Tuesday 23 September 2014

In which I plan to overcome the tyranny of the urgent...

I posted about a week or two ago about how we were limping to the end-of-term finish line.  We made it.  Just.  And now my family are rebelling and my husband is complaining about "take away...again?!".  I need to plan to do better because without obsessive organisation and planning absolutely nothing will improve in the next few weeks.  I have four weeks and three assignments to go and I already know that I go into a kind of assignment lock-down.  I get so engrossed in the most urgent things (assignment due dates) that I could easily forget I even have a family, except they are noisy and demanding when it comes to things like food.  They are just so unreasonable!  Really, who ever said they had to eat every three hours anyway?

I looked in my freezer last night and it is practically empty.  This is a distressing realisation for this bunch of food-motivated people.  So I have a plan.  Well, I'm playing fast and loose with the term 'plan', but from 8.30 this morning we'll have no electricity, so I can actually construct a solid plan and then we'll be good to go.  My plan is to put lots of stuff in the freezer so that over the next four weeks I can pull out good food rather than junk.  It will be my buffer between my time constraints and our need to eat better than we have been.

Today I will sit down and think about what I'll put in there and how I'll go about it.  For example, this week I have a casserole and a lasagna planned so that I can freeze half and voila I'll have two meals all ready to go on a whim.  Maybe I'll even do a whole-month menu plan for the first time in forever and assign the kids to cook meals.  Although with Miss Sunshine entering her final Yr12 exam period and Miss Mischief preparing for Yr11 exams just after that I think it'll be Mr Busy and the freezer stash I want to have there.

Alright....let the planning begin.

6 comments:

Left-Handed Housewife said...

I recently checked out some books about freezing a month's worth of meals and the like. I love the idea of just being able to pull something out of the deep freeze in the morning and having it thawed and ready for dinner by night. Unfortunately right now my deep freeze is filled with bags of ice because the fridge's ice maker is broken, and we're all very big on ice in our drinks. Oh, if it's not one thing, it's another ...

xofrances

Kindness matters said...

What often saves me is soups. They freeze really well, and it's easy to get two meals out of them. If it's a soup that utilizes pasta or potatoes, I remove the half that I'm going to freeze before adding the potatoes or pasta. I don't know why but potatoes and pasta don't freeze well.
Did you know that you can seal the cooled soup in Ziploc freezer bags? Lay them on a tray to freeze. Then once they're frozen they are flat and compact.
Good luck with your planning!

Tegan Churchill said...

I have a heap of frozen meals in my freezer at the moment and they are an absolute saviour. I freeze mine in Glad Bag sandwich bags so that I can freeze them flat too.

RedDirtCaveGirl said...

Our second baby is due in 12 weeks, so I have a freezer plan too - just a matter of stopping procrastinating and putting that plan into actio - ha ha!!

Hello fro. #teamIBOT

Joolz said...

You need a slow cooker - lots of recipes out there. Imagine of you could have a chicken hotpot cooking away, bolognese sauce, chilli concarne for nachos, beef stogonoff, pork sweet n sour. All these just need mashed potatoes or rice and you have meals to go!
Pizzas made with English muffins are easy for kids to construct, savoury pancakes...

Joolz said...

I found these freezer meal ideas on a blog. A friend of mine has used this method with great success. Pull out a pack, thaw or place in slow cooker. Most meals just need rice, salad or potatoes added to complete the meal.
Imagine, come 4pm - whats for dinner? Terryaki chicken and rice! or how about an easy baked potato and chilli mince topper? I hope these help.

http://www.aturtleslifeforme.com/2011/06/freezer-meals-on-cheap.html

Cheers - Joolz xx