We have been enjoying our monthly freezer cooking nights, the fellowship is great and we have all have been enjoying easy dinners, more time in the evenings, and less time in the drive thru or restaurant. Some of us are stay at home moms and some are  working moms. Our goal at this point is not to be cooking most of our month’s meals in one day like some people do but we do want to have a few fast easy meals for the days we don’t have much time or creativity. We meet on Friday nights and don’t start till around 6 so we aim to be done by 9, and at this point our goal is to only spend $50 a month each (this month’s menu was $49 a person). Our meals to feed at least 4, we all have small families and small children.

NOTE: That this month we had FREE APPLES, FREE CORN, and FREE TOMATOES from the sauce from the garden so we were able to get a little more in on our budget but the Lasagna is a budget buster, it is just not cheap to make. 

We have the cooking night at my house and since I don’t work outside of the home (other than a few hours a week for my husband, so I do all the prep work). Before the actual cooking night here is a list of things I do.

Everyone brings something from this list to keep cost down: olive oil, freezer bags, foil, butter, salt, pepper, garlic salt.

• Week before
  • Get final head count on who is coming and if anyone has any requests.
• Week of
  • Make menu
  • Make grocery lists
  • Do grocery shopping
    • I usually go to Sam’s Club, Aldi, and Kroger
• Day before
  • Begin prep work (thawing meat, soak beans etc)
  • I made spaghetti sauce
  • I cut corn off the cob but could have used frozen
• Day of
  • Slice pork loins into half (I got a large pork loin at Sam’s
  • Cook beans
  • Pull out any special tools, pans, etc that will need to be pulled out
  • Cook meat for the quesadillas
  • Chop veggies, onions, peppers, garlic etc.

This month we  each took home 3 small (or 1 large and 1 small lasagna) 1 apple crisp, 12-15 quesadillas, 2 basil garlic chicken, 2 corny cornbread, 2 refried beans, 2 spaghetti sauce (left over from the lasagna), pork loin, house seasoning, and 3 quarts of apple sauce (not in picture).

This month’s Recipes:

• Garlic Basil Chicken — Prior to cooking night I cut chicken breast into strips, then we place all  ingredients in a freezer bag, to cook needs to be thawed then grilled, baked, or cooked in a pan on the stove. (this was a repeat every month)
• Quesadillas — I cooked a roast Like this (prior to cooking night) and we did some cheese for the kids
• House Seasoning in the pint jars in the picture above and also had some in zipper bags
• Mom’s Lasagna — meat cooked prior to evening and sauce cooking.
• Slow Cooker Refried beans — beans cooked and cooled before cooking night, froze blended beans in freezer bags.
• Apple Sauce
• Apple Crisp — we did not freeze these but made them to have for breakfast or dessert for the weekend. but since the cooking night I have made, cooked, and froze some of these and they are good frozen as well.
• Crock Pot Pork Tenderloin
• Corny Cornbread

Here you can check our our other  cooking nights!

• Month 1
• Month 2
• Month 3