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What’s for dinner is the age old question. Over the years I constantly turn to freezer cooking to make my evenings run more smoothly.
Initially it was because I was working full time and IronFish was in grad school. JuneBug was only an infant. She spent most of her waking hours in day care, so we didn’t want to waste the rest of her awake time preparing meals.
Once I was a stay at home mom, I thought it would be easier to prepare dinner every night, and for a while, actually tried a different recipe every time! That got old real quick (well, not the food, just the desire to make it!).
Now with a toddler and an infant, I was pretty worn out by dinner time and began to dread making dinner. As Tasha got older we realized we were dealing with a picky eater which made being creative in the kitchen an even bigger headache.
I wasn’t interested in cooking a kid and an adult meal
I felt that time was a premium and even though I knew how to freezer cook, I purchased some plans that told me exactly what to do, in what order. Grocery lists and sometimes instructional videos were a part of these plans.
I loved them! IronFish loved the variety. JuneBug tolerated them (she has always been our most adventurous eater). Tasha threw a fit! She gagged and cried when she ate, spending up to two hours at the table (basically until we told her to just go to bed). O-Man picked a sister to imitate, even when he was still eating baby food.
Tasha complained that it hurt to chew, swallow and everything made her stomach hurt. We took her to doctors. Tried prescriptions, let her eat baby food and pedisure and even had her put under to have her throat scoped to see if there was a blockage or something wrong.
She’s just picky.
We tried different freezer plans with typically a 60% approval rating. JuneBug began to complain about dinner too and we dropped to 40%. Her complaints weren’t really about the food, but the atmosphere.
That’s when I went back to square one
I started creating my own freezer meal plans. Some of the recipes were derived from the purchased plans (since I’d been altering them to try to be more in line with my kid’s preferences). Other’s were found on Pinterest or were from trial and error over the years.
I shared how I have been doing my freezer cooking the past few years here:
Now that Tasha is actually interested in baking, she recently has become more interested in cooking too. I’m hoping this is the turning point as I wouldn’t mind incorporating a bit more variety into our dinners.
Recently, I went back to one of my favorite sources for freezer meal plan. Wow, the options available now are amazing! Since Tasha and I do best gluten free, there is an option for that. Even better, Tasha is actually interested in trying some of these.
And I’ve got some good news for you too…
I’ve teamed up with $5Dinners and FreezEasy!
There are so many great options. So many more than a few years ago. Moms everywhere are turning to freezer meals for their busy households. Even if you’ve been doing freezer meals for years, there are some great options to try something new.
This is one of the summer plans, but all the flavors are things my family should like (ok, I might have to switch out the salmon since I’m the only one who enjoys fish, go figure!):
JuneBug and IronFish are breakfast junkies. Both have complained that they don’t have time in the morning to fix more than cereal for breakfast. Since I refuse to buy pre-packaged breakfast sandwiches, we’re excited to try this plan:
We’ll switch out the flour to gluten-free for the pancake mixes (Tasha enjoys actually making the pancakes as much as she loves to eat them). And, no, the plan doesn’t cost $140, that’s how much all the supplies to make the 85 meals costs from Costco! Quick math tells me that is about $1.65 per meal…. might be slightly more than the cost of a bowl of cereal with milk but a lot more nutritious!
People often complain that it’s costly to go gluten-free. It can be if you are purchasing all pre-packaged stuff and trying to make all your flour based meals gluten-free. We have found it most cost effective to make meals that are naturally gluten-free. This one is one our family found a lot we liked in:
Click on any of the pictures of plans and you’ll be able to check out all of the options. Time is valuable, and reducing stress is as good for your health as a nutritious meal. Or click below to get started. Check back and tell me what your favorite plans are
