I’m still trying to get myself organised and the house running smoothly. There always seems to be something that comes up to derail my plans. A meeting, an activity for the children, someone comes down with a cold…always something. But one thing that most days does go quite well are our dinners. I thought it might be fun to share with you what I have on the books for our October freezer meal plan.
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This month Phil has 6 days off work, and I’m hoping to take an extra class or two; on top of which my workload is just about to increase with my job. This means that our dinners need to be on the table when Phil arrives home from his day at the office. This is particularly important on Mondays and Fridays when there may only be ten minutes between his arriving home and having to get back out the door.
I try my best to ensure that we can all sit down together for dinner so we can catch up on the day and enjoy each other’s company. And it’s always better if there’s good food involved!
Our payday falls just after mid-month so that’s when I order our groceries for delivery and then spend an afternoon prepping as much as I can for the next few weeks. This takes a little time, but then the weeknight meals are so much easier for the rest of the month.
The main source of my freezer recipes over the past year have come from My FreezEasy. I’ve literally made dozens of recipes from my subscription (you can read my initial review here). Each month there are new recipes added and I can create easy meal plans, print them out, and make up to ten meals in an hour (this figure doesn’t work quite as well if you are trying to teach at the same time, and also varies depending on the meals chosen).
The recipes I put together for our freezer for October are:
- Honey mustard pork chops
- Cuban style pork chops (these are fun to have after the kids have read If You Were Me And Lived In…Cuba)
- Mongolian pork chops
- Spicy Sausage and Peppers (I usually make this most months)
- Enchalatas (The grocery delivery didn’t send the peppers so I’ve substituted corn instead, and it worked really well)
- Swirly Taco Skillet Pasta (this one is a favourite with the kids)
- Beef and bean tacos (this is much better than using refried beans, and the mix can be used for other meals as well)
- Slow cooker pepperoni chicken will be a nice little treat
- Slow cooker chicken tagine
- Baked honey mustard salmon
- Chalupa Salad (we haven’t had this before but the kids are looking forward to it)
- Beef Taquitos (I haven’t tried these yet, but the kids say they’re very filling and delicious)
- Slow Cooker Asian chicken lettuce wraps
I have mostly two meals prepared for each of these recipes, although I only had enough chicken to make one tagine, but the beef taquitos made enough for at least three meals, so it all works out. In the end I had about 25 or 26 meals prepared and in the freezer, along with a few from previous months so we’ll have a nice selection of dinners this month. I like the international choices available to keep our taste buds dancing.
Added to this, Phil usually makes a huge pasta bake once a month on a Sunday night that has plenty of left-overs for the next night (or sometimes two), and we will be having a small roast that will also do us for two nights. Saturdays are our date nights with a frozen curry or pizza on occasion (I’m hoping Phil will make one from scratch soon).
When I make rice or potatoes to go with a meal I’ll often make extra to fry up with veggies for lunch the next day; or if there’s quite a bit of it, dinner the next night.
Add in a couple of extra-lazy evenings with pasta and a simple sauce, and we have our month more than covered for meals! This means that (hopefully) I won’t have to make as many later this month and I can start some Christmas baking with the time I’ve saved-yeah!
What are your plans for this month? If you’re stuck or looking for new ideas, try out My FreezEasy and let me know what you think of it! Seriously, I hardly look at any other cookbooks anymore! And there’s a Make One Freeze One Challenge coming up if you’d rather stock up your freezer meals as you go instead of all on one day.
