Feb 9 | Money Saving Tips
You’ve got a short window of time to get food on the table after a long day with the kids or at work, but a big freezer. Money Smart Mom: Financially Fit Parenting author Sarah Deveau has the solution for you! In this three part series on Freezer Meal Planning, she’ll teach you everything you need to know about cooking for the freezer.
Being prepared with the right tools is critical to enjoying the process of a freezer meal cooking day. Here’s what you need.
Great Recipes
It’s so disheartening to dig into a freezer meal you put a lot of effort into making on a freezer meal day, only to discover no one in your family likes it. It’s even worse when you remember you made six of those meals! After suffering through four of the most awful pizza casseroles that no amount of added cheese could liven up, I now test drive a single family serving of each meal before I commit to adding it to my next freezer meal plan.
Check out my favourite websites, Onceamonthmom and Everythingmom for tried and true freezer recipes, or pick up a copy of The Big Cook or Don’t Panic – Dinner’s in the Freezer: Great-Tasting Meals You Can Make Ahead. Many of your family’s favourite recipes are likely freezer friendly already.
Containers
Whenever possible, I use Ziploc freezer bags, as they’re sturdier than no name brands for meals. It’s easy enough to place them in a large bowl to stand it up to fill, them lay them flat on cookie sheets to freeze. Some things are easier to freeze in the pan, but there’s a trick to not sacrificing your pan to the freezer until you’re ready to eat that meal. Simply wrap the pan or casserole dish in aluminum foil before assembling the meal inside. Freeze, then pop out the meal and wrap tightly in another layer of foil. When you’re ready to bake that meal, just remove it from the freezer, drop it into the correct size dish, and bake! When freezing individual lunches, I usually use the small square Ziploc containers – though I do find leaving them frozen for more than a month or two invites freezer burn.
You can freeze in glass – just don’t forget to let the dish cool before popping it in the freezer, or warm up before placing in the oven.
Label it!
Regardless of the container you’ve used, you’ll want to ensure everything is labelled. Don’t trick yourself into thinking you’ll remember what’s in a specific container – trust me, three months later you’ll barely be able to name any of the recipes you made. Be sure to include cooking instructions.
If you’re super keen you can print adorable labels from Martha Stewart but the truly frugal will simply write on the bag or foil with a sharpie, or slap a plain label on the bag or container.
Sarah Deveau is the author of Money Smart Mom: Financially Fit Parenting. She blogs about money at Yummy Mummy Club.
Feb 8 | Frugal Living, Grocery Saving Tips, Money Saving Tips
You’ve got a short window of time to get food on the table after a long day with the kids or at work, but a big freezer. Money Smart Mom: Financially Fit Parenting author Sarah Deveau has the solution for you! In this three part series on Freezer Meal Planning, she’ll teach you everything you need to know about cooking for the freezer.
I love to cook. I love browsing through boutique kitchen stores, and not much thrills me more than selecting a gorgeous new cookbook and burrowing into a comfy chair with it at home, dreaming of dinner parties. I have invested in fantastic tools over the years, sometimes discovered at thrift stores and garage sales – vintage Le Crueset dishes, my wonderful Kitchen Aid mixer, and perfectly sharpened Global knives.
So you’d think getting dinner on a table every night would be a snap, right? Not so much. I work full time at my day job and for myself from home 10 to 20 hours a week. And of course, I’ve got a few kids too – three girls under the age of six.
After having my first daughter, I took up meal planning after my husband and I were guests on the Food Network Television show Fixing Dinner. It helped me add structure to my day to ensure I had great food on the table every night. However, as my schedule got busier, I often found I didn’t have time even when I tried to stick with my tried and true meal planning routine.
I turned to freezer meal planning. What a difference! For the past few years, I’ve used freezer meal planning to handle feeding the crowd in our house.
There are two main ways I’ll handle making our family’s freezer meals.
