In December we bought a chest freezer. I have wanted one as long as I have been married, but we didn't have room for one in our old condo.
I've loved having a little extra space to store food, but haven't really gotten into batch freezer cooking yet. I've doubled meals here and there, but no making a bunch of food in one day and having it ready for many meals in the future.
Thankfully, my friend Anne gave me just the kick in the pants I needed.
Anne is a Wildtree consultant and she offered to send me a box of seasonings to make 10 freezer meals, just like she does in her freezer meal workshops (If you live in the Milwaukee. Wis. area you should totally have her do a workshop for you and some friends!).
From Anne: Wildtree thinks that food should be natural, nutritious, delicious, and easy to prepare – all at the same time. Wildtree products enable you to create spectacular, great tasting dishes with just three or four ingredients. All products are all natural; that means they are FREE from MSG, chemical dyes, additives, and preservatives. In addition to home tasting parties, we offer freezer meal workshops! These are a practical solution for just about anyone.
I invited my friend Katie over to join me for our own mini freezer workshop. We figured that our kids (she has a little girl named Hannah that is a bit younger than Adeline) could play on the deck off the kitchen while we chopped and assembled meals. Wildtree said it would take about an hour, but we figured it would take closer to 90 minutes because of the kids and because we are so chatty when we are together.
Well it took more than 2 hours, but it wasn't because we were chatty.
- We got the kids settled outside to play and it started raining, so they had to come in and were not happy about it.
- Matthew and I had noticed that the light switch seemed to be going bad in the kitchen, so we had taken off the switch plate earlier that day. Just after we started chopping food, we noticed the switch was sparking. (Of course, Matthew wasn't home.) I called our electrician in a panic and he said to turn off the breaker, assured me the house wasn't going to burn down and that he would be over in the morning.
- I had to find the breaker. I couldn't find it. So we finally gave up, left the light off, prayed the sparks would stop (they did) and worked on prep.
- Hannah then didn't want to watch Caillou (smart girl). Instead she wanted Katie to hold her. So I prepped for both of us. 🙂
- It stopped raining, so the kids wanted to go outside, which then lead to them being hungry, wanting other toys, etc.
Story of motherhood, huh?! 🙂
Despite all the craziness that happened during our freezer cooking session we had a blast with the Wildtree products and recipes.
Everything was clearly outlined and most of the recipes were ones I had not eaten before.
Nevermind that by the time we finished, it was almost dark in the kitchen thanks to the electricity having to be turned off.
Katie and I were so proud of our prepped meals and our first time batch freezer cooking. We actually decided to start regularly getting together to do batch freezer cooking, so you'll probably start to see more of her here on The Mom Creative. YAY! I love her SO much and you will too. (True story: Katie is married to the brother of my high school boyfriend. Crazy, right? Something only God could do.)
Thanks to Anne for sending the Wildtree products and for inspiring me to do more freezer cooking.
Do you have any recipes to recommend? Be sure to leave them in the comments.
awww – I love Anne. I am her good friend up here in WI and have gone to about 4 workshops, they are a blast. I hope you enjoy your delicious meals! We are so addicted to them 🙂
I love doing short batch cooking. The all day marathons are too much for me to make it worth it.
Moneysavingmom.com has great 1 hour freezer cooking sessions.
Lifeasmom.com has great freezer cooking info too.
I would really love to do this! Do you know of any Wildtree reps in the Nashville/Mount Juliet area? I have an 18 month old daughter and I know how crazy it can be when I am trying to cook and keep her occupied at the same time. It was nice to meet both you and Katie at the Incourage event last Saturday. 🙂
I’d LOVE to help! Feel free to email me from my website. Thanks so much! 🙂 Can’t wait to share Wildtree with you!
My favorite freezer batch meals are slow cooker red sauce, meatballs, and different meats with marinades. The Wildtree products are intriguing! Sure looks like you had a good time, in spite of all the interruptions!
Love to see some of the recipes you made…
Okay, so I’ve always felt a little lost with freezer batch cooking. Do you just prep the meals ahead and then take them right out of the freezer to cook? I usually cook a double batch and freeze the extra. I would love some recipes to try out.
That’s awesome that you guys got together and prepped. I’ll bet it saves a ton of time in the long run.
You can do it one of two ways – cook a bunch of stuff and then freeze it, or prep your food and freeze it so that it is ready to cook.
Love it, and you, Jess! Thrilled to see you and Katie having fun! 🙂
I have been interested in doing this for a while but my three kids are currently very picky and I haven’t gotten up the umph to do all of this work for recipes I just don’t imagine they will like. Maybe over the summer….not sure why that would make a difference since I work full time anyway but just maybe!
Thank you so much for the blog post! I can’t wait to hear how you loved having healthy Wildtree meals ready to pull from your freezer. I’m happy to share recipes and more information! 🙂 You can click on my website and email me right from there. These freezer meal workshops have changed our lives!
Sorry I found this so late! I hope it is still going well. I have started freezing meals by the week but I am thinking about getting a larger deep freezer and freezing by the month.