My boyfriend used to constantly bring up the idea of batch cooking. His idea, we hire a chef for the day and this chef will cook up huge batches of different foods. We will freeze most and keep some in the fridge, then throughout the month, we can pull food out of the freezer as we need it.
While I loved the idea of hiring a chef (or even someone who can cook well for the day), I wasn’t so crazy about having everything pre-made and just grabbing it from the freezer.
I am the kind of person who REALLY appreciates a hot fresh meal (and I don’t mean one that just came from the microwave). Then I came up with a brilliant idea. Crockpot freezer meals…I’ll explain more below.
I was already in love with the crockpot by this time. Crockpots are amazing because you throw the food in and walk away. Hours later your food is ready. You get a delicious hot meal, with a minimum of effort.
So what was my great idea?
Crockpot Freezer Meals: You prepare all the ingredients for various recipes and then put them in a large ziploc bag in the freezer. Then the day you want to use that recipe, you simply pull out the bag and dump the contents in the crockpot. Let it cook and viola, you have a fabulous hot meal and leftovers.
Well, I searched online, and it turns out I wasn’t the first one to have this idea. In fact, I found two other women blogging about of it (and many, many more as I continued looking). One of them even made their own cookbook based on the idea. I promptly bought that and used it for my first experiment. http://www.mamaandbabylove.com/2011/04/05/freezer-cooking-with-slow-cooker-recipes/ Note: If you buy her cookbook make sure you read the intro, she explains how things are organized (example, most recipes make 2 batches, not 1).
I froze three recipes from the book (2 batches of each). I have tried two of the recipes and they were both good.
Here are some other websites I found that use this same idea. (Note: I have never used these websites):
http://www.sixsistersstuff.com/2013/02/10-slow-cooker-freezer-meals-in-less.html
http://thekrazycouponlady.com/family/crock-pot-freezer-meals-im-sharing-my-recipes/
http://www.slenderkitchen.com/crockpot-freezer-meal-for-summer/#
http://ashleynoelbarnes.blogspot.com/2013/05/10-freezer-to-crockpot-meals.html
http://www.repeatcrafterme.com/2013/03/crock-pot-freezer-meals-for-summer.html
http://www.stacymakescents.com/crock-pot-freezer-cooking-tutorial-6-meals-1-hour
I am excited about this new way of cooking and managing meals. I will detail the actual process I followed in later posts.
Happy Cooking!
Aiden
aidenblackerby 