Freezer Meals aka I Don't Want to Cook When She is Born

I really do like to cook.  Preparing a home-cooked meal for my husband at the end of the days is one of my favorite things.  BUT add in a newborn and I'm thinking that we're going to want something a little faster than our usual meals.

I've never made a lot of prepared meals before so I started off by hitting up one of my favorite sources for recipes, Pinterest.  There I found a lot of one pot wonders and crock pot meals that would work for us and compiled a massive shopping list.

This morning I hit up the commissary and could barely move my cart by the time I was done.  I was really shocked with the grand total of all the groceries.  I mean it was for 30 meals but that's the beauty of the commissary.

When I got home I unloaded all the goods and was a little overwhelmed by how much the food overtook my fridge.  My nesting instincts kicked in and I wanted to get these raw ingredients put together in meals and out of my cupboards and fridge!

I didn't want to try to do too many things at once so I took it recipe by recipe.  My plan is to prepare 15 different meals twice giving us 30 dinners!  I think this will work best for us despite the added work because I don't do well with leftovers.  I like variety in my food and this will give it to us.  I also made sure to check that each meal will serve at least four.  I know that first month we'll have lots of visitors so this should cover everyone.  

Today I made Tex-Mex Chicken, Hawaiian Chicken Sandwiches, Pepper Steak, and Scalloped Potatoes and Ham.  For each meal I started by laying out all the necessary ingredients.  From there I labeled zip lock bags with the name of the recipe, date, and cooking instructions.  Then I did all the necessary vegetable chopping and meat prep and finally threw it all in the bag.  It really was super simple!!

Ingredients for Tex-Mex Chicken

First meals complete!

I made sure to get all the air out of the bags and get them laying as flat as possible in the freezer.  I'm hoping this will optimise my limited space.  It took me about two hours to make these four meals which isn't too bad especially when you take into account how slow I move these days.

Hawaiian Chicken

Scalloped Potatoes and Ham

8 dinners is a good start but I want to make at least half of the 30 meals by the end of the week.  Another day at it should do the trick!

Success!