Three Meals, Nine Ways

When I do my weekly grocery shopping I think about possibilities for dinner, but most of the time I decide in the morning of the day of, what I will make.
There have been times, however, when it was necessary to think ahead and freeze meals. If you work and want to prepare homemade meals, it’s probably a given. Even so, we go through phases and stages such as preparing for coming home from the hospital, baseball seasons, driving the kids all over town for various lessons and games, preparing for family coming home or going away and leaving part of the family at home. Sometimes you just need to be more organized than other times.
I thought I would share a tad about taking a few hours to make freezer meals. It takes a bit of planning, but in the end, you save money and time. Planning meals creates less waste, because your meals are divided out according to servings and it saves a lot of clean up on the days that you serve something that you just re-heat.

So here’s one idea. You will need about 5 – 10 lbs of lean ground beef, depending on the size of your family. In these photos I used 5 pounds. I like to go to a local butcher and get it fresh and then divide it into three parts.

Part #1 – Mix up a batch of mini meatballs (1 ½ - 2 lbs will make about 75) (recipe) Bake them for 20 minutes, cool and divide into three small ziplock bags. These can quickly be added to meals such as your favorite spaghetti sauce, mushroom sauce (recipe) or covered with an apricot glaze.

Part # 2 – Place meat in large cooking pot, brown and make your favorite chili sauce. Let this simmer on low, while you continue. Cool and divide chili into three containers. This can be used for a meal of soft tacos (recipe), cornbread with chili or chili soup (recipe).

For part #3 – Cook ½ cup – 1 cup brown or white rice and mix a meat filling that will be divided up for three meals – filled peppers, porcupine balls and cabbage rolls, (recipe). I use the same filling and sauce for all three recipes.

I add a can of tomato soup to the sauce in the recipe or if you like you can just used tomato soup. I cook all three meals in roasters for about 60 – 75 minutes at 350F. Then I divide them into foil or Pyrex dishes to freeze. When I freeze meals, I like to know that they are cooked and only need to be heated.

If you have more time, add a large lasagna. Intersperse these meals with a crockpot meal, pizza, stir fries or pailards - all of which can be on the table quickly if the ingredients are on hand.