- Each family gets 7-12 recipes that easily makes left overs to create many meals.
- Cost $65 – $120 a month
- We strive to eat as organically and shop as locally as possible.
- Non-cooking prep work (meal planning, ingredients, shopping, etc.) takes everyone a few hours.
- Cooking day takes anywhere from four to six hours
- TIME SAVER! At the beginning of the week, ย I put a few meals from the freezer into the fridge and don’t worry about dinner until 4 or 5:00pm each day. I’m spending very little time cooking!
- Easy clean up! ย Because the majority of the work has already been done, you’re basically cleaning up the dishes you ate on.
- Money Saver – when you buy and cook in bulk, it makes things much cheaper.
- I love my girl time. As twisted as it sounds, we consider cooking nights as girl nights, because we have so much fun doing it! I don’t like the actual cooking part, because I just don’t like to cook, but when you are in a kitchen for four hours with someone else you’re bound to laugh a lot. For us, it’s a time to get encouraged by one another, share the ups and downs of parenting and build better relationships.
- Because it’s becoming more and more common, there are lots of new recipes to try. Pinterest literally has four million crockpot posts.
- It is one exhausting day of cooking and I always smell like onions and garlic for like three days after.
- We have made some DISGUSTING meals. We once tried a sausage and sweet potato soup that I can still taste in the back of my throat. So gross.
- If you do it with a group, you have to work around other families likes and dislikes, which can at times be a challenge.
- There is a learning curve to cooking. There are some things that just don’t freeze well and you have to over season when making big batches of food so that it doesn’t taste bland.
- Chicken – DARP
- Beef ย and Wheat Berries ย – Oklahoma Food COOPย
- Fresh Veggies – OSU Farmers Market ย or Crest, Sprouts, Whole Foods
- Raw Cheddar – Azure Standard
Individual Responsibilities:
1. Meal Planning – we have a binder that has every recipe we’ve tried for the last two years. We have a lot of staples (lasagna, baked ziti, taco soup) but every month we need a variety, so one person starts the menu and sends it to everyone for approval.
2. Ingredient break downs – this person should be super detail-oriented, because they take each recipe and quadruple it, then break it apart to make a master grocery list.
3. Co-Op buyer – from that master grocery list, we decide what should be bought locally and what needs to be bought from a grocery store. Then someone will go to the co-ops and farmers market to buy the ingredients. We plan our cooking date around co-op days.
4. Grocery buyer – this person is in charge of buying anything left of the list.
5. Meat cookers and Food Prepper: Most of the chicken is cooked before cooking day because we make our own chicken stock to use in our meals, and because some meals call for cooked chicken. It’s also easier if your veggies are already chopped to fit each recipe.
6. Cooking Day – We usually cook at our church kitchen, but we’ve all cooked at each other’s kitchens too. But before you start cooking, figure out what kitchen appliances and gadgets you’ll need (food processors, big pots, good knives, etc.)
I love doing freezer meals….especially AFTER all the planning and cooking is done ๐
I LOVE freezer meals … need to get back into them! They are money saver and time saver and mess saver (only have to make the mess once!)
This sounds awesome! I’ve been trying to find people that do this. It sounds like a super efficient meal plan! Would you be willing to accept a new person to join your group?
Whitney,
Do you have a specific site you have used to look for recipes? I have heard several people say a lot of the “freezer meals” on Pinterest haven’t been good.
I am 59 and looking for a group of women to do this with. Any suggestions?