Freezer Meals

You all know we added to our family in February last year.  The transition to having three children was, by far, the hardest transition we've had with children.  The summer was awfully hard and then school started.  Daniel was gone almost every weeknight at work for most of the Fall semester.  All of those things collided in the perfect storm and I lost my motivation to cook or plan for good healthy meals.  Since we're now adding a fourth child to this mix of crazy, I'm starting to think I have to come up with a better system for feeding my family the healthy but not ridiculously time involved recipes.

I've been doing some research on making healthy freezer meals that are easy and store well.  I found some great links on Pinterest that have helped me get started with the preparation.  I am planning on buying groceries one day, cooking/prepping the food on the next day.  For a long time I thought preparing freezer meals meant casseroles and enchiladas and lasagna.  Apparently my imagination knows bounds.  :)

This time around I'm thinking in terms of parts of meals, the hardest most time consuming parts of the meal.  This usually means protein and beans.  So, here is my plan for two days, either this week or next.

*Marinate and freeze 2 Asian Flat Iron Steaks
*Marinate and freeze 10 Greek chicken breasts
*Marinate, cube, and freeze 10 Thai Peanut chicken breasts
*Marinate, cube and freeze 10 Curried Chicken breasts
*Make and freeze Chicken Pot stickers
*Make pinto beans.  Some for meals with cornbread, some for refried beans
*Make red beans for Red Beans and Rice
*Make black beans for Mexican meals of all sorts
*Make and freeze beef/pork meatballs
*Boil two whole roasting chickens for the shredded meat and broth

What I'll use these things for...
The steak will be two meals, easily.  The Greek Chicken will be good for pitas with hummus and veggies, Greek Salad, and quinoa salad. The Thai Peanut chicken will be good with Thai noodles, white rice and veg, and wraps.   The Curried chicken is good with pita and veg, white rice and veg, or in a salad.  Pot stickers go well with Lo Mein, fried rice, hot and sour soup, or white rice.  The beans I already sort of explained.  But, the pinto beans I will use in Bean burritos and for tostadas.  The black beans can easily be used on Mexican pizza, nachos, in salsa, and for a side dish for Cuban pork.  Meatballs are a favorite with spaghetti.  Since I made a ton of marinara sauce back in October we are set for Spaghetti and meatballs for a couple of months.  Two whole roasters will provide lots of meat for all sorts of meal options.  Quesadillas, burritos, enchiladas, soups, omelets, etc.
 
Looking at this list seems a little daunting.  However, the first four items are simply making up marinades, squishing the chicken around in a bag and freezing them laying flat. The beans only require time but are relatively easy.  The most labor intensive items are the pot stickers and the meatballs.  I will not be cooking them but freezing them individually to put into appropriate sized freezer bags.

My goal is to have enough done to have at least 30 partial meals in the freezer.  I am thinking I can get all of my meat and supplies for around $100.  If this little experiment works, I will be doing a monthly big cooking day and have a lot less to do on weeknights for dinners and it might help my grocery budget.  Especially for the coming year, this could be the best options for good healthy meals.  I'll keep you posted on how it goes.