Freezing meals and meal making parties

About a year ago I started getting together with a group of girlfriends to cook and freeze meals together.  A few of them had been doing it on their own for a while but thought it would be more fun and efficient to get a few people together to help.  The more people helping to prepare and cook the more meals you would get to take home! We have done it about 3 or 4 times now and it is a great success!!  One person hosts the party, one or more people get all the groceries and then we get together and start the process.  The past two or three times it has only cost each person around $60 to take home 8 or 9 meals and some of those meals can be split into 2 or sometimes 3 meals.  We have a great time getting together and chatting while we cook, we learn new recipes together and the process goes so much faster!  I know there are a lot of companies out there that do this too.  You can go there, put the meals together, etc. But we have found that getting together at someones house is more efficient, cheaper and we can pick our own meals.  You can have happy hour with your girlfriends and cook meals to take home to your family at the same time!  Great multi-tasking!

Since I have started to attend the meal making parties, I have done more freezing of meals on my own too.  It is such a convenient thing when you are in a pinch and don't have time to make something, or if you just don't want to cook again.  If I am going to cook a meal that I think will freeze well, I just double the recipe and eat one that night and freeze the other for another night.  Once you have all the ingredients and you were going to make it anyway, it doesn't take much effort to make a second one.

Here are some of meals that we have made at our meal parties or that I have done that freeze well:

• Soup - all types of soup freeze well
• Chili
• Lasagna
• Pot Pies
• Pulled Pork
• Mini meat loaves
• English muffin pizzas
• Baked Ziti
• Enchiladas
• Manicotti
• Pizza hotdish
• Taco Soup
• Taco Hotdish
• French Toast
• Pancakes
• Spaghetti
• Chicken Alfredo
• Stir-Fry
• Cheesy potatoes
• Stroganoff

And I am sure there are many more.  You can either buy freezer containers or use tupperware that you already have to store the items in.  One thing to keep in mind is that the baking times will be longer if the items are frozen when you decide to bake them. 

Happy Cooking!