Why Meal Plan and Freezer cook?

Countless times we hear the words "Whats for dinner?" As much as sometimes we may want to, feeding our families can't be ignored. We have nearly 1100 meals each year to shop for, prepare and eat. 11 thousand!

Too many times I found myself staring at the pantry or fridge just hoping that a meal idea would jump out and magically show up for dinner. Too many times we have ran through a drive through after a busy day because I had no idea what we could make that was fast and easy at home. Am I the only one who's been there and done that?

With just a LITTLE planning we can save time, money, effort, stress and eat so much healthier with less waste. 

So really the question is why DON'T we menu plan when we know it helps SO Much?

• Do we not like to cook?
• Is our family picky? 
• Are we board with our recipes? 
• Is it daunting to do week after week? 
• Is it the time involved to plan? Are we just that busy?
• Is easy and simple required? Is mac and cheese in front of our kids really what we want? 
• Do we understand that "freezer meals" don't have to be casseroles or unappetizing?

Why is the reason you don't menu plan? Take a few minutes to really think why, once you figure that out, you make a plan to change that!

There are tricks to make 1100 meals manageable! I know you have heard of how to eat a elephant right? NOT in one big bite, that's for sure! So we break it up!

1. I divide my year into 3 seasons, Spring, Summer, and Fall/Winter. This helps me to:

• Rotate my menus in groups. Soups and oven recipes for fall/winter, Cool summer salads with "not turning my oven on at all in the summer" recipes. Why pay to cool oven heat right?
• I do this to challenge my kids ;) I want them to try new things, the same Chicken nuggets, Mac & Cheese, spaghetti, hamburgers and tacos or whatever kid food they love, does not challenge them. I want them to learn that they LOVE TO TRY NEW THINGS because they might find something they really like. Eventually they do love things they once hated, simply because they were exposed to it often, but sometimes not.
• To add variety. There are SO many yummy foods out there to loose track of, so this way they have there place, never forgotten. I also do this to add new variety and give ourselves a break from beloved recipes, so they stay loved.

So three seasons? How do I make this work? Put your math hat on and I will tell you. So we have THREE seasons that are FOUR months long each; spring, summer, fall/winter. That is 18 weeks each season. If we divide that into SIX, we will have six different week long menus. Our goal in each season is to have 6 week long menus. We then will repeat EACH menu FOUR times.  If we do this we don't have to plan for 18 weeks each season, we just keep repeating the same 6 menus. This allows us to have variety AND save time by reusing our time spent planning. Each time we make a menu and reuse it we are winning back time, each time we don't need to make a new shopping list for a menu we are getting payed in TIME! So...convinced?

You can do 4 seasons for sure, I just do 3 because we have a horribly long hot summer here in Texas. Here is the math abbreviated for both a 3 and 4 month long season.
3 seasons/year: 18 weeks per season, 6 menus per season, each menu made 4 times. Days planned for is 378, having 12 extra  planned days.
4 seasons/year: 12 weeks per season, 3 menus per season, each menu made 4 times. Days planned for is 336, missing 28 planned days.
Each has its benefits. Choose what works best for your family.

2. Reuse your menus! Once we make our weekly menus, if we save it, we NEVER have to plan it again! Like EVER! And after we have several week long menus and have the variety we want for each season, we just repeat them each and every year! How great is that? All we need to do then is adjust them as our family grows and shrinks or if we want to switch out one recipe for another. Can you just imagine how many hours we could save doing this over our lifetime?! Shouldn't some of that effort planning those meals start paying us time back so we can enjoy our families a bit more? 

Have you caught my vision yet? Are you excited to get started? I sure hope so!

3. 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 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, but that allow me to measure, chop and gather ahead of time in multiples, saving me time gathering and on dishes.
• Recipes that are "mini projects" that take only a few extra minutes to multiply but make a HUGE difference in getting dinner on the table fast. Such as taco meat, meatballs, spaghetti sauce, maybe a casserole or two, etc.
• 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. This is why I don't do many casserole.
• 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 cooking methods, using my crock pot, skillet, oven and grill. Having something cooked in the same way, every single meal gets old, old, OLD!

