Life Hack #1: Fill Your Freezer with Crockpot Meals to Go!!!

I was scrolling away on Facebook during my daily ritual of creep...eh...."surfing the web" when in my newsfeed, a magical post caught my eye.....

"40 Meals in 4 Hours

Crockpot Slow Cooker Freezer Cooking!"

I immediately double clicked myself into a wonderful new world of Pinteresting Gold.  One pin took me to the next and I suddenly realized that the world was full of genius men and woman who had discovered the art of pre-freezing Crockpot meals for up to 40 days!!!

Do you know what this meant?
With a little bit of dedication and effort for a couple of hours, I could avoid cooking for up to a MONTH!!!

Slow Cooker, Freezer Cooking is when you dedicate a few hours in one day, preparing meals for up to 40 days in advance. Meals that are ready to simply defrost the night before and pop into the crockpot each morning, so that they are ready for dinner as you wrap up your busy and hectic days. Genius!

As a full time student and mother I was finding that our dinners were lacking in nutrients, I, myself was munching on dino nuggets and mac n' cheese alongside the kids and I wasn't happy with that being all I could manage to muster up each night. I was also ordering in, far too often, pizza, Chinese, last minute fixes  for when my brain was too fried to even think of what we could have to eat. It wasn't good.

I saw whoneedsacape.com's magic words: "All I have to do is pull a bag out of the freezer the night before and place it in the fridge to defrost. The next morning I dump it into the slow cooker and turn it on. That’s it! Dinner"

Well this was something that I really had to try, and within the next hour I was on my way to the supermarket, I searched through Pinterest for various recipes, created my shopping list and headed out to the store, ready to make my life 100 times easier.

*Sneaky tip 1: Figure out what recipes you would like to try before you go to the store and combine a shopping list for yourself of all the items you will need. If you know your supermarket well, try and write your list out as you know where things are in the store, this makes it a lot easier to grab and go.

Not only was it convenient, it was cost efficient. Money wise I spent no more than my usual weekly grocery shop, only this time I knew that my food wasn't going to go bad (I regularly forget about the veggies in my fridge and constantly waste them) And this weekly grocery shop was going to last me for 3 weeks!.... I would have bought enough for 40 days, however my teeny freezer would not be able to fit it all.

I purchased 20 Freezer Zip lock Bags a Sharpie permanent marker and was ready to go...

*Sneaky tip 2:  I used bowls around my house and my crockpot itself to stand up my Zip lock bags whilst I filled them, but I have a friend who has recently jumped on the Crockpot freezing Bandwagon and highly recommended these for holding your Zip Lock Baggies up : Jokari "Crazy But it Works" Hands-Free Baggy Rack Storage Bag Holder

I chopped and measured and had a fun time, dividing up vegetables, sauces and meats into the bags, I labeled each bag with the marker so that I knew what was what and placed them in my freezer. As simple as that, my dinners were complete. I chose not to pre-cook any of my meals, but that is always an option, as you can always just "heat-up" with the Crockpot too.

Shopping and Clean-up included, it took me about 5 hours in total to make 14 Bags of Dinners, Which, including leftovers, ended up giving me 3 weeks of food. My kids were eating great dinners, and at the nice and "Normal" time of 6pm! I was eating healthily and I didn't have to cook for 21 evenings.... some nights I didn't even know what to do with myself.....until I remembered... oh yeah.... Laundry! But other bonus of crockpot cooking, You don't have all the pots and pans clean up!

Want to try it for you and your family?  Here are my top 10 recipes, collected from my favorite mama bloggers and crockpot preppers out there. These were part of my first month of Crockpot Freezer Meals to Go!

Mongolian Beef
Easy Pulled Pork
Orange Chicken
Wild Mushroom Beef Stew
Balsamic Glazed Drumsticks
Teriyaki Chicken

Creamy Ranch Pork Chops and Potatoes

Pineapple Glazed Ham

Applesauce BBQ Chicken

Chicken Curry

*Sneaky Tip 3: Once your bag is full, push out the air, and flatten out the bag, to provide more room in your freezer, for MORE meals.

The best part about all of this is; I can have one of those menu's that some families have that tell them what they are having for dinner each week, because I now. actually. know what we are going to have for dinner each week (this seriously used to cause me so much anxiety even just figuring it out!) Yeah - I can be THAT WIFE! Who am I kidding, I'm never going to be THAT WIFE, but I can be as imperfectly perfect as I am, feed my children yummilicous meals and stop eating those dino nuggets myself ;)

* Picked this cute menu chalkboard up in Family Dollar for $8.00 (Bargain!)

So get started today, have fun and I hope this makes your lives as easy as it has made mine.

                         G x

   

To follow some professional "Crockpot Freezer Preppers", check out these sites:

http://whoneedsacape.com/2012/11/crockpot-freezer-cooking/

http://www.mynaturalfamily.com/recipes/paleo-recipes/the-30-best-paleo-crock-pot-recipes/

http://therealisticorganizer.blogspot.com/2014/01/organized-slow-cooker-freezer-meals.html?m=1