I read a lot about freezer cooking prior to our first child, AJ, being born. In fact, almost every pregnancy book or website that you visit will say something along the lines of “make sure you have lots of healthy food prepped in the freezer because you won’t want to/won’t have time to cook in the first weeks/months.” They’re mostly right, however, the foods that I would think of as “freezer foods” as far beyond my cooking abilities (lasagna, etc). I discovered the website Once A Month Mom somewhere along my pregnancy and fell in love with the idea – one day, all your meals for a month, where do I sign up? But, again, the majority of the recipes involved many steps and completely intimidated me. Then I saw a crock pot recipe in their list and thought, ‘You can freeze crock pot stuff?’ Cue tons of web searching, compiling recipes, getting a deep freeze (secondhand from friends) and I got everything in order for my first freezer cooking afternoon – though, admittedly, not prior to baby arriving, but that’s neither here nor there.
I spent a Sunday afternoon cutting veggies and mixing sauces (and breaking frequently to feed the baby) and at the end of it, I had 16 meals to put in the freezer. A crock pot freezer bag for my husband and I typically yields two meals (dinner and lunch the next day) so each serving came out to approximately $2.50. I was hooked!
This weekend was another freezer cooking prep day. Lots of freezer cooking experts suggest shopping one day and prepping the next, but I prefer to do my shopping in the morning and prep in the afternoon so I don’t have to make space in my fridge for all the groceries. The day before I pick out my recipes, compile a shopping list, and label the freezer bags.
For this round, I made the following recipes (2 bags of each, 18 bags total, approx 32 meals):
Pork Ratatouille Stew (adapted from the cookbook All in One by Love Food)
Hunter’s Stew with Chicken (adapted from the cookbook All in One by Love Food)
Slow Cooker Apple Cherry Pork Loin (adapted from OAMM)
Gluten Free Dairy Free Honey Bourbon Chicken in the Slow Cooker (adapted from OAMM)
Better Butter “Chicken” (adapted from OAMM)
Cranberry Chicken (adapted from OAMM)
Gluten & Dairy Free Orange-Apricot Pork Chops (adapted from OAMM)
Teriyaki Chicken (adapted from The Test Kitchen of Melissa Fallis)
Goulash (adapted from The Test Kitchen of Melissa Fallis and Mamababylove.com)
Here’s what my grocery list looked like (anything I already had on hand is marked with an *):
Meat
– 3lbs stewing beef
– 16 chicken breasts, boneless, skinless *had 10
– 12 pork chops/medallions, boneless *had 4
Vegetables/Fruits
– 6 green peppers
– 9 onions
– 3 small or 1 large bag baby carrots
– 2 small or 1 large eggplants
– 1 medium zuchinni
– 4 stalks celery *
– 1 red onion *
– 2 apples *
– 2 cups dried cherries
Canned/Jarred/Packaged Stuff
– 2 packs onion soup mix
– 2 cans cranberry sauce
– 4 cans chickpeas *3
– 3 cans tomato paste 6oz
– 1 jar apricot jam
– 2 tins mandarin oranges *
– 4 jars spaghetti sauce *3
– honey *
– soya sauce * – or so I thought, more on that later
– ketchup
– apple juice
– 2 tins diced tomatoes *
– 2 tins pineapple chunks 20oz
– 2 tins sliced mushrooms *1
– catalina or french salad dressing
– teriyaki sauce *
Spices
– garam masala *
– chili powder *
– red pepper flakes *
– paprika *
– black pepper *
– salt *
– cinnamon *
– powdered ginger *
– cloves *
– basil *
– oregano *
– minced garlic *
– minced ginger *
– brown sugar *
And a giant box of freezer bags!
The process that works best for me is:
1) Print recipes, tape to cupboard doors, cross off items as you add them to bags (so you don’t lose track of whether something has garlic yet or not)
2) Divide all the meat up into appropriate freezer bags (this helps them stand up while you’re adding everything else)
3) Cut ALL THE VEGGIES – start with the stuff you have multiples of (oh so many onions…) and work your way down. I cut and then use a liquids measuring cup to actually pour the veggies into the bag to prevent spillage.
4) Add spices, sauces, etc for each bag, one recipe at a time.
