I'll let you in on one of my biggest tricks in managing a home while taking care of three little children... frozen meals. No, not those yucky Lean Cuisine meals from the grocery store. I fill my freezer with aluminium pans filled with single servings of tasty wholesome foods that I cook. My husband gets a homemade hot lunch every day... whether I'm home or whether I'm out. He just goes to the freezer, pulls out a pan and pops it in the oven....magic! In my case, these are 'husband meals' but these can also be 'busy mom meals'.
This is how it works.... I cook when I have the time and dish out the food into small aluminium pans. It's really easy, actually. Some of my best recipes are crock-pot dishes.... every busy (or lazy...like me!) mom needs a crockpot (it's not just for cholent!)... because it's so easy just to dump food into the pot, turn it on and return several hours later to find food.
If you are extra busy (or extra lazy...depends on how you look at it) then you can also prep several crockpot meals at once and freeze the raw ingredients. Let's say you get a good price on vegetables, meat, whatever... you clean, check and chop all the 5 tons of veggies and portion them out into jumbo Ziplock bags with the spices and the raw meat you need for your dish and keep the bags in the freezer. When you're ready to cook, you dump the whole bag into your crockpot and add water. (even a husband or a teenage child can do it!)
Here are a few recipes, so you'll get the idea of how easy it is to make this kind of food.
Tuna casserole: cook a bag of egg noodles and drain, add a can of mushrooms (drained), 4 cans of tuna in water (drained), some mushroom soup mix, a little seasoning salt, a little milk and half a bag of grated pizza cheese or yellow cheese. Mush up all together and put into pans! (you don't need to bake.. just pan and freeze)
Tuna pitas: Take 4 cans of tuna in water (drained) and add a can of tomato paste, Italian spices, half a bag of grated pizza cheese or yellow cheese and can of mushrooms or olives (drained). Mush up all together. Buy a bunch of pitas, cut along the edges and fill each pita. Wrap individual pitas in foil before freezing. Again, no need to bake these either.
Pizza quiche: Crack 12 eggs. Add half a bag of grated pizza cheese or yellow cheese, pizza spices, a little milk and your favorite 'pizza topping' vegetables. I like canned olives and mushrooms. Also, diced onions, diced peppers and tomatoes work too. Pour into pans and bake at 180 until set. Freeze after they've cooled.
Chinese noodles: cook a bag of egg noodles and drain. Add 4 cans of tuna in water (drained) and some Asian vegetables. You can buy a frozen bag of 'stir fry vegetables' or use a combination of fresh or canned veggies... julienned carrotes, onions, bean sprouts, baby corn, broccoli..etc. Add a bottle of your favorite Asian sauce... Teriyaki sauce is nice, or soya sauce and sesame oil. Mush up all together and put into pans! (you don't need to bake.. just pan and freeze)
Chinese chicken: cook a package of chicken breasts in the crockpot with your favorite Asian sauce... Teriyaki sauce is nice, or soya sauce and sesame oil. Cook a few hours until the chicken breaks up into chunks when you put a fork it in... then break up all the chicken into chunks. Add a frozen bag of 'stir fry vegetables' or use a combination of fresh or canned veggies... julienned carrotes, onions, bean sprouts, baby corn, broccoli..etc. Cook for an hour. Add a package of stir-fry noodles. Turn off the crockpot and put into pans when cool.
Chicken stew: cook a package of chicken breasts in the crockpot with seasoning salt and herbs (or chicken soup mix). Add chopped onions and root vegetables... carrot, potato, sweet potato, turnip, parsnip, kolrabe, celery. Cook a few hours until the chicken breaks up into chunks when you put a fork it in... then break up all the chicken into chunks. Add some noodles or ptitim or barley. Turn off the crockpot and put into pans when cool.
Meat stew: cook a package of ground meat (or a package of 'kebab meat') in the crockpot with seasoning salt, water and a can of tomato paste. Add chopped onions and root vegetables... carrot, potato, sweet potato, turnip, parsnip, kolrabe, celery. Cook a bunch of hours. You can add some noodles or ptitim or barley. Turn off the crockpot and put into pans when cool.
Bean stew: cook a package of ground meat in the crockpot with a can of tomato paste and mexican spices (or half a can of tomato paste and a jar of salsa) and a couple of chopped onions. Then add 2 or 3 cans of beans (drained)... I like to use 3 different kinds of beans, like one can of black beans, one of red beans and one of white beans. Turn off the crockpot and put into pans when cool.
Minestrone stew: Cook chopped onions and root vegetables... carrot, potato, sweet potato, turnip, parsnip, kolrabe, celery in water with a can of tomato paste and Italian spices. Cook for a few hours. Add a couple of cans of beans (drained) and add some (uncooked) pasta. Turn off the crockpot and put into pans when cool.
The best thing a busy mom can buy for herself is a big huge crockpot! They're not so expensive and they will save you soooooo much time in preparing food. You should buy the biggest size you can find - even if you've just got 3 small children and not 19 kids like the Duggars. You *WANT* to make more food than you need.
It's also really easy to start a crockpot meal in the morning (and forget about it) and then serve that as dinner and then dish out and freeze the leftovers. If you do this for a week, you'll have a good amount of frozen meals in your freezer that you can reheat as lunch for yourself or serve to your husband as lunch.
And yeah, all it takes is taking a pan out of the freezer and re-heating in the oven.... it would take you longer to make a sandwich!
