All rights reserved.

I told you on Friday about my recent, and albeit, ambitious plan for freezer cooking. It all started with a trip to Costco in which I bought more than my refrigerator could hold. Apparently, my cup runneth over. It was a rather impromptu plan that I put together on my return home.

Once I had cleaned the kitchen and donned the apron, I got the main components ready, namely the spice mixes I would be using for the taco meat and the pulled pork. I buy spices in bulk and that makes it easy and economical to mix up my own blends.

I got the pork cooking in the crockpot and started some of the ground beef to cook for taco meat. On a whim, I mixed the rest of the ground beef into meatballs. I had found several containers of gravy in the freezer when I inventoried, so I knew that would be a good way to add variety to our meals this month without a lot of extra work.

I also enlisted some help. FishBoy9 helped me form the meatballs which was nice on the work end, but also nice for the companionship. He wants to be a chef when he grows up, so I am looking forward to more help in meal prep.

That first day I did cooking which resulted in at least ten meals for the freezer. A few years ago this might have been 30 meals. But, it would appear that my family’s appetites have grown. I’m going to need to step things up a bit.

That night I went to bed contented that there was a growing stockpile in the freezer that I would add to the next day. However, I was awoken at 5 am by a piercing beep. The freezer alarm. Apparently things were getting warm in the deep freeze. Bleary eyed, I crammed the most valuable frozen foods into the side-by-side refrigerator freezer and hoped for the best.

We think that someone placed a box of muffins too close to the top of the freezer, preventing it from sealing completely and allowing warm air in (or cold air out). As you can imagine, I was a little gunshy to tackle more freezer cooking and have it go to waste. So, we’ve been slowly eating what we already had in the refrigerator as well as researching our options for a replacement freezer. It is still running, and the alarm has gone off once or twice, only after the door was opened. So, we think the alarm just might be really sensitive.

I’ve been freezer shopping and quite frankly disappointed in the price points. I know, Craigslist, but I don’t want to do used and then end up in the same boat, with an older freezer on its way out. Our current Frigidaire is 12 years old and certainly served our family well. Not counting electricity costs, it has averaged now about $15 a year. I’d like to know how my $400 investment would pencil out.

You can be sure that I’ll update you on what I decide! In the meantime, this is how my cooking session ended:

My plan v. my results:

• Aunt Sandy’s Broccoli and Cauliflower Soup – didn’t happen until Soup Night a few days later.
• Chicken Enchiladas – never happened
• Taco Meat - 3 dinners worth
• Taco Seasoning - big batch with some leftover
• Brats to repackage from a bulk package – 3 dinners worth
• Pulled Pork - 3 dinners worth
• Applesauce - never happened
• Apple Pies - never happened
• Muffins - one batch of Zucchini-Cranberry muffins
• Eggplant-Squash Casserole – never happened
• Baking mixes - never happened
• Pumpkin custards – baked these a few days later
• Crumb-topped cod kits – never happened
• Added: Meatballs
• Added: homemade BBQ Sauce
• Added: sauteed vegetables to add to soups and stews

How did YOUR freezer cooking go?

Freezer Cooking and an Unfinished List is a post from: Life As Mom. © Jessica Getskow Fisher - All rights reserved.

The following is a guest post from Liz of Wonder Woman I’m Not:

As a working mother with older children, the opportunities for family dinners are somewhat limited in our household.

Between the kids’ work hours and extracurricular activities we have anywhere from 3 – 4 days per week maximum to eat together. That’s assuming that there aren’t any surprises like band concerts or business dinners thrown in. To top it off, the only exercise class that I absolutely love and that works for me is on two of those family dinner nights.

Over the years the husband and kids have been very good about helping to put dinner on the table. If I pull something out of the freezer before I leave for work they will pop it in the oven for me. Of course there are the phone calls that start about 4pm asking what time they should put the food on, what else I was planning on serving, what time should the bread go in the oven, etc.

Pretty stressful for me as I’m trying to wrap up the day and most likely have someone in my office. Plus, when I got home at the end of my busy day I still needed to do the finishing touches.

What’s a mother to do?

Get creative of course! I thought about what the problems were with getting dinner on the table during the week and came up with four:

• If I get home from exercise class at 6pm we had to eat immediately, no time for me to cook.
• No one else in the household knew what my dinner plan was. They knew they were to cook meatloaf, but weren’t sure what else I wanted to serve with it.
• The sides I planned to serve weren’t always available. I forgot to buy mashed potatoes, the carrots I planned to use were eaten at the last meal – you get the picture.
• The 4pm calls from home asking for direction were stressing me out.

My solution was to create ‘a meal in a bag’.

Now, when I do my freezer cooking, I put everything in a grocery bag with detailed directions. Since I tend to cook a lot of the same things, I can have copies of the directions for the main dish and handwrite any other directions for the husband or kids.

A typical bag consists of:

• A meat dish
• Bread
• Frozen vegetable
• Potato or rice

In addition we typically serve applesauce and/or salad that would just be thrown on the table at the last minute. If I’m planning on serving a dried good from the pantry (like the rice or boxed potatoes) I’ve been throwing that in the freezer too, so far without any quality problems.

Because of lack of space, I typically would only do this for the next week or two. However, since we’ve bought a new chest freezer for the basement I’m be able to go crazy and really stock up!

– Liz writes at Wonder Woman I’m Not. She works full time outside the home as a director of analytics for a paper company. When she’s not spending time with her family or working, she enjoys baking, gardening, geneology and reading.

How do YOU problem solve the dinner time scramble?

Make a Meal in a Bag (Guest Post) is a post from: Life As Mom. © Jessica Getskow Fisher - All rights reserved.

At the end of last week I found that I had accumulated a lot of food. Fellow grocery geeks will remember the co-op haul that I brought home. Talk about being rich in rice cakes!

Then, because we were out of dairy, I ran to Costco to get milk and cheese on Saturday morning. Yes, crazy on more than one count. One thing led to another and before I knew it, my refrigerator was bursting from the seams.

Apparently, it’s time to cook for the freezer, me thinks.

I really didn’t want to put uncooked foods in the freezer, though I totally could have done that. I wanted things to be easier on the other side. So, I got to work.

Here was my plan of attack:

1. Inventory the freezer.

I am really bad about keeping track of what we already have in the freezer. Every once in awhile I go dig it all out — and find such great treasure. Look at all this! Apparently, I don’t need to make red sauce anytime soon.

2. Develop a cooking plan.

Next, I made up a list of the meals to prepare, based on what I already had in the fridge and cupboard. (Note the clever use of recycled artwork. I’m so fancy.)

My plan:

• Aunt Sandy’s Broccoli and Cauliflower Soup
• Chicken Enchiladas
• Taco Meat
• Taco Seasoning
• Brats to repackage from a bulk package
• Pulled Pork
• Applesauce
• Apple Pies
• Muffins
• Eggplant-Squash Casserole
• Baking mixes
• Pumpkin custards
• Crumb-topped cod kits

3. Clean the kitchen.

Since I had just gotten home from Costco, evidence of such was everywhere. I know from experience that starting a cooking session with a clean kitchen makes the process so much more enjoyable.

4. Don the apron and get cooking.

I cook better with an apron. I worry less about my clothes which helps me relax more, and therefore, enjoy my cooking.

The weekend was not without it’s excitement. I’ll tell you more on Monday. Share your cooking plan below and be sure to come back on Monday to see my progress and to share yours.  For more information about freezer cooking days, go here.

What’s your cooking plan?

October Freezer Cooking: The Plan is a post from: Life As Mom. © Jessica Getskow Fisher - All rights reserved.