Tuesday, February 12, 2013

An Instagram Journal of the February Freezer Experiment

I have a dream that one day that healthy dinners will cook themselves, set the table and light a candle.

Until then, I'll keep trying ways to make dinnertime for our family easier! Making decisions when I'm hungry is not my strong suit, so I usually plan ahead. In January and February, we planned WAY ahead and prepped 20+ dinners at one time each month. I was inspired by a Dump Chicken pin I saw on Pinterest. So last month, we made four batches of five different recipes. Most of the meals were good, but even I was groaning about having that again by the fourth time. Williams like variety!



I don't remember how I stumbled upon this, but when I read freeze + crockpot, I was pretty sure this was made for my life right now.

(Go ahead, try it yourself!)

So to solve the variety dilemma, I decided to make three batches of each recipe.

Confession: I am horrible with paper. I keep paper I don't need and I lose paper I do. So, as often as possible, I attempt to do things digitally. So, I loaded my list onto my AnyList, which is my favorite grocery list app. Believe me, I've tried a bunch of them!


And I headed up to this lovely spot. I'd been dying to go since I heard Trader Joe's was coming to Houston. Sunday, I arrived early for a brunch with the girls at Empire Cafe (this NEVER happens, I assure you!) and lucky for me there was a Trader Joe's just around the corner, so I stopped in for five minutes and fell in love. (P.S. If you're listening, Trader Joe's, Sugar Land is a lovely spot. Thanks in advance.)

Back to my story... I headed up to the store a bit closer to my house and picked up some of the items.
I followed that up with a trip to finish the list at my more familiar HEB. TJ's was awesome, but they didn't have quite everything I needed.

When I got it home, I printed the recipes. I placed each recipe with its shelf-stable ingredients behind it. I printed dish names and crockpot cooking times on labels for the gallon sized bags. Then I waited for my family to get home.

We opted for pizza for dinner, but I think that's allowed when you cook 24 meals in one night.

Two hours later, with help from Jeremy and Lexi, we had twenty-four meals prepped and in the freezers. Don't let the "s" on freezers scare you. You could fit all of it in one freezer, we just opted not to move everything around to do so.
I suppose reviewing the recipes might be helpful! For first look, follow me on Instagram (@htowndaners), I'm almost certain I'll get photos and comments there first 'cause that's how I roll.

On tonight's menu, Cilantro Lime Chicken with Corn and Black Beans. It's already going in the crockpot. Word!

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