Following the premature birth of our first child, a group of ladies from church filled our freezer with two weeks of frozen meals. Between frequent visits to the I.C.U. Nursery and the normal stresses of starting a family, those meals in the freezer were a lifesaver.
This was my introduction to the idea of freezing meals ahead. Since then, I’ve applied this concept to our regular family meals. I save substantial time, effort and money in the process.
Some cookbooks refer to this as “investment cooking.” Often I’ll cook one day each month and have 30+ main dinner meals tucked away in my freezer, ready to thaw and heat for a month’s worth of easy meals.
The popular book Once-a-Month Cooking, by Mimi Wilson and Mary Beth Lagerborg, outlines step-by-step menu plans for cooking 30 meals in a day. I found the meals in Once-a-Month Cooking to be delicious but way too expensive for my limited grocery budget (lots of expensive pre-made ingredients). But by applying their methods to my own less expensive recipes, I’ve been able to save money by purchasing in bulk.
This method also cuts down on those quick (and expensive!) trips through the local drive-thru when rushing kids to T- Ball practice or running out the door to an evening meeting.
I call my personal method of cooking ahead “Frozen Assets.”
EASY STEPS TO GET STARTED
If you’re thinking, “I could never do this. I only have a small fridge top freezer,” don’t tune me out. When I first started cooking ahead, I only had the small freezer attached to the refrigerator. By packaging meals in plastic freezer bags and freezing the bags flat, I was able to store a month’s worth of Frozen Assets in my small freezer.
An easy way to start building up Frozen Assets is doubling or tripling recipes as you prepare them during the week. If you’re making Lasagna, prepare three: one for eating tonight and two for the freezer. Just one week of tripling recipes will give you a stock-pile in your freezer of two weeks of meals with virtually no extra effort.
Andrea, the mother of a two-year-old and seven months pregnant with twins, is starting investment cooking. Realizing her hands will be full during those busy post-partum days, she says, “I don’t have the stamina to devote an entire day to standing on my feet cooking, unless I want to send myself into labor right now! So, I’m going to triple recipes of easy meals every night until the babies arrive. I know the extra work now will pay off when I find myself less harried later. I can devote my energy to caring for my little ones.”
A SOLUTION FOR EVERYONE!
No matter who you are, how big your family, or what your lifestyle — whether you’re a single working mother, or a mom at home full-time with your children, investment cooking has something to offer everyone.
Frozen Assets could be the answer you’ve been looking for:
- Save $$$ on your food budget.
- Save time in the kitchen each day.
- Increase the outreach opportunities frozen meals can provide (meals for the sick, the young mom on bedrest, a grieving family, etc.).
We could all use a few more minutes in our day, couldn’t we? Anyone out there have enough time for everything they want to accomplish? No? I didn’t think so.
FROZEN ASSETS DISCUSSION GROUP
Frozen Assets is the original e-mail resource for recipes, tips, and discussion of once-a-month cooking (OAMC), make-ahead meals, feeding the freezer, bulk cooking, mini-sessions, Mega-cooking, or just general cooking ahead. Many other groups were birthed from this one’s humble beginnings.
Come join the fun! 🙂
Our discussion’s based on the popular book, Frozen Assets: Cook for a Day, Eat for a Month by the founder of the Frozen Assets (FA) Group, Debi Taylor-Hough. If you order a copy of Frozen Assets (click on the book’s title or the image to get one!), you’ll find your basic questions answered and be all set to jump right into the conversation.
- FA Group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/frozen-assets/
- FA Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/frozenassets
- FA Website/Blog: http://frozenassets.info
The following is from a media press release sent out several years ago:
Washington-state resident, Deborah Taylor-Hough, saved $24,000 on her family’s total grocery bills during the past five years. “I used to spend $700 per month on groceries and food-related expenses for our family of five, but now I spend around $300. By saving $400 a month, it multiplied out to an overwhelming figure when I did the math,” says Taylor-Hough.
The successful money-saving trick Taylor-Hough discovered was cooking her regular family meals ahead for the freezer. Her method has been so successful, the book she wrote on the topic, Frozen Assets: How to Cook for a Day and Eat for a Month, has been a bestseller on Amazon.com for several years.
Taylor-Hough said, “Cooking in bulk has become my part-time job — it’s actually allowed me to stay home full-time with my kids.”
Cooking for the freezer helps her to plan ahead, purchase items in bulk, cut down on waste, and stop those all-too-frequent trips to the local drive-thru. “Plus,” she says, “my kids aren’t on a first name basis with the pizza delivery man anymore!”
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