The idea behind once a month cooking is to do all the chopping, all the browning of meat, all the washing up at once, which is more efficient. This is true. However, if you are like me, you can fall into the trap of Big or Nothing: if I am not functioning at the greatest efficiency, I shouldn't even try.
Last August (or maybe the year before), I took half a day to put away six meals, with the help of my friend Julie Duncan, who sells Pampered Chef. It was such a joy to have those meals available during the semester, and they blessed me when I prepared them for my family. Please note: if you put meals in the freezer, you must take them out and cook them for your family to eat. Do not waste your time and money. Eat what you have!
That said, Saturday night I was at loose ends. Sometimes, I will bake cookies or something when I am in this mood, but my waistline was not in favor of sweets, and I wasn't in the mood to bake muffins (which I also eat during the school year--hooray for "eat what you have" habits!).
So, at the odd time of 7:20pm, I went to Walmart and bought ingredients for three dinners. I came home, had enough energy to put two into my freezer, and today, I made the third. I used the time I had to do what I could, and sometime in the next three months, Future Me will smile at how Summer Me spent an evening cooking instead of playing Candy Crush.
I must admit, today, when I made the third freezer meal, I decided to go ahead and cook it, instead of freezing it. Sweet and sour meatballs for dinner, which used up an onion and two peppers I had bought for a black-eyed pea salad that I was avoiding making. Eat what you have.
New Leaf Wellness has some of my favorite freezer meals. The other two meals I put away were Mexican Chili with Cornbread Topping and Beef Enchilada Stack (because, of course, I was using up tomatoes I had on hand).
If you have time this summer, I hope you will clean out a shelf or two of your freezer. Future You will thank you.
