Let me preface this by saying this was an impromptu freezer cooking day. I didn't really plan on it, but I read all these blogs this week about women who did this and saved tons of time each week, month, year, etc. They all say it saves them time and money. Leaving them with the ability to be less stressed during the week and getting dinner on the table. Spending less on dinners as they are already premade and you can cook what you have on hand and have bought (or got for free) using coupons and sales. It saves them money on their overall grocery bill and since it's already cooked they don't eat out as often.
For someone like me who has "mastered" the art of coupon shopping at the grocery store this should work for me. I only buy meat on sale and promptly freeze it when I get home so I always have food on hand, but it's not always thawed out. I have started using menu planning and this is wonderful, but I'm still learning and no matter what, there is always room for learning and improvement.
Doing this small impromptu mini freezer cooking this afternoon has taught me a few things.
1. Have a clear and defined list of what you are going to make and check your ingredients beforehand to make sure you have everything you need. I was disappointed today that I couldn't make my homemade cinnamon raisin bread. Also, I decided amidst the cooking that I wanted to make corn pudding for dinner and oops... didn't have any sour cream!
2. Make sure all your meats are thawed out before starting! As I was starting the banana bread I was defrosting the meat in a sink full of water. Not only did I have to wait for some of my meats to thaw out which delayed my cooking and getting some stuff in the oven, but it also took up one side of the sink that I could have used to put dirty dishes and rinse them for the dishwasher.
3. I have much more energy in the mornings and should have started this much earlier than I did. I couldn't this time around and no matter how much coffee I drank I didn't seem to have the energy that I have first thing in the morning!
4. Start with an empty (or almost empty) dish washer. The top of my dishwasher was completely full of sippy cups that hubs had cleaned out of his car. This didn't leave me with much room to put dishes so it took me much longer to clean the majority of them by hand.
5. Make sure you have all the freezer bags, etc. that you need for storing your foods. I only had one quart size freezer bag and that was it. I did have the vacuum ones, but I could have used more zip freezer bags for doing everything.
6. Have a clear and defined list of what you are going to do, the order in which you are going to do it and how you are going to store them. This way you can check it the night before to make sure you have everything (recipes too!).
I will do this again but I think had I planned today out better it would have only taken me half the time that I invested today.
Make sure to check back later for some of my HT deals that I snagged with triple coupons this week!
No comments:
Post a Comment