cooking with my freezer series

I've been working at cleaning out our freezer the past couple of weeks and thought that it might be fun to do a series here on my blog about how to utilize this important appliance in your home.

I remember as a young girl going to visit my Great Grandma Pearl and always having such good food to eat. Her favorite meal to make, and our favorite to eat, was beef and noodles over mashed potatoes (always made with her homemade noodles), warm homemade buns with butter, green beans, pickles and usually a jello type salad. There was always something yummy like a pie or an angel food cake for dessert too. It didn't matter when we stopped in, we could always count on being treated to that meal around the table in her kitchen. I got to spend the night there a couple of times and once I remember looking in her freezer and seeing bags of her homemade noodles in there. I've been thinking about that lately. I think her secret to being able to put out such a spread was in the preparation ahead of time and having things ready to go in her freezer. Had I dug deeper into the freezer I probably would've found homemade pie dough ready to be thawed and baked into a pie, breads and buns that were already baked and just ready to be defrosted and then warmed in the oven.

This is the atmosphere and memories I want to create in my home. I don't want dinner to seem like a big overwhelming task that will take me all afternoon to do. There are so many things that can be done ahead of time and stored in the freezer that will make the task so much easier and enjoyable. Even small things, like chopping onions ahead of time and keeping them in the freezer, are beneficial because it's one less step to do while you are preparing the meal and a couple less dishes to wash later.

So this series isn't going to be about a once a month cooking marathon to fill up our freezers. I wouldn't know how to do something like that and I enjoy cooking too much to even want to. A few meals prepared completely ahead of time are great for those super busy days for sure. This series is going to be more about little things that we can do to make meal preparation easier, how to save money in our grocery budgets and stock up our freezers at the same time, and recipes and methods to make the most of the food in them. I hope you will enjoy it!