{"id":114,"date":"2013-08-12T22:32:17","date_gmt":"2013-08-12T22:32:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kristendembroski.com\/?p=114"},"modified":"2013-12-27T08:00:46","modified_gmt":"2013-12-27T14:00:46","slug":"school-year-dinner-prep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.kristendembroski.com\/?p=114","title":{"rendered":"School Year Dinner Prep"},"content":{"rendered":"

In preparation for … (holding my breath<\/em>)…. Back… To….(gulp<\/em>) School….. (there, I said it<\/em>), I am beginning to get things in order around the house. One of those tasks includes grocery shopping and preparing meals. Bless the Teacher-Mothers who are able to come home and cook dinner for their families; I just can’t seem to manage that, and I’m not even a mother! I decided to try frozen Slow-Cooker meals as a new option for my husband and me. I found some excellent recipes from Six Sisters’ Stuff<\/a> – they really know their stuff! Very easy recipes without crazy ingredients, affordable, and delicious.<\/p>\n

Though they have dozens of recipes, I picked 4 to begin: Cilantro Lime Chicken, Chicken Broccoli Alfredo, Hearty Beef Stew,<\/strong><\/span> and Chicken Cacciatori.\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"School<\/a>I began at the grocery store, where the above ingredients cost me only $51.63!!! Since I am making 8 Bags (16 meals), that’s only $3.22 a meal! I was very pleased with this, and I know I could have done better with coupons (new goal for next round).<\/p>\n

The preparation took approximately 1 hour, just like the Six Sisters promise. I have a few recommendations if you are going to give this a try:<\/p>\n

1. Begin by getting out a Sharpie and labeling all of your freezer bags.<\/strong><\/span> The Six Sisters recommend using freezer gallon bags. I did this, but I split each of the recipes into *2* gallon bags. They say the recipes are for approximately 5-6 meals, and it’s just my husband and myself, so I figured why not make it even easier by dividing in half.<\/p>\n

2. Prepare all of the meat first.<\/strong><\/span> I hate this part and I like to get it over with. I clean and trim all of the meat and separate it into the appropriate bags. Then I can clean my countertops and not worry about cross-contamination.<\/p>\n

3. Flip out the zippers of the bag.<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0This makes the bags stand up nicely, and they are open for dumping in ingredients. You probably knew this already \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

4.\u00a0Use this as an opportunity to clean out your fridge\/freezer!<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0I love vegetables, so I added WAY more than the recipes called for. I cleaned out my veggie drawer and any little bags of frozen veggies I had left over from other meals.<\/p>\n

5. Save the frozen ingredients for last.<\/span>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Here are the final products – 8 frozen meals for 2-3. The directions are right on the bag: they’re ‘Husband-Proof’!<\/p>\n

\"Crockpot<\/a><\/p>\n

And here they are all stacked up, waiting to go in the freezer. They take up about a third of my freezer space.<\/p>\n

\"Crockpot<\/a><\/p>\n

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A tip I have heard is to use Slow-Cooker liners to speed up the clean-up process. I don’t feel good about cooking my food in plastic bags, so I will not be doing this.<\/p>\n

I hope these meals will last us through the crazy first month of September. The investment (financial and time) are definitely worth it!<\/p>\n

Click here to read about my healthy,\u00a0low-calorie, filling, tasty, creative, and efficient ideas for school lunches<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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