My Freezing Philosophy

As we start trying to figure out ways to make our lives easier, one thing I've learned alot about recently is freezing foods. My Grandmother-in-law (hereafter known as Grammy) is the queen of freezing. You open up her freezer, and it's a treasure trove of different kinds of food! And seriously, freezing stuff is super easy and saves tons of time and money. Why? #1 You can buy stuff in bulk (or buy a ton of something on mega-sale) and put some of it in the freezer for later. #2 You can have practically ready-made meals just waiting to be fixed for dinner one night when you don't feel like cooking. Imagine if you had 1 night every week where you didn't have to "cook", but you could still serve a wonderful homemade meal to your family! Or what if you never had to "run and grab something" fast food because you just didn't have time to make something?

Well, that's what freezing can do. There are all kinds of things you can freeze and then prepare with minimal effort for maximum result.

Now, I know several folks who spend an entire weekend every month or so making a bunch of meals to go into the freezer. This is a great idea since you can take a Saturday when you don't have anything planned and just get it done. This method, however, just doesn't work for me. I just cannot spend an entire day cooking. I know some of you can, but I just don't like it that much! Plus, with the nature of living a ranch/farming lifestyle and 2 kiddos hanging on my pants, I almost never have an entire day I can cook without being interrupted.

So what's my solution? Surprise, it's EASY! Every time I make something that works well in the freezer, I just make 2. Instead of making 1 lasagna, I make 2. Instead of 1 batch of soup or cookie dough or whatever, I make 2. Every once and a while I'll double it again and make 4 if I'm feeling really "cooky" or ambitious that day, but most of the time, I just stick with 2. Why? It's usually pretty simple to double the proportions in my head (I'm so NOT a math person), and I usually find I can double recipes without actually using 2 different bowls or pots to mix/cook it in (I'm also not a big fan of washing dishes).

I mean take lasagna, for instance. It takes zero extra time to put in ingredients for a double batch of sauce. Your box of noodles probably comes with enough for 2 anyway. Why not go ahead and assemble it? Then you stick it in the freezer, and some time down the road, you've got a way better than St--fer's lasagna ready to go! This would work especially well for those of you who don't have alot of freezer space.

Now if you don't do alot of freezing, you may be thinking, "But won't all my pans be stuck in the freezer? What if I need that pan back for something else?" Well, stay tuned, 'cause next I'll share with you some tips on what you'll need to make freezing as easy as possible without having your pans out of commission forever or investing in a stock of pyrex dishes. Can't wait!