Hi! If you haven’t heard yet, I’m giving away two free entries to the Glass City Marathon (5K, half, or full)… more info on that here!
When your day off work rolls around, do you have a hard time finding things to do? I don’t! Typically my day off is filled with a long run in the morning, and then various errands or chores. But what about when you’re tapering?? No long run scheduled for the day. A free day?? My mind is filled with a million things I want to do.
When I had a free day before Churchill’s half, I decided it would be a great time to fill up my freezer with some meals! I enjoy cooking, but I also love having a bunch of food that I can plan on not having to do anything to get it on the table for my family. So I spent my week prior to Friday pulling together a bunch of recipes and making a grocery list. I swear I was having some sort of brain failure because I put together WAY TOO MANY recipes. It’s hard to see the big picture when I was so focused on the end result!!! 🙂
I hit Sam’s Club with my list before it was even open to the public (thanks early hours for business memberships!!). Then I decided the super large cans of tomato products were such a great deal and I really needed them!! Who can pass up $2.98 for a freaking huge can of tomato sauce? Not me. Look, I’ve got 4 super duper huge size of cans!! (102 oz)
It was still so early, Aldi wasn’t open (my original planned destination to make all of these meals cheap!), so I went to Walmart next door and bought the rest of my items on my list. It looked like this when I got home.
My recipes consisted of two categories – bags of meals that could be thawed and dumped into a crockpot, or a casserole that could be thawed and popped in the oven for an hour. My casseroles involved pasta, and soon I was in over my head. Literally. With a ton of pasta. What was I thinking???
I started bagging all of the crockpot meals, and finding containers to put the casseroles in. These little bag holders are a lifesaver on a day like this!!
Within a few hours I felt a sinking feeling that I had WAY TOO MUCH food and my freezer was not going to hold all of the meals I had picked out. We have a separate freezer, but still, there are a lot of other things already in the freezer! I got about halfway through and I still had a big bag of groceries left! And some of the recipes were not very detailed. They said things like “put in pan”. Was that a 9×9 pan, or a 9×13? Was I supposed to grease it?? In my frustration I decided that I needed a break from my kitchen, and went out for some fresh air and enjoy the beautiful day (race packet pick up and Pokemon Go playing with Alan!!).
Even a few days later I had a random collection of groceries that were just not going to make the cut this time around, so I stuck them in my pantry. Is it just me, or do you ever find a can of a random ingredient that went to some recipe you forgot to make? “Now why did I buy those sun dried tomatoes??”
In the end, I did have a freezer packed to the brim with food we’d be eating for months to come. I hope they are good because I’ve never tried any of these recipes before!
Now the only thought on my mind…. where am I going to put the Thanksgiving pie and turkey that I need to buy very soon??
Sigh.
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How about you?….
Q: Do you ever have “freezer cooking” sessions?
Q: Do you use a crockpot very often?
Q: What’s your go-to meal when you forgot to plan dinner?
Cereal. We love cereal!!
Whaaaaat! How cool are those bag holders! I had no idea those existed but now I really NEED them!
I know, right?? I saw those originally from a Groupon email. Yes, gotta have them! They are incredibly handy.