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Anyone else stocking the pantry/freezer?

2K views 14 replies 11 participants last post by  Cutie Patootie 
#1 ·
I have started to stock up the pantry and freezer for that first week after baby comes.

Here is my list so far:

Freezer:

whole chicken - I taught DH how to skin it and crock pot it with potatoes and carrots
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Frozen chicken enchiladas, wrapped in pairs in foil so they can be 'serving size' heated up to eat

A bag of potstickers from Costco

Some orange chicken from Trader Joes

And that's all I have so far...

For the pantry:

Graham crackers for DD

Pretzels & saltines

Lentils for tacos

Taco shells

my favorite granola bars

...

I will come add to my list as I come up with it. Anyone else?

Any good ideas out there? For my last birth my mom came for 2 weeks (sounds miserable, worked out great!) and cooked and cleaned and I didn't have to do anything... this time I'm on my own.
 
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#2 ·
Bleh, I never have room in my freezer. I was thinking of making some frozen burritos. I intended to make casseroles and store them in my neighbor's deep freeze, but I'm so unmotivated. I think we'll be getting a lot of meals from friends and doing a lot of convenience foods until I get back into the swing of things.
 
#3 ·
I have some home-canned turkey and beef, and a pretty well-stocked pantry and freezer for quick meals, but I wanted to make some casseroles, bread, muffins & such for the freezer and that just hasn't happened. I'm getting so close to the end that I've about given up on the plan. We'll all just be eating peanut butter straight from the jar and whatever else we can scrounge. LOL
 
#4 ·
I was thinking about this earlier today! I got all gung-ho to start cooking, made a grocery list, grabbed my keys, and remembered - we're leaving town Thursday morning, and there's no way I can finish everything I want to make tomorrow. So... I'm putting the great cooking marathon off til Monday. :)

Freezer meals:

  • spinach, asparagus, and mushroom lasagna (hardest part is making the tomato sauce)
  • chicken pot pies
  • shephard's pies
  • lentils and black beans for lentil tacos
  • cubed chicken to cook with pre-made sauces. And I'm trying to decide if it'd be worth it to make and freeze a batch of basmati rice, or if I could just make it when I need it.
  • egg and bean breakfast tacos
  • sweet dough for cinnamon rolls
  • blueberry crumble

I also want to get some tomato soup, because even DH can manage grilled cheese sandwiches. And we might get a take-'n'-bake pizza one night, if DH and I are feeling *extra* lazy (or DH wants an excuse to leave the house
orngtongue.gif
).
 
#5 ·
I went to Costco and bought some pastas that everyone can eat and put them in the freezer. Then I bought some Amy's burritos, veggie sausage, rice, beans, frozen veggies, frozen fruit (for smoothies), frozen pizza, and orange flavored Peligrino (for labor). I also have half of a birthday cake from my daughter's 3rd birthday in the freezer and hope to pull that out directly after the birth so that everyone can eat it! It's huge and I definitely don't need it and I hate for it to go to waste. :)
 
#6 ·
I need to go through the freezer and see what is in there and what needs to get thrown out. I think we have some things hiding in the back that have been in there for 18 months or so. After it's cleaned and organized I'll be hitting up Costco as well. We buy their organic hamburger and organic chicken breasts and I know that I'll want to have probably at least 9 pounds of hamburger and 6 pounds of chicken breasts on hand. We also get the frozen organic corn, organic green beans, and the organic broccoli florets. My kids love them and since they're frozen I don't have to worry about them going bad quickly. Chicken pot pies are a huge hit here as well, along with fish sticks, burritos, and the like. I'll restock the snack type stuff, cereals, and pancake & muffin mixes in the pantry as well.

I am just thanking my lucky stars that my kids are old enough to fend for themselves for food most of the time. They both know how to make omelettes/eggs, mac n cheese, quesadillas, bean & cheese burritos, muffins, crepes (from scratch!), and pancakes. They also really like smoothies and I get the giant bag of smoothie fruit from Costco as well and have them add the organic vanilla yogurt for protein.
 
#7 ·
This is a great thread. Unfortunately, I'm not feeling very motivated in the FOOD department. We also have just had a VERY expensive month--our first in a new house with all the utilities charging extra set up fees and such, medical bills coming due from lab work and RhoGam and such, setting up our house, and getting ready for a baby (co sleeper and cloth diapers). I feel like we've been very frugal, not eating out, buying the bare minimum of what we need or want, but we are at the end of the month and our Mint.com budget is freaking out.
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I am hoping we have an uneventful home birth and our finances will straighten out in a month or so.

ANYWAY, I have church friends bringing meals for the first week, a helpful DH, and family nearby. So I'm thinking I should have the fridge and freezer stocked with things that are easy for DH to make and quick to snack on. I'd love to make a couple dozen muffins, some lactation cookies, and make sure to have enough fruit, nuts, cheese, and cut up veggies on hand for quick snacks. I should stock up on Costco organic ground beef and chicken, frozen strawberries (for smoothies), pasta sauce, and a few frozen convenience foods. It would be good for me to make a taco spice mix for DH (I usually add a little of this and a little of that). I should make a list of meal ideas--maybe for two weeks--then stock the fridge and freezer with those items. I think it would work really well.