5) As you finish each bag, close, squish out as much air as possible, lay flat.
6) Load up your freezer (I mix up the recipes when I stack them so that I can just grab whatevers on the top and not get the same thing two nights in a row. I hate digging to the bottom of the chest freezer.)
And here’s the breakdown by recipe. Remember each recipe makes two gallon freezer bags – divide everything half into each bag!
Pork Ratatouille Stew
4 boneless pork chops/medallions
2 jars spaghetti sauce (28oz ish)
2 sml or 1 large eggplant, chopped
2 sml or 1 medium zucchini, chopped
2 green peppers, chopped
2 onions, diced
4 tsp minced garlic
2 tsp basil
2 tsp oregano
– Thaw, cook LOW 8 hours
Hunter’s Stew with Chicken
4 chicken breasts
2 jars spaghetti sauce
2 cans chickpeas (drained – 15oz ish)
2 cans mushroom pieces (drained – 8 oz ish)
2 green peppers, chopped
2 onions, thinly sliced
– Thaw, cook LOW 8 hours
Slow Cooker Apple Cherry Pork Loin
4 pork chops/medallions
2 cups dried cherries
2 cups apples, diced
1 onion, diced
1/2 cup celery, diced (approx 2 stalks)
2/3 cup apple juice
1/3 cup water
– Thaw, cook HIGH 4 hours
**I have not personally tasted this recipe yet. Will update once we’ve cooked one up**
Gluten Free Dairy Free Honey Bourbon Chicken in the Slow Cooker
4 chicken breasts
2 onions, diced
1 1/2 cup honey
1 cup soya sauce ((I thought I had enough soya sauce for this recipe and was wrong so I ended up using a 1/4 soya sauce, 3/4 teriyaki sauce mixture. I’m sure it’ll change the taste but hopefully it’ll still be good.))
1/2 cup ketchup
4 tsp minced garlic
2 tsp red pepper flakes
– Thaw, cook LOW 8 hours
– Remove the chicken; cut it up or shred it
– Combine 2 tblsps cornstarch with 1 tblsp water, add to crockpot, stir into sauce
– Cook HIGH for another 10-20 mins
Better Butter “Chicken”
2 cans chickpeas, drained
2 onion, halved, thinly sliced
1 1/3 tblsps minced ginger
4 tsps minced garlic
1 1/3 tblsps chili powder
2 2/3 tsps curry powder
pinch cinnamon
2 cans diced tomatoes, undrained
4 tblsps tomato paste
2 tsps garam masala
1 1/3 cups plain yogurt (serving day)
2/3 cups half & half or whipping cream (serving day)
– Thaw, cook LOW 8 hours
– Add cream and yogurt
Cranberry Chicken
2 can whole berry cranberry sauce
2 packet dried onion soup mix
2 cup Catalina or French dressing ((I didn’t buy enough salad dressing so I ended up making mine with about half the recommended amount. We’ll see how it turns out…))
4 chicken breasts
– Thaw, cook LOW 8 hours
**I have not personally tasted this recipe yet. Will update once we’ve cooked one up**
Gluten and Dairy Free Orange-Apricot Pork Chops
4 boneless pork chops/medallions
2 cups apricot jam or marmalade
3 tblsps brown sugar
2 tsps salt
1 tsp pepper
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp powdered ginger
1/2 tsp cloves
2 cans of mandarin oranges, undrained
– Thaw, cook LOW 8 hours
Teriyaki Chicken
2 small bags baby carrots (or 1 large bag)
1 red onion, chopped large chunks
2 cans pineapple chunks, undrained (20oz ish)
4 tsps minced garlic
4 chicken breasts
1 cup teriyaki sauce
– Thaw, cook LOW 8 hours
Goulash
2 green peppers
2 onions, chopped
1 small bag of baby carrots
4 tsp minced garlic
2 cans tomato paste (6 ox ish)
4 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp black pepper
3 lbs beef stewing meat ((my grocery store was completely out of stewing meat on shopping day so I bought some really cheap steaks and cut them into bite sized chunks))
1 cup sour cream (serving day)
– Thaw, cook LOW 8 hours
– Add sour cream 10 mins prior to serving
Tagged: beef, Chicken, freezer cooking, pork, vegetarian
