My freezer stash expandeth...

[misskerri]

The surgery I had back in October put a hold on my starting to build my freezer stash, but the past 2 weekends, I have FINALLY started getting some entrees frozen for after the baby is born.

Today, I made:

1 spaghetti bake
1 huge pot of veggie soup (which I will be eating for lunches occasionally over the next few weeks, so I am not sure how much will be left for DS and I to eat for lunch come January)

Last weekend, I made:

3 meatloaves
1 goulash
1 porcupine beef balls

I am roasting 2 chickens tomorrow, and will use some of the leftover meat to make a chicken tetrazzini or two. I'm also going to get some enchiladas in the freezer, and maybe a lasagna.

I also plan to make some muffins and other baked goods to freeze individually.

Lots of pasta. But those are the things that seem to freeze best!

I also plan on making sure we do a nice big shopping trip just before the birth, to make sure that we have things on hand that are easy to fix, like pot roast (pop it into the crockpot in the morning and then make side dishes), and chicken breasts, etc etc.

How is everyone else doing in the food prep dept?

[my kidlets and me]

My mom is here for a week, so we plan to do lots of Christmas baking and make a few different things for the freezer. I will report back at the end of the week!

[HardCoreMom]

i was doing pretty great with soups and stews for my lunches- i must have had something close to 30 servings.... and then i went to see my NP and it turns out that i'm having reactions to corn. sheesh. so much for all of my soups and stews. (and DH doesn't like my bean or lentil stuff, so i don't know what we're going to do with it all)

guess it's back to the drawing board...

[Surfacing]

My blessed friends have organized a communal cooking day - we all chose three recipes and will get together on Dec 9th to cook up a storm for 8 hrs. The end result is that everyone will have a month's worth of suppers to take home. Sounds too good to be true, no? I am soooooooooo grateful but I will be 36 wks when we do it, so I hope I have the stamina and energy. I am REALLY hanging on to that date as a lifeline, since working FT I find I have no time/energy to do a cookathon by myself at home..... it's even hard to keep up cooking on a regular basis for our daily/weekly needs, nevermind cooking ahead.

I try to keep dd#1 (2.5 yrs) involved when I am working in the kitchen (or else she FINDS ways of getting my attention IYKWIM)....but it takes 6x longer to do anything. I'm happy she's enjoying herself and I'm glad to involve her, but it's hard to be "productive".

I admire your discipline ladies!

[southernmommie]

I have made some Italian Beef Stew, Spaghetti Sauce, and cooked ground meat in the freezer. Now I also have cooked Turkey in the freezer too! I am making Potato Soup today or tomorrow for the freezer. That one takes the longest to make so far.

[misskerri]

Originally Posted by Emese'sMom

I am REALLY hanging on to that date as a lifeline, since working FT I find I have no time/energy to do a cookathon by myself at home..... it's even hard to keep up cooking on a regular basis for our daily/weekly needs, nevermind cooking ahead.

I work full-time too, and am so there with you on the no time or energy thing. That is part of the reason it has taken me so very long to start my freezer stash, and why I can only work on it on weekends. Yesterday, starting at around 4:30, I made the soup and spaghetti bake to freeze AND made homemade mac & cheese for dinner. It was a long 3 hours.

[DoulaLMT]

How many freezer meals do I need? Church provides 2 weeks of dinners. And by that tiem I'll have 2 sets of families coming to visit. I know it never hurts to have too much, but I was just wondering how long ya'll are planning to eat out of your freezers.

[misskerri]

Originally Posted by DoulaLMT

How many freezer meals do I need? Church provides 2 weeks of dinners. And by that tiem I'll have 2 sets of families coming to visit. I know it never hurts to have too much, but I was just wondering how long ya'll are planning to eat out of your freezers.

I'm just going to get as much frozen as possible. I'd like to believe that I'm more level-headed, and that I'll be less overwhelmed by the whole newborn thing than I was when Nicholas was born, but who knows. I'd like to think I'll be able to at least manage some basic cooking a few times a week. Right now, I am hoping to have 2 to 3 weeks' worth of entrees frozen, which may be spread out and consumed over my entire 3 month maternity leave.

Of course, I won't have anyone bringing me meals, and my family is not close to come help out and cook or watch baby while I cook.

[Chavaleh]

I wish we had a place for a big chest freezer. I'd love to be saving up meals but alas my teeny fridge/freezer hasn't the room so my freezer stash exists in the land called Trader Joe's.

[matey]

How do you all store these things in your freezer? What do you put them in.

[allnaturalmama]

Originally Posted by Chavaleh

I wish we had a place for a big chest freezer. I'd love to be saving up meals but alas my teeny fridge/freezer hasn't the room so my freezer stash exists in the land called Trader Joe's.

LOL!

Hugs, HardCoreMom. Sorry 'bout all those meals you can't eat!