Our freezer allows us to to save amazing amounts of time with a minimal cost involved.. Everything we put in it should be as compact and uniform as possible so we can still have room for the Ice Cream that is required to be in there at all times. I repackage EVERYTHING I can that goes in my freezers into either quart freezer bags or gallon freezer bags to save space. Wither you have an extra freezer or not, YOU CAN cook this way!

Starting to create your menu for a season.

4. Brainstorming.   Each family is different, you may or may not eat a wide variety of foods to call on for ideas That's A-OK. When I started my married life I had about 10 recipes, all memorized. My new husband needed more variety than I did and I eventually made my tried and true recipes so many times he couldn't eat any of them for years! Because of this, today we have several hundreds of recipes that we eat often and regularly, rotating them seasonally. I love it!

• Gather ideas for meals that you have eaten and LOVE. Brainstorm with your family and make a big long list of everything you can think of that you have eaten and like.
• Think about how you could make each of your favorite family recipes easier if you made some of it ahead. I have a post on How to create a freezer meal out of our family favorite recipes. Please take some time to read that. Anytime we change the way we do something, our family looks for comfort in the familiar. Even if they are willing to try new things, it can be hard if everything's new. Try not to make more than 2-3 new recipes in a week.

5. Divide your recipes into seasons. Remember, I have THREE [FOUR months long each] seasons; spring, summer, fall/winter. That is 18 weeks each season which means if we do SIX different week long menus and repeat EACH menu FOUR times we have all our shopping planned out for ONE season. (* at the end of this post is the math for 4 seasons)

• Assign each of these meals to a season, using the brainstorming form.
• If you really love something, repeat it for more than one season. Remember, each meal in each season will be made every 6 weeks if you make 6 menus.
• We are looking for 36 meals in each season, so stop when you get there, but don't worry if you don't have that many. We are only planning ONE WEEK AT A TIME.

Here on my website we have MANY recipes that can get you started, and I'm putting more in all the time. BUT my real suggestion is to gather all your beloved family favorites and just use new ones as fillers. Assign them to a season you think they would best go in and go from there. If that recipe would go great in spring AND summer, keep it in both. We are looking for 36 recipes for each season, so recipes you love, like spaghetti and tacos in each, is perfectly fine!

Once you have brainstormed all your family loved favorites and assigned them to a season, STOP! Stop because it is tempting to fill out your 36 meals for each and every season. Going on the hunt for yummy sounding recipes, getting lost in pinterest, getting distracted by all those amazing pictures. Before you know it your planning a remodel of a bedroom. Yep, been there, done that .... multiple times in fact :o)

6. Start small! Start with family loved recipes! Start with today and start with the season your in. If you are coming up on a new season start there, but we are starting to plan ONE week at a time, not the whole season. Remember one bite at a time for the elephant, same with this!

• Print the "What's Cookin'" form below 6 times (for the 6 menus you will eventually create in your current season)
• Have a plan of how you will assign meals. For our family we chose to have 2 chicken, 1 beef, 1 pork and 2 no meat meals a week and leave one day for a Left overs or Date night. I have tried to eliminate beef and pork altogether due to their rising costs, but my family didn't like that at all, so I add it in in small amounts and also have 2 not meat days. Take some time to think how you would like yours to go.
• In PENCIL roughly sketch out where you will put your loved family meals in each week for the 6 weeks.
•  This is not the place to plan out what day you will eat each on, but generally what recipes you will eat for the week. Keep in mind what a typical week is like. Do you have a nice meal on Sunday? Are Mondays always crazy? Do you need to have crock pots some days because you get home late and are gone all day. Do you need a few 15 minutes or less prep time days? 

Here is the form I use to plan my week menu and shopping list: (simply copy and paste it into a doc to print it out, or save it on your computer for later too)

7. Complete menu and print your recipes. If you have a few spots left in your 6  weekly menus, that's ok!

1. Briefly go on the hunt to fill in your FIRST week menu only. I love doing this but it is super easy to get distracted when hunting for yummy recipes. 
2. When you find a new recipe you want to try, print it out, AND pin it in its brand new Board (if you use pinterest) labeled something like "Winter season recipes" and collect all your new recipes there for that season.
3. Once you know what you will be eating for your main dish for your first week menu, start planning your sides for each. Give some thought to side dishes. 

I have found that it is VERY helpful to make copies of all my recipes to keep with my menus. No hunting again... ever. Add them all to protective plastic pockets if you like in a notebook. To have your weeks worth of recipes in ONE place is AMAZING! No more brainpower at all trying to figure out where you have the recipe to the food you have purchased to make. Its there, at your fingertips!

