Seven Steps of Freezer Cooking

Before You Begin

Answer Two Questions:

1. Do I want to cook alone or not?

There are pros and cons to both. Here are some advantages to going it alone:

• You can set your own schedule.

• You don’t have to pretend to like “her” food.

• You can cook and package the food any way you want (and nibble all day) cuz the food is all yours!

• You can make allowances for special diets and picky eaters.

• You can quit when you’re tired.

Here are some advantages to teaming up:

• You can share the planning.

• You can share the work.

• You can share the fun!

• You can share the cookware.

• You can share the blame☺

2. What freezer cooking method do I want to use?
Freezer cooking doesn’t have to mean 2 days of non-stop cooking until you are bone-tired and never want to see another recipe. Do whatever works best for you. Here are some options:

• Mini-Sessions: Take a few hours and triple a few recipes.

• Protein Type or the What’s-on-Sale Approach: Bunch a whole bunch of one type of meat and choose 3-4 recipes and have at it.

• Cook BIG!: 30 entrées, 60 entrées, 120 entrées – the sky’s the limit!

Step 1 – Plan It!
Set Dates for Planning, Shopping and Cooking
If you don’t set the date, you will probably never get around to it. The first time you plan (especially if you are cooking with a friend), it will seem to take forever. Deciding on recipes, digging out your cookware, doing the math – it will seem to take forever. But I guarantee that you will get quicker at it! Put all three of these dates on your calendar and leave yourself plenty of time to get the work done. I have heard from a few cooks who tried to plan, shop, and cook in a 24 hour time period. Not a good idea. (Don’t ask how I know this.)

Take Inventory
You will be spending a fistful of money when you shop for a month’s worth of entrees. Don’t make the mistake of buying things that you already have in the kitchen. Take a simple inventory before each planning session and fill out a worksheet (Worksheet A in the Freezer Cooking Manual) recording what you have, how much there is and what it’s worth. Refrigerator and pantry space will be at a premium on cooking day so use up the milk, eggs, cereal and everything you can!

Choose Your Recipes
Many people get stuck here because they don’t know what will freeze and what won’t. If this is you, the easiest thing to do is to start with recipes from our website or our Freezer Cooking Manual. If you’re brave, go ahead and read the freezing rules and choose recipes from your own collection that fit the guidelines. Here are some other tips that are helpful:

• Make Multiples - Remember, your time saving comes in making multiples of recipes. Whether you are doing a mini-session or a full day of cooking, make more than one of each recipe. I suggest for those wanting to do 30 entrees in one day, choose 8-10 recipes and make 3 of each. Most new freezer cooks find that 30 entrees last them much more than a month. Mini-sessions might mean only doing 3 recipes but building up a variety over time.

• Convert your Recipes to Quantity Cooking – To save time, you need to get your recipes into a format where the ingredients are multiplied out from 1-6. All of the recipes on our website and in our Freezer Cooking Manual and eBooks are set up this way. If you don’t know what we mean, check out our sample Parsley Parmesan Chicken Recipe.

• OR Use the 30 Day Gourmet Recipes – If you’re new to this “freezing cooking thing” it’s probably best if you start with recipes from our manual and/or our website. Our recipes have some consistencies that will make the job easier. They are all formatted into 6 columns so we have done all of the math for you. We give you full Assembly, Freezing & Cooking, and Serving Directions for each recipe. Nutritional information is also included for the recipes in the Freezer Cooking Manual.

• Start with Tried and True – This isn’t the time to experiment with what I have come to call “weirdo food”. Freeze what the family is used to eating. Sandwich fillings, baked chicken, meats in marinades, meatloaf, and lasagna are good for starters.

• Use your Slow Cooker – We learned early on that a crock-pot can be your best friend on cooking day. Meat sauces, roasts, sandwich fillings, soups, stews and chili are all good candidates for crock-pot cooking.

• Choose a Few Versatile Recipes – Some of you are thinking that eating the same thing 3 times a month will get pretty boring. If that’s you, I recommend that you choose a few recipes that begin as one simple idea but can turn into several different meals. For example, if you freeze boneless, skinless chicken breast in marinade, you can create a million great dinners from it. Of course, you can grill it. You could also broil it, coat it with crumbs and bake it, or cut it into strips or chunks and stir fry it. You could roll the stir-fried strips in a tortilla and call it a fajita or use them in a sandwich or salad. You get the idea! Starts out as one easy entrée but becomes lots of different dinners!

