Freezer cooking!

So school is fast approaching, and I have been wanting to freeze some meals to make life a little "easier." The beginning of the school year is always busy, and last year I felt overwhelmed trying to be a wife as well as a teacher. 

I have known some friends who have done freezer meals for a month, but felt a little overwhelmed by it. I found a few pinterest ideas that gave crockpot recipes that you could freeze then throw into the crockpot the morning you are cooking! 

I made a list of several recipes, and then picked the ones I wanted to do. I thought all crockpot ones this time, so I won't have to worry about actually preparing the dish. My next goal may be to add some non-crockpot recipes into my freezer meals. 

One website Saving You Dinero had 5 crockpot meals in one post. It gave me the grocery list, and the meals all together. I found another cilantro lime chicken recipe on pinterest (I then had to search in google cause the picture didn't connect to the link) Cilantro picture I posted the picture that way when you search it you know what the picture looks like!!! I JUST FOUND THE CILANTRO LIME RECIPE.... SO CHECK IT OUT HERE: CLICK AT TOP OF PAGE WHERE IT SAYS PRINTER-FRIENDLY DOWNLOADED VERSION It has several other recipes on the page, but I just did the cilantro chicken. So there are 6 meals. I then did a crockpot recipe I have made before Chicken Spaghetti I made the bag, but without the noodles. I will do that the night before like she suggests and put into the refrigerator. Which makes meal number 7.

Since there are just two of us I was able to half all the recipes which then gave us 14 meals!!! If you have more then 2 you could always double recipes to give more meals. While making the meals I kept thinking these are small, but I reminded myself there will be no leftovers like normal! 

Nathan was a GREAT help while making the recipes, so the fixing part went by quick! About hour and half to fix/clean up. We were planning on making 8 meals but we ran out of frozen chicken. I figured that meal was going to be easy, so I could run to the store and make that the night before if I decided to make it (chicken, corn, rice, cream of chicken...) You can find it here if you decide you want to make that one. The rice and corn you would put in after it started cooking and cook for an extra 30 min.)

 Nathan helping out!

 Last meal - Cilantro Lime Chicken!!! I labeled each bag with instructions and title!

Everything in the middle upper shelf is freezer meals! It didn't take long and much space! 

14 meals ready to go!!!

I plan on having rice with some, so I will have to cook that the day of. But rice will be easy compared to a whole entire meal. 

I printed off the recipes from Saving You Dinero and pasted them on index cards. I now have them, so when I need to make them again I have them handy. 

Saving You Dinero also recently posted that they just made 5 more freezer meals, and will be posting the recipe/grocery list within 2 weeks after she has tried them herself. 

I hope to continue this, so hopefully I can post more.

* And she really does try to "Save You Dinero" by using items you have around the house plus using same ingredients in several of the dishes!

I will also post after we have tried them, and let you know pros/cons.