We like to have at least 20 meals in the freezer before baby comes. DH and I have been working on it each weekend for about a month now. We just make one recipe and triple/quadruple it each weekend. One to two months of weekend kitchen dates, and voila - the freezer is full.

So far, we've got 3-4 meals' worth of each:
chili
beef stew
chicken soup
meatloaf
meat balls
meat pie

[DoulaLMT]

Sorry to take over this thread with questions: but one more quick one. Did anyone have to cut out certain foods due to colic or anything like that during the first months of breastfeeding? Basically am I safe making lasagna and things with dairy, etc. or is there a chance I won't be able to eat them after all that work of getting them frozen!

[happymomma]

I keep thinking you are going to be talking about breast milk.

I have exactly nadda, zilch, zero, zippo stashed in my freezer. I'm just doing good to get dinner on the table every day.

[misskerri]

Originally Posted by happymomma

I keep thinking you are going to be talking about breast milk.

That'd be quite a trick for those of us who aren't currently nursing an older child.

[misskerri]

Originally Posted by matey

How do you all store these things in your freezer? What do you put them in.

For casseroles, I line a casserole dish with foil, and freeze the prepped casserole in that dish. Once it's frozen, I take it out, remove the foil, and then vacuum pack it using my food saver. When it's time to eat it, just take it out of the freezer, remove it from the vacuum packaging, and place it in the casserole to reheat. For some things, like meatloaf, chili, soup, goulash, meatballs, etc, I just put it in the vacuum bag, freeze, and then vacuum pack it shut. The vacuum bags can be boiled in water, so for things like individual servings of soup, that's ideal.

I love my FoodSaver. The only thing I *don't* like is having to freeze stuff that is delicate before vacuum packing it (muffins, meatloaf, meatballs, soups, etc will either get crushed or sucked out of the bag if you try to vacuum pack them without freezing them first). But it's a small price to pay, and we haven't suffered any freezer burn yet.

[HardCoreMom]

Originally Posted by DoulaLMT

Sorry to take over this thread with questions: but one more quick one. Did anyone have to cut out certain foods due to colic or anything like that during the first months of breastfeeding? Basically am I safe making lasagna and things with dairy, etc. or is there a chance I won't be able to eat them after all that work of getting them frozen!

yes! totally! my last DS had allergic colitis, and i had to cut out everything you could imagine. my elimination diet had me living off of rice and turkey and some squashes for the first year. i'm hoping that this time, i get lucky enough that not only can i have dairy and broccoli, but even BEANS, cause it's really the only complete meal i can make to freeze that will fit in my yeast-free diet anymore. i just got the fixings to make some yummy pink beans, and hopefully, i can have some of those put away for myself in the next coupla' days.

my first pg, i tried my luck with freezing a bunch of things, but found that once we were ready to eat the stuff, we didn't feel like it. it turns out, the kinds of dinners we like to eat don't freeze well, anyway. so i guess DH will be on the hook once again for making dinner for a while. at least i'll have my lunchtime beans (i hope!)...

[happymomma]

Originally Posted by misskerri

That'd be quite a trick for those of us who aren't currently nursing an older child.

I know! That's why I keep doing a double take. Even with nursing the milk supply is so low that I could not imagine getting a stash together. LOL

So, care to share these fabulous recipes?

[impromptukiss]

i haven't started my freezer shash yet for a couple reasons ...

a) i want to buy a freezer!
b) i'm weird about things being frozen too long, so i'm waiting until after the new years (i'm not due until the 22nd)

as for the dairy issue, i'm not freezing meals as much for me, but so my kids have something to eat! lol!! i'm not a big eater the first couple weeks after baby anyway, and dh may be out to sea, so i want to make sure i'm not feeding my kids crackers and cheese for dinner every night, lol!

[Surfacing]

Originally Posted by misskerri

I work full-time too, and am so there with you on the no time or energy thing. That is part of the reason it has taken me so very long to start my freezer stash, and why I can only work on it on weekends. Yesterday, starting at around 4:30, I made the soup and spaghetti bake to freeze AND made homemade mac & cheese for dinner. It was a long 3 hours.

I hear you. But if I cooked two things on a Sunday (which is actually my usual routine) I would want to save them both for use during the week....it would last us until about Thursday and then Friday we'd have frozen food anyway. : Oh well, we all manage somehow.

[Ruthiegirl]

I have been packing food in my freezer as well. Split pea soup, lentil soup, chili and enchiladas for now. Now sure what else I can cram in there since it is getting pretty full.

From past experience, I want to have a good stash of meals ready for the 6-week growth spurt. All of my babies have had a huge (and I mean HUGE) growth spurt around the 6th week and my appetite went through the roof.

And that was right around the time that my friends and family had all gone home to live their own lives leaving me with a hungry belly and wee baby that wanted to nurse every hour.

So, my stash is set aside for the exhausted-mommy, nursing-baby, hungry-kids, cranky-Dad nights. Hopefully, we won't have too many of those, but I like to be prepared.