5. Family favorite recipes made easy.

We may or may not cook from scratch much, but it is possible to get easy meals in this day and age. I have seen the grocery stores change over these 24 years I have been married. The freezer section has more than doubled. The ready made meals are everywhere you look. The little gourmet boxes, bottles or packets are filled with anything you need to make dinner fast and easy. From precooked rice to marinated meats to frozen anything. The store has made it easy to grab dinner in this fast pace world we live in. But what is the cost?

Many people don't know how to cook much any more. We may be too busy, tired or uninterested. We may hate to cook, have little time to spend cooking, or just not really know how or where to begin. But one things for sure, we have power if we know how and do. Power to feed are families more than what's easy and convenient in a box or freezer.  Power to feed our little babies we love, healthy, home cooked meals. We have power to choose.

Choosing to to eat healthy, home cooked meals does not mean we must give up the fast and easy convenience of ready made meals. We need never settle in flavor. We don't ever need to wonder what exactly is in the meals we feed our family.

To make life easier, we are able to take a meal that our family has loved for generations and make it into a convenient ready made supper starter. There are very few things that you can not freeze. Sure, freezing does change some things. There are also things you don't want to freeze, but that doesn't mean you can't make a supper starter if your recipe has those items in it. You simple just add them as a gather item when you are ready to cook your meal.

I will give you a few examples that we eat often of non-typical freezer meals. These are supper starters, meaning I have gathered together what I can, and put it in the freezer, and at the time of cooking I pull everything together to make a fast easy dinner. Much like we do with those store bough ready meals or packets, only I know exactly what is in these and I can make them for a fraction of the cost.

• Brown Sugar Garlic Chicken is a stir fry sauce that make myself. I gather all the ingredients ahead of time to make it a fast meal. I generally have chicken at all times in my freezer in various forms already cubed and prepared, so I don't need to worry about that. So on cooking day, to make a fast easy meal, I thaw & cook the chicken and add frozen veggies & dump my frozen supper starter sauce in into the skillet. I make rice and I am ready to go. EASY!
• Cheese Ravioli with garlic, lemon, basil butter sauce is simply amazing! It is also not your typical freezer meal. I made it into one by  preparing what I could ahead, which is freezing all the butter sauce ingredients. The ravioli can be purchased at any time for the day it is to cooked, and prep sides while it cooks. EASY!
• Garden Chile is one of the meals that we have made since my husband was little. We've adapted it a bit but its been around forever. This is easy to make in a freezer meal. However if you don't have a lot of room in your freezer it can be a bit bulky due to the beans. I chose to have canned beans as a gather item simply to save freezer space. I make it in a gallon bag so it would be thin so I could break it in the crock pot frozen, dump the beans in, and my already browned hamburger.
• Cowboy Caviar - I LOVE this fresh, light, cool, no meat meal. You get a good crunch with your fresh veggies and great tangy flavor with the dressing. Before I made this into a supper starter, we didn't make it as often as we do now because it took too much time chopping and gathering for a busy weekday meal. This is defiantly not your freezer meal, but is great for a supper starter.
• Ok... So chicken tender sandwiches is not a homemade freezer meal, but it could be if you got the tenders done ahead. However, it is a easy, kid cooked one that my family loves. It is good to plan easy meals like this every once in a while so that you can give yourself a break for 'last minute rush home and bath kids while dinner is cooking' days. When you have dinners like these prepared, the drive threw isn't needed.

What kind of recipe do I look for?

• Recipes that stay in my monthly budget. I have MANY ways to save on grocery money but I still try to keep my total meal costs reasonable! Cooking this way allow us to eat healthier, better, with more variety than my budget would otherwise allow.
• Recipes I can partially make up ahead of time by measuring out most of the ingredients together so I can save time the day I cook it. 
• Recipes I can prep my meat ahead separately, saving money on sale meats when I find it, and just gather the meat, freezer meal and maybe a few additional items and sides to complete the meal FAST and EASY. 
• Recipes I can easily multiply that don't require alot of time or expensive ingredients for my supper starter. Ingredients that allow me to measure, chop and gather ahead of time in multiples, with out cooking. By being able to do this in multiples it saves me time gathering and on dishes.
• Recipes that are "mini projects" that take only a few extra minutes to make it in a big batch to freeze in meal sized portions. These project recipes make a HUGE difference in getting dinner on the table fast, such as taco meat, meatballs, spaghetti sauce, and casseroles or pan freezer meals.
• Items that are "mini projects" that I can do ahead and take only a extra few minutes to multiply. Such as prepping raw meats, cooking meats, chopping and freezing veggies or premixing dry mixes, etc.
• Recipes the are "Skinny" and can be put into a quart or gallon freezer zip bag. Meaning, they do not take up much space in my freezer. Freezer space is valuable space. While we do plan pan freezer meals on occasion, we don't make many due to the space it takes in my freezer. Most everything I make takes up very little space. Allowing me to fit more in my freezer.
• Recipes that are healthy, have bold flavors, a variety in spices and nationalities. I also love using the same recipes that can be serve in different ways to make even more use out of multiplying my time.
• Recipes that have a variety of meats and cooking methods, using my crock pot, skillet, oven and grill. Having something cooked in the same way, every single meal gets old, old, OLD!

By using the examples of these meals and ideas, go though YOUR meals and create your own supper starter dinners from your family favorite recipes. If something doesn't quite turn out how you expected, try again, switch it up. You can do it! It is so much better to make meals you know your family loves already easier. Trying new dinners are great, but can be a shock to everyone if they are introduced too fast.  Tasty, home cooked, ready made meals are only one of the benefit! Good Luck!!