I have a few friends that have started getting together once a month and do a little freezer cooking. 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 $40 a person). We meals to feed at least 4, we all have small families and small children.

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.

• 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)
• Day of
  • Shred cheese
  • Bake potatoes
  • Cook hamburger, sausage, bacon
  • Cook beans
  • Pull out any special tools, pans, etc that will need to be pulled out.

Once everything is prepped and ready for everyone, the kitchen may be messy but we have a great time visiting and having some girl time.

This month we made the following recipes.

• Slow Cooker Refried beans — beans cooked and cooled before cooking night, froze blended beans in freezer bags.
• Salsa Chicken — all uncooked ingredients placed in a freezer bag, can be cooked in crock pot or in oven.
• Bacon, Egg, and Cheese English muffins— bacon cooked before evening, and once assembled wrapped in freezer paper and all placed in a freezer bag.
• Twice Baked Potatoes — potatoes baked before evening,  once put together and cooled place in freezer bags.
• Easy Pork Chops — all uncooked ingredients in freezer bag, can be put in crock pot frozen, or  cooked in the oven or on stove once thawed.
• Freezer Pizza (NOT pictured) — meat cooked and have dough rising before evening,  make and frozen whole
• Mom’s Lasagna — meat cooked prior to evening and sauce cooking.