If I can make it to June, maybe I'll do one last, serious Costco trip for food to take us a little ways. I am expecting a box from Azure Standard containing a lot of basics--olive oil mayo, apple cider vinegar, olive oil, a 20lb box of organic apples, and so on. We will start getting our local CSA box in June. I hope DH is up for that! In Alaska, it will probably just have a lot of greens for the first few weeks which will be really good for salads. We also were given a grill by the in-laws which opens up even more possibilities!
 
#8 ·
I seem to be in a purging the fridge/freezer/pantry type mood lately? Like I want it all empty, so that later we can put in a few of our favorite favorite things. Must mean I still have some time left, lol.
 
#9 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by nikie23 View Post

I was thinking about this earlier today! I got all gung-ho to start cooking, made a grocery list, grabbed my keys, and remembered - we're leaving town Thursday morning, and there's no way I can finish everything I want to make tomorrow. So... I'm putting the great cooking marathon off til Monday. :)

Freezer meals:

  • spinach, asparagus, and mushroom lasagna (hardest part is making the tomato sauce)
  • chicken pot pies
  • shephard's pies
  • lentils and black beans for lentil tacos
  • cubed chicken to cook with pre-made sauces. And I'm trying to decide if it'd be worth it to make and freeze a batch of basmati rice, or if I could just make it when I need it.
  • egg and bean breakfast tacos
  • sweet dough for cinnamon rolls
  • blueberry crumble

I also want to get some tomato soup, because even DH can manage grilled cheese sandwiches. And we might get a take-'n'-bake pizza one night, if DH and I are feeling *extra* lazy (or DH wants an excuse to leave the house
orngtongue.gif
).
Those all sound amazing!

Do you want to share your recipie for the blueberry crumble, lentils & black bean mix and pot pies?
eat.gif
 
#10 ·
I really haven't been on much this pregnancy but had to reply here!

I have made several meals this time and am so glad I have a 12 year old that will eat his own arm if you don't feed him well.
eat.gif


So far we have

frozen bean and cheese burritos with homemade tortillas from scratch

stuffed pork and chesse manicotti (I have a jar of sauce in the pantry for when we have it) and if I get time I'll make a loaf of frenchbread and freeze it

some ''pizza rolls'' just made my dough and rolled up spinach and cheese and pepperoni for my kids (good for a lunch)

some egg rolls

Some apple cinnamon muffins banana nut muffins some frozen oat flour chocolate dhip cookie dough and a loaf of pumpkin bread

venison chilli

hot dogs and buns frozen for the chili leftovers

lots of broth frozen for our ''hamburger helpers'' I just make my own renditions not the boxed stuff =)

I am still planning on making some rolled tacos a chicken pot pie and I would like to take a full loaf of bread and make french toast and freeeze it so the boys can throw it in the toaster

I also plan to do a lot of crock pot stuff when baby comes

What I've been doing is just making an extra of a lot of the meals we allready have on our menu so that it's not as hard on me. So, most of this was stuff we were allready eating and I just made extra.

We also have a couple boxes of chicken patties and a bag of chicken nuggets for hard times .

Who knows what else we will come up with, the cooking and preparing is really making me feel better about the time I have left in my pregnancy...I guess it makes it go by a teeeeny bit faster.
 
#11 ·
Tasha that stuff sounds so good! We don't have a big enough freezer to make a ton of stuff ahead. However, one of the things that I'll be doing with my kids this summer is teaching them to cook. It serves two purposes: prepares them for life outside of my home and feeds the family when I'm dealing with a new baby and can't get meals together. :)

Are you in North Texas?
 
#12 ·
we are in west texas, our house came with a 17 cubic feet deep freeze and we buy half a cow at a time and this time we got 1/2 a pig as well . Our side by side freezer is about full as well! I think it's a great idea to teach the kiddos to cook. My hangup in reality is that I'm pretty uptight and hate cleaning up the mess ...When I was my son's age I was cooking quite a bit for my family.
 
#13 ·
At this point I had planned to have a brand-new kitchen that was at least 3/4 finished, so we'd have a new freezer and the downstairs fridge/freezer to store food. Except that my very sexy brand-new fridge does not function. So we're trying to clear out freezer space so that we can even eat for the next few weeks (I'm 36w4d), let alone cook massive batches of food with no counters and the nearest sink in the basement or the powder room. *sigh*. I'll probably do a batch or two of soup (ground turkey/mushroom/wild rice/tomato and split pea/ham are favorites) and maybe use up some of the froz. shredded zucchini to save some sweet zucch. bread. I foresee Costco in our future.... Except that we don't have enough space to store their food! Ack.
 
#14 ·
I had a huge bunch of bananas that were going brown so I turned them into banana bread today. 4 delicious loaves! One of them we have almost eaten the whole thing already. The other 3 are wrapped and will go into the freezer for after baby is born.

I'm also going to Costco this weekend so I can stock up on stuff and get the basics to make what I need to. I did an inventory of the freezer so I know what is in there and we have a lot of meat. I want to make some spaghetti sauce, sloppy joe meat, and chicken taco meat and freeze it. I might throw some boneless skinless chicken breasts in a bag (or two) with some Yoshida's sauce & freeze those as well, since I know I can put them in the oven while they're still frozen and they'll cook just fine.

I'll probably pick up a big veggie platter as well and just put the veggies in our own containers in the fridge. That way the kids can just snack on those since it will all be prepared already.
 
#15 ·
I've got nada. I managed to get all gung-ho and clean out the frig. and I petered out there. I'm putting all my eggs in my moms basket she'll probably bring dinners over for a while.
 
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