Day one: Get motivated
The first step is always the hardest, so make it a painless one. Just grab a pen, notepad and your personal recipe collection. Then sit down in front of your TV. If you have the TV Food Network available from your cable/satellite provider you can tune in 24 hours a day to chefs cooking up a storm of yummy foods. This may sound silly, but when you are facing cooking 30 meals or more in a short time you can get overwhelmed quickly.
Even the most experienced of freezer cooks have to gain momentum to complete a session. Let the TV chefs motivate you by cooking in good company. If cable access is not an option, browse around online at food related web sites. The point is to surround yourself with the joy and excitement of cooking!
While you're watching the chefs, flip through your own recipe collection and come up with at least 10 or 12 recipes you can duplicate easily. While doing this, consider what your family enjoys eating. Entrees like meat loaf, tacos, casseroles, fajitas and lasagnas are always good choices. Simple things like chicken and meat marinades are excellent choices for grilling during summer months.
Plan on making two or three of each chosen recipe to maximize your time on assembly day. Jot down important events that may arise during the next 30 days. Anything from evening baseball practice for your son to your in-laws visit in two weeks. Plan ahead by making entrees that go straight from the freezer to the oven for those ball practices and extra servings for your upcoming family visit. It's that easy! Ten or 12 recipes on your notebook and you can rest until tomorrow!
Day two: Set the date
Grab your calendar or organizer and circle your shopping day, prep day and assembly day in that order. Ideally, they should be three consecutive days (ie Thursday: shop, Friday: prep, Saturday: assemble) with your assembly day taking top priority. Clear your calendar for assembly day by arranging for child care and minimal outside distractions.Now, using the recipes you chose yesterday, make a list of ingredients and compile a shopping list. Be sure to add gallon and quart-sized freezer bags, tin foil, labels and disposable gloves. You can download a shopping list online or create your own as simply as writing it out on paper. Decide what works best for you but don't get caught up in searching everywhere for a perfect shopping list as a way to distract you from your main goal of filling your freezer with meals for your family.
If you own any freezer-related cookbooks, now is the time to get them out. They will offer a wealth of knowledge and information that you are going to need during the process to minimize both time and money. Don't try to reinvent the wheel. Most likely the authors of freezer cookbooks have done a ton of research, so let them do the work for you. If you have not purchased any, consider The Freezer Cooking Manual by Tara Wohlenhaus and Nanci Slagel and Once-A-Month Cooking: A Proven System for Spending Less Time in the Kitchen and Enjoying Delicious, Homemade Meals Everyday by Mary Beth Lagerborg and Mimi Wilson.
So now you have gotten motivated, picked your recipes and organized a shopping list. Your work for today is done!
Day three: Take the pantry challenge
It's time to shop your own inventory. Avoid buying duplicates of something you already have on hand or worse -- running back to the store on assembly day because you thought you had an ingredient you needed only to find you were out -- by taking note of what is already in your cupboard, refrigerator and freezer.Jot down items on your shopping list that you are running low on and remove any items that you have stocked on hand. Check your local grocery store ads for weekly specials on items you have written on your shopping list. If you use coupons, consider coordinating your coupons with the ad specials for maximum savings. Map out your route you will be taking on your shopping day by store. Fold an 8-1/2 by 11 inch paper in half, length wise. Write the name of each store on the top of each side (up to four stores) and list grocery items you will be purchasing at that location. By doing this, you will be able to get in and out of the store quickly.
Day four: Out with the old
You will be purchasing a lot of food tomorrow so get a head start by clearing out your refrigerator and freezer. Throw away any out dated items, freezer burned foods, yucky leftovers of who-knows-what in the back of the refrigerator -- all of it must go. Actually wiping down the shelves is optional but not a necessity. The goal is to make room for all the perishables for your cooking session. Besides, if it has been sitting in your freezer since last millennium and covered in frost, it's probably not edible anyway. You're doing yourself a favor just by getting rid of the icebox clutter.Day five: Shop till you drop
Armed with your shopping list and ad circulars, it's time to hit the stores. If at all possible, go alone without any young children. Bring coolers to keep perishable items cold until you return home. If it's a really warm day, you may want to consider using some ice packs in the coolers to maintain the temperatures. If you don't already own ice packs, an inexpensive solution is to fill gallon sized Ziploc bags part way with ice.While you're in the store, stop by the frozen foods section and get some ideas on ways to freeze your meals. If the food companies can package and sell it frozen, then you probably can as well. The frozen food section is a wealth of inspiration for freezer cooks! Double check your shopping list at each store to be sure you didn't forget any important ingredients. This way you will ensure no last minute trips to the grocery store on your cooking day.
When you get home, pack everything away into your refrigerator and pantry until tomorrow. Only two more days and you won't need to cook for a whole month!
Day six: Get a head start
Doing some advance planning will give you a head start on cooking day. Get prepared by chopping any vegetables, browning ground beef, shred cheese, mixing up chicken coatings -- anything you can think of that will help make tomorrow go as smooth as possible.Keep it simple by storing the prepared foods in gallon-sized Ziploc bags in your refrigerator. They take up less space than bowls and don't spill. Get your kitchen ready by clearing off your counters of anything that won't be related to the cooking session. You will need as much room as possible tomorrow.
Review your meal plan and get an idea of how you want to tackle the meal assembly. A good rule of thumb is to group all recipes with the same protein and cook/assemble them in order (ie all chicken then move on to beef and so on). If necessary, plan now what you will be eating tomorrow for dinner. Depending on your needs, you may want to eat one of the meals you created or order out as a reward for working so hard. Rest up: Tomorrow will be a long day!
Day seven: Get cooking!
Ideally, you want to start the day early -- no later than 10 am. Put on comfortable shoes and clothes. If you have an apron handy, put that on too because you will become a mess before the day is through. Turn on the TV chefs and jump right in!Move through the recipes one at a time. Label, package and put your meals into the freezer as quickly as possible to preserve quality. As you are packaging, consider any additional ingredients an entree needs to be served on the table. Will those fajitas need shredded cheese? Don't wait till you defrost it to worry about that. Attach the shredded cheese to the fajitas now and avoid last minute confusion when you go to serve them.
As an example, you could bag together an easy fajita dinner in a 2-gallon zipper-seal bag by combining not only the marinating fajita meat, peppers, onions (in a gallon-sized bag) and shredded cheese (in a Ziploc sandwich bag) but also a package of tortillas. All you would need on hand to get the meal on the table would be some sour cream and salsa!
Be sure to clearly label every meal that goes into your freezer. After a few weeks in the freezer you won't be able to tell an unmarked bag of chili from an unmarked bag of spaghetti sauce. For casserole dishes, rely on sticky labels. You might be tempted to print them up on your computer so the labels will look neat and uniform, but it's pretty easy to do them by hand as you go along. This may be something you want to undertake later in a future cooking session. Right now, for your first try, keep it simple and easy: A black ball point ink pen is really all you need.
Avoid a huge clean up at the end of the day by washing as you go. There is no need to get out every mixing bowl you own. Just pull out two of your biggest ones and wash them out when needed. Take a break every two hours and look around to see what you can clean up or put way.
When your last meal is in the freezer and your counters are wiped down, remember that all this work was worth it. You won't have to cook a dinner for another four weeks if you don't feel like it!
Evaluate the cooking session
Freezer cooking is a learning process and you will make some mistakes. Take notes now of what you wish to do differently next time. The important thing is you followed through to a full freezer!