Plan Your Containers
Freezer bags, rigid containers, glass dishes, ceramic dishes, foil pans. They all work fine. Just be sure that you are using containers suitable for the freezer. Remove as much air from them as possible before you put them into the freezer. Label everything! It’s a Murphy’s Law thing. All food looks the same once it’s frozen. You will only need to thaw a pan of Granola Bars to serve for dinner instead of a Meatloaf once before you’ll learn that lesson!

Plan Your Shopping

Tally Your Ingredients - Many math-impaired cooks are tempted to quit right here. If the thought of mixed fractions and converting pounds to ounces is already giving you a headache, breathe easy. When Tara and I started cooking this way, we thought that the easiest way to do this was to lay all the recipes out on the table and then add them up ingredient by ingredient. All the salt, all the sugar, all the pork chops. WRONG! This method leads to sure disaster. Here’s a better way:

• Add ‘Em Up – We use an 11x17 tally sheet (Worksheet D in the Freezer Cooking Manual) to tally up all of the ingredients. We do it one recipe at a time. After we have filled in the ingredients for each recipe, we tally up the columns, subtract what we have in inventory and we’re left with a total for each ingredient. Many cooks have told us that our tally sheet is worth the price of the manual alone. It really does organize the job for you. Before we came up with this little gem, I was making 2 or 3 extra trips to the store on cooking day for missing ingredients. Now I don’t miss a thing.

• Make Your Shopping List– This is the easy part. We just transfer the totals from the tally sheet to the shopping list (our worksheet is divided into categories). Some people shop with just the tally sheet but I usually goes to more than one store and I thinks it’s quicker to have a separate list for crossing bought items off.

• Write total pounds or ounces – Instead of writing six 28 oz. cans, write down 168 oz. It will make things easier in the store. And take a calculator!

• Include miscellaneous items – Your cooking day will come to a screeching halt if you run out of dish soap or trash bags. Add these to the shopping list.

• Check the store ads before you plan – If saving money is important to you, check out the ads BEFORE you choose your recipes. When you’re buying 30 pounds of ground beef or chicken breasts, that rock bottom price can save you a pile of money!

• Plan Your Prep Work
  Leave yourself a day or two between shopping day and cooking day to do any prep work. Browning ground beef, cooking and dicing chicken, chopping veggies, and cooking pasta can all be done ahead of time if you choose. Worksheet E in the Freezer Cooking Manual helps you list the things that can be done before your Assembly Day and the things that you need to bring/have on Assembly Day.

Step 2 – Go Shopping

Before you go clean out your refrigerator and freezer. You will need as much room as possible for all of those groceries and you won’t feel like doing it after you drag all of that food into the kitchen! Perishable ingredients should not be left at room temperature for more than 2 hours.

When you go...

Shopping Tips:

• Buying in large quantities usually saves you money and time. We purchase Worcestershire sauce, vinegar, soy sauce and cooking oil in 1 gallon containers at a restaurant supply store. The leftovers can be stored for the next cooking day.

• Grocers will often waive the limits if they know what you’re doing and I LOVE to talk about what I’m doing. Call them a few days ahead and ask if you can buy 30 pounds of the advertised ground beef at .99/lb. Assure them that you’re not a restaurant. We’ve rarely been turned down.

• My latest kick is to do the price matching guarantees. It saves going to more stores and the store that DOESN’T have the meat on sale usually has more of it available than the store advertising the sale. It’s been working great for me. Check with an employee before you fill your cart. The rules can be a little picky.

Step 3 – Get Ready!
Try to think of this project as a “cooking week”. Of course, it doesn’t take a whole week but there are things that HAVE to be done if this is going to work. Just remember, if you have chosen 8-10 recipes and make 3 of each, you will only be doing this once every 4-6 weeks and IT WILL BE WORTH IT! This of cooking week in 4 processes – 1. Planning; 2. Shopping; 3. Prep Work; 4. Assembly Day. The rule for pre work is: The more you get done before assembly day, the better! Here are some pre-assembly day chores that you can tackle:

• skin chicken parts

• cook and drain pasta

• make coatings for chicken parts

• start slow cooker meal

• brown ground meats

• dice or grind ham

• make sauces

• cook and dice poultry

Step 4 – Now We’re Cookin’
How long will it take? – You can plan on a 9-5 day to get 30 entrees assembled and into the freezer. If you pre-cook everything for quick re-heats, your day will be longer. And don’t think that it will take you twice as long as it does me. I’ve met cooks who have put 100 entrees into their freezers in a 12 hour day. Wow! I’m impressed!

