You know you’re an adult (AND a nerd) when you get overly excited about buying a chest freezer.
Back in my breastfeeding days, I would’ve given A LOT of things in order to have a deep freezer. My “liquid gold” stash took up half of our freezer. Forget being able to fit a stockpile of anything else in there. But once we moved to the new house, I had already started weaning Nora, and our days of nursing soon came to an end.
And then I kind of forgot about freezers for a while.
We recently started discussing one again, and then we just randomly started shopping around for one this week. Next thing I knew, we bit the bullet and ordered one. It’ll be here in a week or so. And I am PSYCHED.
We bought this guy from Sears. It was on sale for an extra percentage off (it’s not anymore), and then I also found a coupon code online for an additional 5% on top of that. Good deal, and it’s a Kenmore, which is usually a good thing. Once it’s in, we’ll pick it up in the store and we plan to put it in our basement.
Then… we fill it. The only question now is, with what? :)
I want to do a bunch of freezer meals, which is something I haven’t been able to do too much of for a number of reasons—lack of the time commitment, plus the lack of freezer space. Remember when I stocked up our freezer before Nora was born? That was a beautiful thing.
Making dinner during the week can be hard. We don’t get home until nearly 6:00 p.m. most nights, and Nora goes to bed at 7:00ish. To be able to do the freezer meals—particularly crockpot freezer meals—seems like it will be life changing.
So, what are you favorite freezer meal recipes? Crockpot freezer meal recipes? I’ve pinned several posts about it on Pinterest, but of course I’m always looking for tried and true recommendations instead of random links. If I’m successful, I’ll certainly be back to let y’all know how it goes!
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About
I'm Heather. I'm 33 and have been married to Michael for seven years. Together, we have two beautiful little girls we love more than anything, and a miniature dachshund who drives us crazy. I'm a full-time working mom who has very little time for my own "stuff" these days, like home improvement, cooking/baking, cake decorating, and photography. Despite the team not making the playoffs since 1999, I'm STILL a Buffalo Bills fan, which I think speaks to my loyalty AND sense of humor. I can't wait to pick up the pace with travel again some day... you know, when we're done being ruled by tiny fists. Welcome to my blog.
Do you all eat a lot of beef? My parents raise beef cattle, so we always get 1/4 to a 1/2 a cow to store in our deep freeze. It’s pricey up front, but we save SO MUCH on our grocery bill. Plus we know that they don’t use growth hormones and other yucky stuff! Just a thought! :)
We pretty much exclusively cook on the weekend and freeze for quickly reheatable dinners. This is one of our staples:
http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/cheesy-meat-loaf-minis-50400000109591/
I found it in a Cooking Light magazine. Other staples include turkey burgers, casseroles, and soups. We’ve also started freezing small portions of chicken parmesan. For dinner we stick it on a toasted roll with a little bit of garlicky butter and it makes a really yummy sandwich!
I’m very jealous of your freezer!! :)
I love this recipe from Six Sisters Stuff: http://www.sixsistersstuff.com/2011/09/chicken-enchilada-pasta.html. Not only is it delicious (probably our new all-time favorite meal), but it makes enough for two meals so we can eat half the night I make it and freeze half for later. Even divided, we usually still have enough for leftovers. Obviously, I just freeze the sauce and make the pasta fresh (it’s also good over rice). My only tip is to check the spiciness level before giving it to kids. My husband and I love the heat, but I’ll probably have to scale it back when I start giving it to my daughter.
I just did this last weekend and it was insane. I made about 30 different recipes to stick in our freezer, it was the first time I have ever made that much. This should last us at least two months. Being that I just did this I don’t know about any of the new recipes and how they will turn out, only how previous ones did. I did weight watchers 8 can soup which freezes well, your tortilla soup with black beans, ww lazy lasagna, spaghetti sauce, enchiladas, etc. I still have a huge excel file with the list of recipes, shopping list, etc. if you’re interested.
Ashley, I would love the excel file if you want to share it. Please e-mail to me at heatherdriveblog @ yahoo.com. I’m impressed that you did 30 recipes all in one day!
This is awesome and I want one!! Quick question though…did you research frost free freezers too? I notice this one has a manual defrost…was that something you guys considered when you bought it? Never thought I’d care so much about freezers…turning 30 does something to the brain! ;)
Thank you!
Melissa
Melissa, we didn’t really look into frost free vs. manual defrost. Hopefully it won’t be a problem! We’ll be picking it up this week, I’ll have to take a look at what all the defrosting entails (and how often it needs to be done). It’s a new journey for us! But yes, appliances are very fun when you’re 30. :)
Have you tried http://www.crockingirls.com? LOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE them for crockpot meals. They put a video out every Monday of recipes from their cookbook. They talk about freezer meals, and how to do crockin for busy workdays. :)