this is not a flashy, fun tip. but the beginning of the school year always beckons me to greater organization and efficiency as i end up pulled in multiple directions. and, as much as fall is my favorite time to be in the kitchen baking, i don't like to feel trapped at meal time. here are a few tips to make dinner time a little easier on you.
buy in bulk but freeze in smaller quantities. a big package of 24 chicken thighs is a great idea until they are all frozen into a solid chunk and you only need 6 of them. divide up your meat into family sized portions when you return from the grocery store, so that when it's time to prepare your meals, you don't have to thaw out large quantities of meat. this works especially well with ground meat.
before you freeze, marinate. this takes the above tip one step further. as you divide up your chicken into freezer bags, pour in some marinade. not only will your meat be divided in appropriate portions, it will also be pre-seasoned and ready to go.
cook meat, then freeze. if you have the time and inclination, the next time you buy 5 lbs of ground beef, brown it all (even mix it with onions / garlic / peppers, etc) and then divide it up into however large a portion you would usually use for your family's meals (think chili, spaghetti sauce, tacos, etc). once the meat is thawed, you won't need to worry about cooking or seasoning it - just add it to the recipe at hand.
cook meat, then freeze. part 2. for a while, i found myself avoiding recipes that required cooked, cut up chicken because i never had any on hand... and i never had the time to prepare the chicken and the meal. of course, leftover chicken works for this. but my favorite thing to do is to buy a chicken, cook it in the crock pot, bone it, and portion and freeze the boned / shredded chicken in freezer bags. a small chicken will yield several cups of chicken - usually enough for 2 casseroles / meals. you can take it one step further and save the broth that is left in the crock pot. put it in a large bowl in the fridge until the fat congeals on top (sorry... that sounds so gross). then carefully scrape the fat off and you'll be left with virtually fat-free chicken broth. again - dump it in a freezer bag and you've got one more common ingredient waiting for you in the freezer.
prepare and freeze veggies. of course, i've mentioned this before. but beyond tomatoes and peppers, you can shred carrots and zucchini and squash and freeze them for baking purposes. you could also chop and saute onions and garlic so that they are instantly ready to be added to your meals.
make and freeze meals. this is the most obvious tip... one that many people already do. but there are days when the knowledge of a casserole in the freezer can rescue you from the brink of insanity... or make your weekend just a bit more relaxing.
do you have any tips to add to this list?
And if you're too tired to do any of that, there are some great meal places like Super Suppers that will sell you frozen meals to stock your freezer with. We did this when we were pregnant with our 2nd child (we anticipated that not many people would bring us meals that time around, and we were right). I think it cost about $100, but we ended up with 12 meals or so??? It was great for us when our family was so small. I don't know if it will work now...however, I have contemplated having a meal party where I buy all the ingredients and have a bunch of friends come over and help me prepare meals for my freezer.
ReplyDeletenot a bad idea, amanda! there are places around here where you pay a certain amount and go prepare your meals with a group of people. not a necessity for me - but a good way to combine socialization with work!
ReplyDeleteI love the chicken idea and do that sometimes, although I wish i would do it more often. we rarely use ham, except in eggs, so I've started buying ham when it's on sale and chopping it and freezing it in egg-sized portions so that on saturday mornings when we want omelets I can just grab a hunk. it's nice.
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