F is for Freezer

My sweet husband got me a beautiful freezer for the garage as a "You Gave Birth Again" present.

Now, this isn't like when a husband buys his wife a new stove or vacuum, this was something I specifically requested.  You see, with two little ones, dinner time is hard.  Really hard.  I have a two year old who keeps me out of the house most of the day, and an infant who needs nursing as soon as we get home.  So, the solution for me is to have easy meals that are prepped and can be thrown in the oven if we'll be home for a while or in the crock pot if we are going to be out all day.

Use the crock pot for more time for this.

Now I got the Vegan Slow Cooker recipe book so that I could do the slow cooker recipes, and the freezer so I could pre-make things like casseroles.  Well, some genius of course came up with a way to utilize both for perfection!

Cook a pre-frozen casserole and have more time for this.

I found this on Pinterest, and while I can't use her recipes, I love her idea.  Basically, you do everything you would before you put stuff in the crock pot (except you make multiples), and then you put it in freezer bags instead of the crock pot.  Then you just pull out a freezer bag and throw it in the crock before heading off for your fun-filled day.   I'm thinking sledding :)

Another trick that I came up with was inspired by another new cookbook I got called Vegan Family Meals.  She has a recipe for lasagna that calls for rolling up the noodles and filling instead of laying them out flat.  If you want to try the recipe, but don't want to buy the book, I found it posted here.  I thought that would be a great way to keep them in single servings.  So I froze them in a cupcake pan, without the sauce, then just pull out a few rolls and toss them in the crock pot with some sauce and they are ready by dinner time.  The last time I did this I also chopped up kale and eggplant to cook in my sauce while the lasagna was cooking.  It turned out great and was a complete meal.