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Prepping to Eat

January 12th, 2014 at 08:42 pm

Before Christmas a gal I work with did a staff invite to one of the hottest home parties in our area: you pay a set fee and attend the party and then when you get there you put together meals to stuff in your freezer so you have meals available. Supposedly you get ten meals at 5 servings each. The price is about $120.

I guess I'm an old prude, but it just doesn't appeal to me. I'm sure if you broke it down, the price isn't outrageous, but one is at the mercy of the host/hostess on what the chosen meals are. We don't like hot/spicy stuff and if that was on the agenda, that would be money wasted.

I'm all for free enterprise, but personally, I'm not paying someone to chop some vegetables and cut up meat and this sort of thing. And, I kind of wonder about the 5 servings, but alas, I'm a skeptic.

I have noticed quite a few sites popping up about cooking for a month or making stuff to put in jars. Someone posted this link on Facebook today and I did look at it and it looks like it has some possibilities:

http://www.savebiglivebetter.com/2013/04/472-easy-meals-in-a-jar-recipes.html

First of all, I like the fact jars are used. I do use plastic bags, but I really prefer using glass. But, I'm also kind of liking so much isn't in the freezer. Right now my freezer is kind of full of chicken stock, tomato sauce, and turkey breasts.

Anyway, eating at home saves money and I'm sure my friends probably saved money by heating up some of the stuff they did at the party, that is, if they remember to fix it. But, do you cook for a month or make many freezer meals in advance?

Posted in Food / Groceries, Saving Money, Ramblings and nonsensical chatter | 7 Comments »

7 Responses to “Prepping to Eat”

  1. PatientSaver Says:
    January 12th, 2014 at 09:04 pm 1389560656
    1389560656

    I cook regularly because I enjoy it, and I like to cook on Sundays in large enough batches that I either have stuff to bring to work for lunch and/or freeze extra servings, too.

  2. Buendia Says:
    January 12th, 2014 at 09:20 pm 1389561659
    1389561659

    I something every few weeks that creates a few extra freezer meals. My freezer always has about four meals like this in it ready to eat, and one meal a week is from our freezer (with a side salad usually). It works for us because devoting a special time set aside to cooking a ton would probably make me crazy! This way I'm just cooking as usual, but a bigger batch. It's often something in the crockpot...

  3. snafu Says:
    January 12th, 2014 at 10:25 pm 1389565547
    1389565547

    I re-use spice jars to create home made dried spice mixtures for a lot of ethnic cooking like Cajun, Chili, French, Greek, Portugal, Hungarian, Italian, Sloppy Joe, Spanish, Stew, TexMex etc. It saves l lot of time. I d 1 lb. on't go to Costco very often but always buy their lean ground beef, cook up the entire tray full and bag in one pound batches. It makes meal prep go so much faster for combination with rice, pasta, quinoa, cousous, chili, TexMex dishes.

    I found an older cookbook called Make a Meal Mix which has us combining dry ingredients in a jar, to make pudding, cake, muffins, bread etc. you just add fresh wet ingredients.

    This year I've been making mini meatloaves in a super big muffin tin and find them super portable. I'm going to try some casseroles in paper to see if they'll hold together.

  4. FrugalTexan75 Says:
    January 13th, 2014 at 12:44 am 1389573860
    1389573860

    I've done something like that a few times ... just never really got into a good enough routine or figured out enough good/healthy/vegetarian/not heavy on cheese/processed veggie meats dishes to do. If someone came up with a list of vegetarian meals that would work for once a month cooking, I'd be all over it.

  5. marvholly Says:
    January 13th, 2014 at 08:48 am 1389602922
    1389602922

    When I was still working FT I would often prepare something on Sun that would give me 2-6 additional servings to go into the freezer. After a few weeks I have a BUNCH of choices on hand.

    Early in my first married days i would ALWAYS prep a meal on Sun w/leftovers in mind for Mon dinner. On Mon I would prep for Tue (mix & pan the meatloaf, make tuna salad or pre-cook some chicken) while the Sun leftovers were reheating. And so forth thru the week: prep on day 1 for day 2.

    today I'm eating stuffed zuchinni I made about 10-14 days ago. I will make tuna salad for today & tomorrow.

  6. CB in the City Says:
    January 13th, 2014 at 03:42 pm 1389627754
    1389627754

    I have a friend who attended the same sort of party -- but it seems to me it was at a business rather than a home. Anyway, I can't see the appeal. I want to make what I like, and I don't have any shortage of ideas. And I want to control what I buy and how much I make. Guess it's for people who feel like they need a lot of direction in the kitchen.

  7. LuckyRobin Says:
    January 13th, 2014 at 07:38 pm 1389641927
    1389641927

    I tend to just make double or triple batches. Like if I am making lasagna, chili, or enchiladas, I'll just make more than I need and freeze them for future use. I've done the once a month cooking thing a couple of times, but it is really hard on the body to do all that prepping and cooking in a weekend.

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