Getting Started

Freezer cooking is a great way to make sure your family get's all the nutrition they need all the time, without the hassle of cooking from scratch every day. I love cooking, but some days I'm just not ready, don't have the right ingredients, have no inspiration or am just too tired to cook a great meal. Those are usually the days that we pull the pizza menu closer and order in.

To avoid that, I started freezer cooking so that I can pull out a whole meal in a pinch or even just lighten my cooking load. I've put a whole foods spin on my recipes, but you are welcome to adapt the recipes to your family's needs. In fact, I encourage experimenting and being adventurous with food. This way cooking will become a fun, creative event instead of just a daily chore.

To get started, I recommend having a few things ready:

• Sharp knives
• Containers or freezer bags (for freezing your creations)
• Labels (or masking tape)
• Permanent marker
• Grater
• Food processor (this isn't necessary, but it significantly cuts down on preparation time and effort)
• Blender or stick blender
• Large pot(s)
• Large bowl(s)
• Slow cooker (optional, but it's nice to dump a bag of pre-prepared food into the slow cooker in the morning and have a hearty meal at dinner time. A pot on the stove, slowly simmering, will do the same thing)
• List of recipes
• List of ingredients

Read my post on The Plan to get organized for this endeavour.

I will give you a list of my freezer staples together with their recipes as well as some nice recipes I've come across that freeze well.

Once you have the staples, it's good to know what to do with them, so I'll share some recipes you can use the staples in as well.