30 Day Freezer Meal Friday

Dinners are somewhat rough around here. I have a picky husband (whom I love dearly!) and his lack of desire for variety often clashes with my love for it. When I cook something he doesn't like, which happens often, I am left with the two choices of cooking a separate meal for him, or letting him fend for himself. Neither of which are ideal.

Freezer meal cooking has been my rescuer! Even though Karl still doesn't eat most of what I cook from the freezer, it has freed me up to cook him a separate meal if I need to. I had been cooking up an extra serving here and there, but after talking with my friend Jessica from Feeding the Family for less, we decided to get together via Skype and have a 30 Day cooking frenzy! The day was a fun and furious mix of chatter and cooking and at the end my freezer was well stocked:


Ok, fine, so that isn't really my freezer. Mine looks more like this:



but at the end of the day I had bagged 41 dinners and as soon as everything is frozen solid, the freezer will be organized.

There are a few things that I could not have done without during my first 30 Day Freezer Meal frenzy. The first was Jessica. She was my pillar of strength when my feet were burning from standing. More importantly though, she introduced me to 30 Day Gourmet's BIG Book of Freezer Cooking and to the software that goes with it! The cookbook gives you over 150 recipes and the software does everything from a grocery list to telling you what order to prep and cook! It was WONDERFUL!

What made the day so easy was having directions on what to do when. Starting out with chopping all of our veggies for every meal that we were going to make:



I had a hard time taking photos while we were cooking, but the software gave us instructions every step of the way!

Wondering what I did with the kids while we cooked? They did a bit of food art! The bottom end of the cut celery stalk makes a great stamp! You can also get neat patters with onions, a stalk of celery, potatoes and just about any other firm fruit or veggie. Oh, and grandpa took them out to lunch for about an hour and a half.





Her uncle is in the USAF and she loves wearing his hat in case you were wondering.

A few things I learned through this process:

Have a plan
Shop ahead
Do as much prep work as you can ahead of time (cook meat, chop veggies)
Do the dishes as you go

So there it is! My fun freezer meal day with Jessica. Even though my kitchen still looked like this at the end of the day:

it was fun and I now have 41 yummy dinners/lunches in my freezer! I am actually looking forward to adding some breakfasts and maybe even deserts!

Do you do freezer meals? I would love for you to share your freezer meal posts with us. Just add your post to the linky below! Look for this meme at the end of each month!