I’m embarrassed to say that as a child growing up we would on occasion eat frozen dinners in front of the television.  I think the frozen dinners were Swanson but I can’t be sure.  I guess it really doesn’t matter because do we really know what’s in these dinners?  It’s clear that frozen dinners, box dinners, and fast food are not the best things to feed your family.

While I am a stay-at-home mom right now, I did work outside of the home up until three years ago after the birth of our third child.  I know what it’s like to be in a hurry to get something on the table that is both nutritious and doesn’t take more than 30 minutes to prepare. I’ve even taken the fast food route instead of making a home cooked meal either because of time constraints or out of sheer exhaustion from the day’s activities. The cost of feeding a family of five at a fast food chain could realistically cost upwards of $25-$30 which could definitely eat up a significant portion of a budget.

I’ve learned to plan ahead and prepare for the times where I am just not in the mood to cook. One of the ways we’ve done this is to focus on freezing our leftovers so that we are not wasteful and ensure that we have a good alternative for dinner. A simple way to plan ahead is by cooking two meals at the same time. Right now I can look in my freezer and I have chicken enchiladas, Ragu Bolognese sauce for pasta, and soup. Sometimes when we cook, we cook a double batch with the intent of freezing enough for another meal later.  Another of our favorites that is really easy to freeze and reheat later is lasagna.  Lasagna is such a laborious meal to prepare because of all the ingredients and steps that are involved and it only makes sense for us to freeze half of the lasagna.  The best thing about freezing is that is simply saves you money. I will be sharing more about my freezer ideas in future posts.