Why Do Meal Planning, Freezer Cooking, OAMC, Weekend Cooking....?

As much a I love to cook, I simply dislike coming home from work and having to deal with deciding what to prepare for dinner. Planning ahead makes a world of difference for me. When I plan our meals for the week, it's so much easier to get dinner on the table. Going one step further and preparing and freezing meals ahead has made the real difference. It's so nice to select from my "freezer inventory" for dinner.

What's great is that anyone can make "freezer cooking" work for them! Whether you do a mega session and prepare a month's work of meals to freeze, or if you simply cook for your freezer when you have some extra time, it is so do-able! Myself, I prefer weekend cooking. On Saturday or Sunday (depending on my schedule) I like to prepare and freeze meals & baked goods.

I'd love to see your comments here about how you make freezer cooking work in your home!

Another "Time-Saver"

I am very happy that I am doing some OAMC/Freezer Cooking/Meal Planning---Not only am I finding that it is helping on those days that I am super busy with work, meetings, MK facials/parties, family...it is allowing more time for a habit I have. Good or bad habit? I am not sure, but I really like my DVR! =) Currently, I am pretty much addicted to all of the old & new episodes of Grey's Anatomy! I just DVR them and when I have time I watch them! Oh isn't technology great?

Freezer Cooking

I've been working over the past few weeks on getting some meals into the freezer. So far I have:
2 pan sauteed chicken meals (ready to pair quickly with some veggies & rice or baked potatoes)
2 vegetable beef soup meals plus some individual servings to take to work for lunch
2 meals of shredded BBQ pork for sandwiches
3 beef stew meals
3 Stromboli with turkey pepperoni, fresh mushrooms, mozzarella cheese, basil
2 Pasta Primavera

Dinner Tonight

Dinner tonight will be Minestrone Soup with Pasta Beans & Vegetables by Robin Miller, which I found at http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/robin-miller/minestrone-soup-with-pasta-beans-and-vegetables-recipe/index.html. I had most all the ingredients at home already and just ran out over my lunch hour and picked up a few things for it along with some ingredients for recipes for the rest of the week. I'll be serving the soup with loaf of homemade bread I made yesterday.

Meal Planning

I love to cook & I admit that I am a Food Network Junkie! In addition to that, I collect cookbooks and am always on the look-out for new recipes! So, you might be wondering..so?...what's wrong with that? Well, I am a good cook (or so I am told), but I am lacking in the "Meal Planning" department and when I don't plan well, I end up spending and wasting more. Anyone in this situation too? With the new year, I am going to try to combine my interest in trying new recipes & love of cooking with some real meal planning. I am going to select recipes each week to build my meal plan and shopping list around. Now, I don't plan on cooking 7 dinners a week since it's just my hubby and I at home most evenings now. We usually have leftovers from whatever I make and thank goodness he likes them. I'm going to start by planning 3-4 meals a week, allowing for a couple of evenings out and making planned use of leftovers and/or freezing meals. Flexibility is the key here. On the weekends, we may have our family or friends in or we may take food to a friend's house for an evening of euchre. After I prepare a new recipe, I'll try to post our "review" of it!