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| Whether you love cooking or hate it, freezer food can be a Blessing! |
"I love to cook!"
"I don't want to have food in the freezer so that I don't have to cook every night."
"Cooking is therapy for me."
Or, alternately:
"I hate to cook!"
"It's all I can do to get dinner on the table each night."
"I certainly couldn't face more than one day's cooking at a time."
Here are a few reasons why - whichever group you fall into- freezer cooking might be just what you need.
For those who LOVE to cook, entrees in the freezer provide the following benefits:
1. A meal to share with a friend in need, when a sudden need arises. If you hear that someone has just had a family member hospitalized, just brought someone home for hospice care, had a new baby, broke their leg -whatever - a frozen meal taken to their home can be a real blessing. Likewise, if you'd like to help out at the local homeless shelter or soup kitchen, freezer meals can be just the ticket. For more info - check out this Omnivore blog: Mom on a Mission
2. You want lower stress when entertaining. You can chat with guests, chop salad, and not have to worry about a last minute oops when dinner is heating from the freezer.
3. You want to focus on a side, dessert, or appetizer that requires last minute attention
4. You have special dietary needs in your family. An unexpected schedule change can leave you without time to cook - forcing you to overspend, or eat something that isn't optimum for your health.
5. You want to cook when you have time to enjoy the process, not when you're under the gun with stress.
6. Morning sickness. A lot of cooking fanatics don't enjoy cooking when they have morning sickness. A bunch of freezer meals can really help.
7. New Baby. Stocking the freezer allows you to focus on that new baby, instead of stressing over dinner.
8. Save money. Into every life, a little disarray will fall. That traffic jam when you should be fixing dinner. Holiday shopping. A friend or child who needs comforting just when you "should" be fixing dinner. The freezer meal comes to the rescue and lets you relax, without hitting the restaurant when you really don't want to.
9. Health. The well-thought-out freezer meal is often healthier than the last minute throw-together meal. And, that's not even mentioning fast food.
10. Dishes. You have to clean a lot fewer dishes when you freezer cook in bulk. This lets you spend more time with your family (or surfing the net ; ) after dinner.
11. Impromptu Guests. If you have a family member who brings home friends for dinner with little or no warning, or, if you like to invite that new person at Church to your house for Sunday Dinner, a few meals in the freezer can make the impossible possible.
12. Occasional bouts with Illness. If you are subject to an illness with good days and bad days, then you can fix meals on your good days, and eat them on your bad days. On those occasions when my back "goes out, " for instance, it's a real help to have a dinner in the freezer that I can just microwave & make a salad.
If you HATE to cook, freezer cooking has these advantages:
1. Get cooking over with - don't have it hanging over your head at the end of a stressful day.
2. You spend less total hours in the kitchen. Since the process is much more efficient (you get everything out once, chop onions once, saute a big bunch of vegetables all at once, cook a big batch of beans to use several times, simmer a bunch of things at once, clean up once - etc - you get the benefits of economy of scale.
3. Many people I know who hate to cook hate it because they feel they're not good at it. Most freezer meals are the more fool-proof recipes that are less likely to fail, and even if they do fail, it doesn't happen when you're already starving.
4. Free up time for stuff you'd rather do with your evenings.
So, there you have it - whether you love cooking or hate it, freezer cooking can be a Blessing!
Here are some of my other stuff you might find helpful if you want to freezer cook:
Recipes:
My Freezer Recipe Index
For those who don't really enjoy cooking, these are simpler plans:
Cooking for the Single Vegan
Make Sauce Tonight, Have Easy Meals for a Week
A Week of Warming Soups for the Slow Cooker
Meal Planning & Bulk Cooking, Horizontal or Vertical
Non Salad Days for Great Salads
Freezer Cooking Plans:
Greek for a Week
Indian for a Week
World Tour One
World Tour Two
How to Design Your Own Freezer Cooking Plan
This is being shared on
Penny Pinching Party
In & Out of the Kitchen
Healthy, Happy, Green & Natural
Virtual Vegan Potluck
I have to try and be better about meal planning for myself. Since DH doesn't eat left overs and won't pre plan what he wants I haven't but I know I should! MAYBE I will pursue that as a mini goal for my near future! These ideas and suggestions are great, thanks!
ReplyDeleteGreat ideas and valid reasons to freezer cook. We are a family of 2 people and I still cook for 4. That way, I do save time, energy, and resources cooking a meal ahead of time, putting it in the freezer to serve at another time. An important reason I like the idea is that it varies what we eat during the week. Variety is a key aspect of a good eating plan. I use glass instead of plastic. Perhaps when you need new containers you'll consider replacing plastic with glass (recycled glass jars or Pyrex ones you can use over and over again).
ReplyDeleteHi Anna,
ReplyDeleteYou never cease to amaze me! You have provided so many helpful posts on your blog to help us plan and organize efficient freezer cooking. In my home, we occasionally freeze leftovers if we are going to travel and will not have time to eat perfectly good food, however, I generally cook from scratch. I may try freezing some soups and sauces this winter. Thank you so much for sharing these freezer cooking valuable resources with us at the Healthy, Happy, Green and Natural Party Blog Hop. I appreciate it!