Food Prep For Baby (Freezer Meals)

[ourcrazynavylife]

Post your plans, thoughts, questions, recipes

[mosdub]

I don't feel like I have the energy to make freezer meals right now, so I'm just going to go to Sam's Club and load up on the frozen dinner meals. I like their Asian Stir-fry. It makes some nice al dente stir-fry that's super easy to make and pretty healthy.

[ourcrazynavylife]

We did this for DD's birth. I did an entire month's worth of freezer meals. I'll be back to post what/how we did it.

[lilmonk]

This is what I normally have prepped in my freezer for rotation and will probably double it when I get time off of work. (I have a box freezer on my wish list for my birthday or Christmas) 😂

-marinated butterflied chicken (one in BBQ, one in lemon garlic and herb, one in honey soy and garlic)

-lasagnes of different varieties (chicken and spinach with white sauce, beef and mushroom, veggie with eggplant and zucchini)

-chicken and veggies sliced for fajitas, stir frys

-burgers (turkey, beef and chicken)

-frozen pizzas

For lunches and snacks I bake on the weekend so there's always something ready to go for the men in my life.

-pizza rolls (puff pastry or you could use crescent roll dough, ham, bacon or pepperoni, whatever pizza toppings you like, sauce and cheese)

-sausage rolls (pastry, turkey mince, grated carrot and zucchini, cheese, egg to bind, and whatever sauce I use sweet chilli or BBQ)

-pigs in blankets

-muffins (whatever fruit or veg that I get in season or cheap from the markets)

[onesweetworld]

Feb 22, 2017 21:19:20 GMT -5 mosdub said:

I don't feel like I have the energy to make freezer meals right now, so I'm just going to go to Sam's Club and load up on the frozen dinner meals. I like their Asian Stir-fry. It makes some nice al dente stir-fry that's super easy to make and pretty healthy.

I bought 80ish lean cuisines for lunch because lazy.

[onesweetworld]

My favorite crockpot meals are French Dip (crockin girls) or their Buffalo Chicken.

[raven]

I'll post a lot more tomorrow.

I did want to say what I found helpful was making 2 of every dinner. Two pans of lasagna roll ups: one is dinner that night and freeze the other. Same with soup/stew, casseroles, whatever. It took some pre planning, obviously. I had almost 1.5 months stashed away, in the end, not including any fruits or veggies I froze in bags for cooking with later. It took me about 3 months.

[iqeb]

Not sure about meals yet but I definately want to freeze some ready to bake lactation cookies. Pretty sure I'm going to be tandem nursing so I'm probably going to be starving in the motn.

[ThankfulSnail]

Feb 23, 2017 9:05:45 GMT -5 iqeb said:

Not sure about meals yet but I definately want to freeze some ready to bake lactation cookies. Pretty sure I'm going to be tandem nursing so I'm probably going to be starving in the motn.

If you have a recipe you'd like to share, I'd love it!

I love an excuse to eat cookies.

[ourcrazynavylife]

So with DD what I did was I printed a blank 30 day calendar and looked up a bunch of crockpot freezer meal recipes. Most of the recipes I picked made double so I just planned that blank month accordingly rotating through all the recipes.

Then I went and did a big Sams club grocery shopping trip for all the ingredients I needed. The next day my girlfriend came over and helped me prep and put everything into zip lock bags or disposable casserole dishes.

It took us about 6 hours in the kitchen from start to finish. So totally doable if you want to just bang it out in one get go.

I highly recommend purchasing crockpot liners. That way you don't even have to clean the crockpot. You just put your leftovers away and call it a day. It was just one less thing to wash during the crazy newborn phase and totally worth it to me.

Also don't forget about breakfast/lunch. A lot of freezer meal planning is just focused on dinners. But we made a big batch of egg burritos that froze super easy and we just popped them in the microwave for a quick hot breakfast.

When I'm not mobile I'll come back and post my favorite recipes that we used.

[iqeb]

ThankfulSnail , I made this recipe last time. No idea if they help that much with milk supply, but I loved them for a one handed motn snack in the first couple weeks. I had to eat something anyway to take the ibuprofen so I figured it might as well be tasty!

[lilmonk]

With DS I prepped smoothie bags! Cut up fruit and froze it with yoghurt cubes, chia seeds, honey, spinach leaves, and then just blended that with fresh juice or milk for quick breakfasts for myself.

There's a recipe floating on Pinterest for breakfast that's egg and ham or bacon pop tarts that are freezable. Might use my H and DS as guinea pigs and if they're a hit I'll add those too.

[ourcrazynavylife]

jennykat thanks for all the recipes!! I didn't read all because class but we make the same salsa chicken. It's sooooo good.

[mosdub]

So this is probably lame and a waste of time, but I was thinking I will probably make biscotti and breakfast cookies. I love dunking something into coffee.

[iqeb]

Feb 24, 2017 6:44:05 GMT -5 mosdub said:

So this is probably lame and a waste of time, but I was thinking I will probably make biscotti and breakfast cookies. I love dunking something into coffee.

This does not sound lame, it sounds amazing.

[ourcrazynavylife]

jennykat I think I did it a month or two out from my edd.

[ourcrazynavylife]

Yea, my plan is to get a mini chest freezer since there's zero room in our current freezer. Once we get that then I'll make some stuff. I'll probably just do it all in one day again. It's just easier for me to track that way.

[mustloveerica]

I'm way behind on this. But so far this is what I have in my freezer....

-(3) batches of breakfast burritos. I think there 60 total.
-blueberry muffins
-(2) loaves banana bread
-(20) pepperjack chicken tacos
-(2) batches turkey chili (Panera copy cat! So good)
-(2) veggie chili
-(4) trays lasagna roll ups
-(2) pans Mexican stuffed shells
-(2) pans sausage stuffed peppers
-(2) loaves of bread made into pbj sandwiches
-(2) pans spinach and chicken alfredo
-(3) different marinated chickens for crockpot
-(2) marinated pork loins for crockpot
-like 10 frozen pizzas (we pick one up every time we go to aldis)
-one batch choco chip cookies

[mustloveerica]

Feb 26, 2017 13:26:04 GMT -5 jennykat said:

For ladies who did this with their previous pregnancies, how far out did you start freezing meals? I want to be prepped but avoid freezer burn.

I started a couple months ago. I started with baked goods and chilis. Really saucy stuff doesn't seem to get freezer burned for me. I am a little worried about what I made last weekend. It was just potatoes, chicken and broccoli in a casserole but I'm worried there won't be enough liquid to keep the potatoes from turning black.

[ourcrazynavylife]

I got my little chest freezer!!

[ourcrazynavylife]

Now to plan a prep day

[onesweetworld]

I need to do this even though H says he is always going to cook and handle dinner like he does now. I really want him to hold the baby when he gets home and not have to worry about cooking.

[mustloveerica]

Mar 2, 2017 17:53:20 GMT -5 jennykat said:

mustloveerica can I have links to your recipes for blueberry muffins, lasagna rolls, and spinach chicken Alfredo?



Sure!

Lasagna Rollups (I usually chop up a bunch of spinach and roll it up with the ricotta too.  I'm all about sneaking veggies into things)
thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/lasagna-rollups/



Freezer Friendly Blueberry Muffins (we eat these more for treats than for breakfast so I like to sprinkle some sugar on top before baking)
content2be.blogspot.com/2012/07/big-batch-blueberry-muffins-fill-your.html?m=1

Spinach Chicken Alfredo
www.cleverlysimple.com/spinach-chicken-alfredo-recipe-freezer-cooking/