Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you all have a wonderful week, filled with lots of good food and fun with loved ones. Once it’s all over, you might need a break from cooking (leftovers help with that!), so here’s the inspiration you need to get your freezer filled with meals that you can put straight into your crock pot.
Last year I told you guys about how thrilled I was to discover the freezer-to-crock pot concept from Stephanie at Mama and Baby Love. These days, working two jobs plus being a full time mom and having a kiddo in school (regular schedules and early mornings like normal people… yikes!) means that I rely on the crock pot more than ever. And I always make sure that I have meals – or at least partial meals – chopped and in the freezer, ready for the crock pot. I just harvested all of the carrots from our garden over the last couple weeks, using some right away, but freezing most of them. Scrub, chop, bag, freeze. It was a bit tedious since there was quite a mountain of carrots when I started, but I really enjoy chopping veggies, and I loved seeing my stack of freezer bags growing. I bought several bunches of celery and chopped those to combine with my carrots, but I haven’t added anything else into the bags yet. My schedule is a bit crazy these days, so an uninterrupted block of time to fully prep lots of bags is hard to come by. Instead, I chop large quantities of one or two veggies at a time, adding more to the bags when I have time (I’ll be chopping a whole bunch of onions and adding them to my bags tomorrow). Even if I haven’t had time to fully prep the whole meal by the time I need to use it, having it partially chopped and in a bag makes for an easier morning prep task than if I were starting from scratch, since I only have to add a few additional items.
I cannot imagine not having fully or partially prepped meals in my freezer at all times, ready to toss in the crock pot. So I will be forever grateful to Stephanie for introducing me to the idea of bulk freezer “cooking” without the cooking part. I had tried batch cooking for the freezer a few times in the past, but the huge initial time investment meant that it was tough to really make progress with getting meals accumulated in the freezer. And afterwards, my kitchen was a wreck and all of my baking dishes were unavailable, since they were all in the freezer. Chopping a bunch of ingredients, adding seasonings, and sticking them in a ziplock bag to then dump into the crockpot when I need it? Much easier!
If you’re not already familiar with Stephanie’s books and recipes, you’re in luck, because she’s having a great Thanksgiving sale. From November 26th until December 3rd, everything in her store is 30% – 50% off!
- From Your Freezer To Your Family Slow Cooker Freezer Recipes is HALF OFF!
- Gluten-Free/Grain-Free Baking For Mamas Who Don’t Know How to Bake is HALF OFF!
- From Your Freezer To Your Family, Back To School Slow Cooker Freezer Recipes is HALF OFF!
- From Maiden to Mother. Your Guide To A Conscious Childbearing Year eBook is Half OFF!
- From Maiden to Mother eCourse is HALF OFF!
- M+BL Cookbook Bundle (all four cookbooks for a discounted price) 30% OFF! This bundle deal is normally 30% off, so with the sale it will be 60% off!
- Slow Cooker Tips and Tricks is a PDF and audio file of a webinar that Stephanie taught to help people who are new to this cooking method or have experienced frustration with crock pot cooking and need a little advice and help. The PDF and audio file are $9.99.
Stephanie’s freezer cooking method is amazing. I’ve been using it for almost two years now, and with as busy as our life has become lately, I’m especially grateful that this makes it easier for me to continue to cook all of our meals from scratch, even with all the other obligations I have. Who needs 900-ingredient frozen entrees from the grocery store when you can just pull a bag out of your freezer in the morning and have a crockpot full of homemade awesomeness ready in time for dinner?
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