6 Freezer Meals in 30 minutes

I have been eyeing people's blogs lately on pinterest that involve preparing meals in advance for the crock pot and freezing them.  I love the efficiency, cost effectiveness, and simplicity of it all.  But to be honest, I have always felt a little intimidated to try it myself.  Not sure why, I guess it seemed like a daunting task because they do it on such a large scale (i.e. a month's worth at a time), but today I decided I was going to go for it while Landry napped this afternoon.  I wanted to start small to see how I liked it and if we liked a few recipes before I jumped wholeheartedly on the freezer meal bandwagon.

I chose 3 recipes from this ladies blog I had previously pinned on pinterest http://www.ringaroundtherosies.net/2012/02/freezer-cooking.html, put Landry down for a nap and got to work!
The 3 Recipes I chose are Teriyaki Chicken, Meatballs, and Sausage and Peppers

First step was labeling the gallon zip lock bags, including the crock pot instructions.

Step 2 was gathering all the ingredients needed for each recipe.

Step 3 is to dive in, one meal at a time


Here are the ingredients for the sausage and peppers... Of course I had to use Opa's sausage from here in Fredericksburg!!! Split the ingredients evenly between 2 bags, mix, seal, and done!

1 big can of diced tomatoes (optional), 1 red onion, 1 red bell pepper, 2 green bell peppers,  4 cloves minced garlic, and 6 sausage


To cook the sausage and peppers:  thaw bag in refrigerator the night before, add a drizzle of olive oil to the crock pot, cook on low for 6 hours, and serve hot noodles or french bread with mozzarella. 

Here are the ingredients for the Meatballs... I used frozen meatballs store bought, someday I will venture to make homemade ones! Split the ingredients evenly between 2 bags, mix, seal, and done!

20 oz BBQ sauce, 16 oz grape jelly, and approximately 36 meatballs

 To cook the meatballs: thaw bag in refrigerator the night before, cook on low for 2-4 hours, and serve over rice with side of veggies.






Here are the ingredients for the Teriyaki Chicken...  I had half a bag of whole carrots, so I peeled, cut, and used those instead of baby carrots.  Split the ingredients evenly between 2 bags, mix, seal, and done!

2 cans pineapple chunks (undrained), 4 chicken breasts (halved), 1 cup teriyaki sauce, 1 red onion, 1 bag of baby carrots, 4 cloves minced garlic

 To cook the teriyaki chicken:  thaw bag in refrigerator the night before, add 1/4 cup teriyaki sauce to crockpot, cook on low for 8 hours or high 4 hours, and serve over rice.

The finished products! 6 meals in 30 minutes!

Wow, that literally took me 30 minutes from start to finish.  Basically cutting veggies, dumping cans and sauce, and adding meat.  Not too difficult and certainly not nearly as daunting as I thought it would be.  Of course, these ladies do it on a much bigger scale with a month's worth of meals and take 1 afternoon to do it.  Maybe that's why I felt so intimidated, but I can't wait to try out these 3 recipes.  Our family now has 6 meals prepared that we didn't have before, so I feel like that was 30 minutes of my day well spent.