Freezer Cooking = Success

I talked about my plan to start freezer cooking last week and this past Sunday, I made it happen.

I visited ye ole Wally World (also known as the pit of hell) Sunday afternoon after lunch at Mema's and spent a grand total of $227 on groceries (along with paper products and a few other things) for the entire month then returned to my house to get to cookin'.

First on the list was actually not a freezer meal, but more of a "make ahead to cook later this week" meal since I knew I wanted to go ahead and have it on Monday night.

"Baked Shrimp Scampi" from "What's Cookin', Chicago?"

ingredients, yes that is two whole sticks of butter (one melted)

Single I was planning on eating this Monday night, I just put it in foilware and covered with (some very festive) cling wrap

* this was 'effin delicious!

Then I ventured into the real freezer meals...

Apple Pie Porkchops from "Once a Month Mom"

sorry, I forgot to take a picture of the ingredients for this one

all mixed up

can we pretend like I didn't put the wrong date on every single one of my freezer bags? it was definitely 01/29 not 01/30

Sweet & Sour Pork from.... 

crap I really don't remember where I got this from, promise to find it for ya'll though!

the extra "pour over" sauce, which I froze separately.

ready to freeze

Orange Beef Stew from Mama and Baby Love

I defrosted this and put it in the crockpot Tuesday morning so it could cook while I was at work. Josh loved it, but I wasn't a real big fan. It didn't taste very "orangey" to me, next time I may put some actual oranges in there with it.

Curry Chicken from Mama and Baby Love

Some helpful advice:
While I realize this is my first time even trying this so I am probably not the best source for advice, I do have a few suggestions.

• Make sure you write down exactly how many you need of each thing. For example, the apple pie porkchop recipe called for 8 apples, well I just wrote "apples" and ended up about 4 apples short and had to go BACK to the store. 
• Check your cabinets before you make your official grocery list so you don't end up with multiple jars or items (I now have like 5 containers of cinnamon).
• Set aside a WHOLE day for this. I thought I could grocery shop and cook all this stuff in 3 hours, but shopping along took me an hour and a half then cooking took longer than expected followed by this problem:

since I don't have a dishware I had to stand over that sink for 45 minutes (at 10pm) to turn this picture into....

....this picture.

So that is my first experience in the world of freezing/cooking ahead, I plan on doing more this coming up Saturday too.

Also, don't forget to enter my giveaway, it ends tomorrow!

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