- Super Prepared
This method involves being, well, super prepared! I look at my schedule and choose two days when I’ll have a lot of time to prepare. The first night I’ll set aside three hours to browse flyers for sale items, select recipes, write out the plan for how many times I might double or triple the recipe, and write a grocery list. Then I’ll head to the grocery store, bring everything home, and sort it on the kitchen table and in the fridge by recipe.The next day, I’ll follow my notes of what to prepare when, to ensure there are no long waits in the process wile meat is cooking or the oven is full. By the time I’ve put in five or six hours, I’ll usually have between 20 – 30 meals prepped and ready to freeze. Some meals are made big for sharing with guests, others might be small – just enough for my husband for dinner and his lunch the next day. My kids are still pretty picky, and I keep a container of grilled chicken and plain pasta in the fridge at all times in case they’re not interested in more than the obligatory bite of the main meal.
- Slacker Method
If I just don’t have the time to set aside for a big cook, I’ll use the slacker method. A few nights each week I’ll double or triple the meal I’m making that night, and freezer the others. After a month of doing this, I might have 10 – 12 meal stashed away in the freezer.
Regardless of the method you choose, even the busiest parent can fill your freezer with fantastic meals that will save you money by taking advantage of buying items while on sale, and save you even more money over ordering take out in desperation.
Sarah Deveau is the author of Money Smart Mom: Financially Fit Parenting. She blogs about money at Yummy Mummy Club and at Money Smart Mom.
Jan 4 | Useful information
Are you wondering how long the food in your freezer will last? Here are some guidelines I found on Real Simple:
- Chicken or turkey pieces, uncooked: 9 months
- Fruit pies, unbaked: 8 months
- Fruit: 6 to 12 months
- Steaks, uncooked: 6 to 12 months
- Butter: 6 to 9 months
- Lean fish: 6 months
- Roasts, uncooked: 4 to 12 months
- Chicken or turkey, cooked: 4 to 6 months
- Chops, uncooked: 4 to 6 months
- Shellfish, uncooked: 3 to 6 months
- Hamburger: 3 to 4 months
- Bread and cake: 3 months
- Cookies, baked or dough: 3 months
- Meat casseroles, cooked: 3 months
- Fatty fish: 2 to 3 months
- Soups and stews: 2 to 3 months
- Ice cream and sorbet: 2 months
- Ham, cooked: 1 to 2 months
- Bacon: 1 month
According to Real Simple:
Times are based on a freezer set at 0 degrees Fahrenheit or colder. Storing and eating frozen foods past these deadlines isn’t dangerous, but flavors and textures will begin to deteriorate.
Image from here.
Sep 12 | Easy DIY
**I’ve just finished freezing 20 pounds of peaches, so I thought I’d bump this post up for those wondering how I do it!** Originally published August 11, 2010.
It’s that time of the year! Peach season! I have yet to can any peaches, but since my husband is such a smoothie lover, he prefers them frozen anyways. They make the smoothie colder he says. Nonetheless, I love freezing our local peaches because I find it much more economical than buying canned peaches or the frozen ones from the grocery store!
I thought I would write a step by step tutorial for those of you who would like to know how I freeze them. It’s a bit of a process, but the results are good!
First of all, you want to have all your supplies in order. Peaches, a saucepan of boiling water (don’t fill it too full!), a bowl of ice water (again, don’t fill it too full!), a slotted spoon, a small bowl of lemon water or Fresh Fruit ascorbic acid, a cutting board and finally, all your cookie sheets. The following process is called the blanching process and it makes it really easy to peel those peaches!
Step 1: Place a bunch of peaches in the boiling water for about 30 seconds. Remove with a slotted spoon and place in the ice water.
Step 2: Remove the peaches from the ice water and place on your cutting board. I like to cut around the entire peach right about now from one end to the other end so it’s cut all the way through.
Step 3: Now you’re ready to get peeling. The skin should practically fall off after the boiling water and ice water treatment you’ve given them. Grab the peaches on the seam where you’ve cut and pry them apart. I like to cut each half into quarters at this point.
Step 4: Place the peach slices in the lemon water or Fresh Fruit mixture then transfer them to your cookie sheets . Place them in a single layer. The cookie sheets can be lined with parchment paper but I don’t bother. Also, putting the peaches in a single layer on the cookie sheets rather then straight into a freezer bag, eliminates the big clump of peaches that will be impossible to separate later!
Step 5: After the peaches are frozen, transfer them into freezer bags. Enjoy all winter long!
Don’t forget to enjoy a couple of bowlfuls of the fresh peaches to reward yourself for all your hard work! Mmmm!
