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Article Surfing ArchiveLearn How To Plan Your Meals To Free Up Your Time - Articles SurfingMeal planning and bulk cooking are both wonderful techniques you can utilize and modify to fit your families needs. The idea behind this is simple. The principle is that you cook and or prepare your meals ahead of time and then preserve them by either freezing or fridgerating them. Also, meal planning you can cook one large meal and get 2-3 other meals out of it! The key here is to make every meal you cook count! When you are going to prepare a family favorite, double, triple, even quadruple the recipe if it will keep in the freezer. Sound wonderful doesn't it? Why not give yourself a much-needed break -- cook ahead today so you can relax tomorrow! Start by writing down a list of your favorite meals and plan on preparing a grocery list that will coincide with your list. Now, since we are talking bulk cooking here ' if you normally would serve up one pot of spaghetti ' plan to serve 2 (that would mean that you will have to double the recipe ' so be sure to alter your shopping list accordingly) ' It will take the same amount of time to cook ' just a little extra planning is needed. The most important tool in meal planning and bulk cooking is your freezer. If you have a small freezer, don't fret; you can fit many meals in that small freezer space ' it will just call for a little more creativity on your part. With the use of freezer bags, that you can stack flat and the use of some freezer proof containers you will be surprised at how many meals your freezer can hold. Here are a few essential and widely used meal planning techniques and tips: What about Hamburger Helper? Why not cook 2-3 boxes of it, separate it into 3 separate large containers and freeze them. That idea alone allows you to prepare 3 meals in just 30-minutes. Designate a meal for a particular night ~ Every Friday night in my house is either Pizza or burger night. The idea here is to choose any night of the week and just designate a meal to go with that night. I always make sure that I have plenty of Frozen Pizza's with a variety of toppings on hand in my freezer. The same goes for those Turkey burger patties (my family doesn't eat much ground beef). The idea behind this process is that you now have one night's meal already planned. You can also stock up on that meal when the products are on sale. If you see Frozen pizza's being sold in bulk, grab them up! Use the sales paper ~ everyone loves a good sale and I use the sales paper to help me in my meal planning. When I see our Family favorites on sale ' instead of buying one, I will purchase 3-4 of the same items and simply come home and prepare the meals or freeze the food that I purchased. My family and I love Chicken. When I spot whole chickens on sale I've been known to purchase up to 5-6 at a time. Keep in mind that I have a family of 6 and in my family of six; there are 3 teenagers (and you know how much they can consume). By shopping like this, I actually save hundreds and hundreds of dollars a year in food alone! Helpful supplies Labels/freezer bags/Freezer-proof containers: Be sure that you have all of your freezing and refrigerating needs on hand. When storing food in freezer safe containers be sure to place a label on the container with the name of the meal and the date the meal was prepared. Crockpot: This handy appliance is my best friend in the kitchen. When using a crockpot you literally prepare the meal, place it in the crockpot, Set it & Forget it. It is a hands free cooking experience. I cook whole chickens in my crock pot and then slice the chicken up to freeze and use for sandwiches, enchilada's, chicken salads, chicken soup, chicken stew.. as you can see ' the possibilities are endless. As you can see, meal planning is a money, sanity and time saver - what else could a busy mom ask for? Now, let's get Cookin'!
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