What equipment do I need? – Not as much as you think. Here’s what we consider essential:

• 1-2 large mixing containers for each cook

• 2 sets of measuring cups and spoons for each cook

• one large dutch oven

• long handled utensils

• crock pot for each cook

• large measuring containers

Have you picked up on the word “large”? You will save lots of time by combining the filling for all 3 quiche in one bowl and then dividing them out into your 3 crusts rather than making each recipe separately. To do this, you need LARGE stuff.

What procedure do you use?

• For those of you who chose to cook with a partner, don’t even try doing the same recipe together. You will get WAY confused. Instead, divide the recipes by protein-type (no cross contamination problems). She does the beef. You do the chicken. Share the rest. If you’re cooking alone, follow the same procedure and do one protein type at a time.

• Do one recipe at a time. If you are cooking with a pal, you’ll be making her Meatloaf and yours at the same time. Much quicker!

• We like doing a recipe from start to finish and checking it off the list before moving on to the next one. It’s safer than having all the recipes going at once with food sitting out everywhere!

• Be sure to label everything. It will all look alike after a day in the freezer! Put the name of the entrée, the date it went into the freezer and simple cooking instructions so that no one has to get the cookbook out to start dinner.

Step 5 – Stocking the Freezer
There are lots of options here. A lot of it depends on your freezer space and your cooking style. I’m a last minute person who likes to thaw everything at 5:30 in the microwave hence I use freezer bags almost exclusively. Other cooks like to plan out their meals ahead of time and freeze in their serving dishes. These highly organized people usually have 2-3 entrees thawing in the refrigerator at the same time.

• If you choose freezer bags, don’t skimp. Use FREEZER bags! Double bag your meats in marinade. One little puncture and you’ll be sorry!

• The trick with freezer bags is to freeze them in thin, flat layers. You don’t want a jigsaw puzzle in your freezer.

• If you choose rigid containers, use good quality freezer containers. Your serving dishes work fine as long as you slide them into a 2-gallon freezer bag. Try to remove as much air as possible.

What about casseroles?
If you don’t have enough serving dishes to freeze your casseroles combined, you can freeze the components of the casserole individually and combine the ingredients just before baking. I do this all the time. When I freeze Chicken Divan, I’ll have a 2-gallon freezer bag with 5 bags inside – one with the chicken, one with the sauce, one with the broccoli, one with the rice and one with the cheese.

Just be sure to put the parts into a larger bag. I’ve made that mistake a few times!
This trick also works well for families with different dietary needs. If Johnny is lactose intolerant, mom can scoop out a serving of the chicken, the rice, and the broccoli for him. Then the casserole is combined and baked for the rest of the family.

How do you remember what you have in the freezer?
I didn’t used to know at all. It was a “reach in and eat whatever comes out with you” situation. One of our cooks came up with the Meal Inventory Checklist that is now included in our Freezer Cooking Manual. It works great for keeping track of what you’ve used and what’s left. Fill it out as you put the food into the freezer – saves standing on your head and counting it all later!

Clean Up and Evaluate
Try to plan enough time to do the clean up on cooking day. You don’t want to face it in the morning! Just remember that you won’t be dirtying these pots and pans and utensils for a very long time. The clean up time that you save on a daily basis by cooking this way will astonish you.

Now is the time to do a quick evaluation of what went right and wrong. What would you do differently next time? Jots down some notes.

By now, if you have stayed on course, you have planned, shopped, prepared, assembled, packaged, labeled and frozen a bunch of great foods for your freezer. Whew! Take a deep breath and relax. Tomorrow you will begin to enjoy all of the benefits of being a 30 Day Gourmet.
 

Please Note: This is a shortened version of our Five Steps of Freezer Cooking which is available in our Freezer Cooking Manual. To learn more about our Freezer Cooking Manual click here. To order our Freezer Cooking Manual or any of our other products click here.