Freezer meals part uno

We're halfway through August and doing GREAT on our no fast food challenge. I got Panda Express once ($4), my big birthday dinner ($60 which I don't think should even count, I mean, it was my birthday), and we ate Whataburger once ($10) mmmm. I bet that probably sounds like a lot for some people but in a normal month, there might be some days that we eat out three times in just ONE DAY. So we're doing great.

I mentioned that we tried out ordering Schwan's at the beginning of this month as a rather expensive method to cut out fast food. Not only is it just as, if not more, expensive than fast food, it's not really any better for us either. I'll probably continue to try things here and there from Schwan's just for the sake of novelty but we're also trying another approach to quit fast food for good(ish): Freezer meals.

Freezer cooking is something that's been on my to-do list for a LONG time but I've always been too intimidated by the daunting task of creating a menu of suitable recipes that can be adapted to freezer cooking. Then I found Once a Month Mom. How I've never run into this before on my travels around the web, I have no idea, but I'm glad I finally have. There are several menus every month to choose from and all the work is already done for you. 

We decided to try the 10 day mini menu for August 2012. I was all gungho about trying the full August menu but Emmanuel was my voice of reason, saying that would be a LOT of food wasted if I ended up hating it. 

All of our produce chopped, sliced, grated, and minced the night before the big cooking day! Isn't it pretty? I ended up being super glad we did this the night before. It took about two hours to do it all but it made cooking day go a lot smoother with everything already cut up and ready to be tossed into whatever.

To be continued...