I have recently started all my half recipes onto photo cards and having them printed and collected in its week menu photo book. Amazingly nice!

8. Half your recipes to fit a family of 4. A family starts as two adults, we have a few kids, maybe several more, they become hollow leg teenagers and eat us out of house and home, then start moving out, shrinking our family until it is 2 adults again with unpredictable visiting kids and their families. How will halving recipes work for all that, all sizes of families.

• Plan each meal to feed 4 adults with healthy side suggestions. Remember, side dishes can even stretch your main dish even more by adding healthy and inexpensive bulk to your meal, if needed. If the main dish isn't quite enough, it can also be stretched by adding a bit more meat , veggies or whatever than called for, 
• Depending on your family size at the time, you make what is needed. 1, 2 or 3. Maybe even 4 if you have company.
• You may have to adjust how many of each recipe you make each year but you wont have to PLAN the menu! 
• Once you figure out how many of each recipe you need to make each daily meal, you calculate how many you need to make each season. By making them into freezer meals all at once, you save time and effort chopping, gathering ingredients and shopping. Win, win!
• Bonus: Your loved family meals can be given to your kids when they move out. How cool is that?

9. Making each meal into a freezer meal. Once you have gathered all meals, side dish ideas and recipes for all of them, it is time to think of how you can make each of your meals in multiples.

• What would freeze well in your meal?
• Can you gather anything together that would help it be easier at the time of cooking? A sauce, most of the meal?

I will give you 4 examples from my first winter menu:

• Brown Sugar Garlic Chicken is a stir fry sauce that all the ingredients can be gathered 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 frozen veggies & dump the frozen freezer meal sauce in and the sides. 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 cooked, and prep sides while it cooks. EASY!
• Garden Chile is one of the meals that we have made since my husband was little. 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 the beans as a gather item simply to save freezer space. I made it in a gallon bag so it would be thin so I could break it in the crock pot frozen, getting more of the spices out and to be easy.
• Ok... So chicken tender sandwiches is not a homemade freezer meal, but is a easy, kid cooked one. It is good to plan a easy one 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.

By using the examples of these four meals, go though YOUR meals and create your own week of HALF freezer meals. I even have several colors of recipe cards you can print off and use if you would like.

10. Lastly! Make a shopping list. Once you have your menu and recipes, halved them, and figured out how you can make freezer meals with them, its time to make a shopping list. You could do this a few ways.

1. Will you be making ONE meal of everything. Shopping for one week only at a time. and preparing only ONE meal each time you shop? If so, make your shopping list by running down the list of each ingredient and make a shopping list like you normally would.
2. Will you be freezing any of these meals for eating them at a later week?

Each of these choices are completely made by preference and how you yourself operate and do things. However they make a BIG, BIG difference in how you make your shopping list.  If you are shopping to freeze any of your meals later, you will want to make 2 separate shopping lists. One for your freezer meals which you will be making multiples of only one time, and another for your fresh items. The freezer meals shopping list you will only be using once, where the fresh items list you will be shopping from each week you plan on eating that menu and the freezer meals you have prepared.

• Freezer meal shopping list. I chose to make each of my weekly freezer meal menu shopping lists for 2 meals. (a whole recipe worth, just divided in half, remember?) I can easily multiply it to make more, depending on how many I think I will need from year to year.
• My Fresh items shopping list. I chose to make this shopping list for ONE half recipe. I can easily multiply it as well from week to week if I am cooking for a big family or company, using more than one freezer meal. This is where I place each the items that are NOT in a freezer meal, such as all the gather items, meat, and side dish ingredients. I do this for 2 reasons. 1. It keeps the cost of my freezer meals down, so that I really can afford to make so many meals at a time (and not needing every single ingredient, such as expensive meats). 2. I can make sure that I have EVERYTHING for the week menu I would like to make that week. Before I head to the store, I check down the list, and if I have it already I cross it off. This way I can keep my eye open and buy things on sale, like meats, ahead and use it for meals weeks down the road.

Ok, Now that you have endured this super long tutorial, are you ready to never plan a menu again? Baby steps ladies! One week at a time. It can be done.... and finished, and amazing to have!