What the @&$% Was I Thinking? Oh Wait...This Is Awesome!

Recently I got it in my head to try this idea of prepping and freezing (in 1 day) a whole month's worth of meals to make dinner easier during the week.  I have seen quite a few blogs on this and thought many, many, many times that I should try it, but I never committed to it and the idea eventually fizzled.  But, for some reason this time I thought, "I can do this."

Anyhoo - I headed out to Sam's Club, the local 'buy in bulk' store to get all the meat that I would need for this venture.  Then I hit up the local grocery store sale for the rest.  My advice - if you want to give this adventure a try, do plan ahead in order to get the most bang for your buck!  This can actually prove to be a cheaper option than weekly grocery shopping if you do.  Also, have a friend (or brother-in-law - Thank you, Patrick!) who can help you determine just what in the hell hoisin sauce is and what aisle to find it in!

*Helpful shopping list hint - on a piece of paper as you go through the recipes writing your list, don't write it out as 3 onions, 2 chicken breasts (or whatever), instead mark it like this:
Onion -III
Chicken Breast - II
By doing it this way, you can just continue adding tally marks to items as they appear in the recipes, thereby making it MUCH easier to see how much of an item you need instead of writing them ALL from each recipe and then trying to go back through the list and add things up.
 
Last night after putting the kids to bed, I stare at all the bags of food sitting around my kitchen and almost have heart failure.  What was I thinking?!  But I take a deep breath and start sorting.  All the raw meat in one area, all the veggies in another, the spices in another, etc.  Then I take my gallon Ziploc bags and start writing the names of the meals on them.  

Can you tell I'm stalling at this point?!

Finally, I get down to business.  For me, the easiest way to do this was to first sort the meat (cutting it as I went, if needed) into the Ziploc bags and put them on the table out of my way.  Then I scanned the recipes to determine how many onions I needed to chop, how many to slice, etc.  And I did that with all my veggies and did all the chopping at once.  After I completed all the chopping, mincing, blah, blah, blah ... I moved on to filling the bags.  I opened each recipe (I did not write them down, some people do; I bookmarked the link on my computer and just opened them as I went) and grabbed the bag of meat that corresponded and added my veggies and any other sauces or spices that were listed.  Then I smooshed it all around to mix it up and stuck it in the freezer.  I simply repeated this step until I used the last bag of meat!  *Some recipes call to serve with rice or pasta ... you just leave that out and cook that part when you're ready to eat.

When it was all over, I thought--good grief that was crazy!  I don't know if I'll ever do that again.  But then, I thought - wait a minute, I have my main dishes all ready for almost the ENTIRE MONTH.  So all I have to do is grab them from the freezer the night before, throw them in the fridge to thaw overnight, and then in the morning put them in the crockpot on low so supper is ready when we are!  I did all my prep-work in about 3 hours instead of spreading it out into an hour this night, a half-hour that night, etc.  Three hours in one day and I'm finished!  I do have to give credit to my husband for helping me for about an hour and a half ... but then I had to release him for "The Walking Dead," (eeeeewwww) and I finished up by myself.  

AWESOME!  

*A few recipe notes -
1.  I did not brown any of my meat.  Some of the recipes call for this, but based on others' experiences, it is not a necessary step.
2.  I used some fresh herbs, but not all.  Fresh does have that extra oomph, but it won't destroy the meal if you use dried herbs.  I did this because I have quite a few dried herbs already in my spice rack, so it cut down on my cost.
3.  I was confused at first because not all of these meals are 'crock-pot' meals, and I was concerned that this wasn't going to work like I'd hoped.  But just ignore the cooking directions, throw the ingredients in the bag, smoosh around, and freeze.  Move from freezer to fridge the night before to thaw, grab it from the fridge in the morning and give it a good squeeze to mix it up again, and put it in the crock-pot on low.
4.  There are 19 recipes total on the list I used.  The author of the blog (see below) doubled each recipe (except the ones that were already doubled by the original author) so that she'd have almost 40 meals.  I did not double them because we're just trying them out for the first time.  If we like the recipe, then next month I'll double it.  I'll also be looking for other recipes to add to the rotation!

If you're feeling brave enough to jump right in (and I encourage you do so), visit Who Needs a Cape for the complete recipe list.

If you're not feeling so brave just yet and want to see how it turns out first, follow my Family Dinner Blog for the individual recipes and verdicts on taste as we thaw and cook them!  

I believe tomorrow night we'll start with Teriyaki Chicken or Cilantro-Lime Chicken...