Freezer Meal Cooking Tips For Busy Moms

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These freezer meal cooking tips will help any busy mom be more productive on those big batch cooking days. These are more than just a how-to!

Daddy Dates

Kids, bless their hearts, can be so distracting when you are trying to get work done.

Our children often need our help at the most inconvenient times – like when you are trying to have a private moment in the bathroom.  I know they do not do it on purpose, but doesn’t it seem like they always need help when you are at your busiest?

My boys never need my help putting train tracks together when I am sitting on the floor trying to help them, but the second I get my hands dirty on a project of my own they need my help.  They also don’t just need a little bit of help; they tend to act like it is a life or death moment!

Any other moms feel this way?  Let me know in the comments!

My freezer meal cooking tips to help avoid this scenario – send them on a Daddy Date!

My boys love going on Daddy dates.  Sometimes it is as easy as them going to the park or maybe to the local doughnut shop.  Other days Daddy will take them to the Science Center or the zoo.  Sometimes, if the weather is bad for example, they don’t even leave the house but Daddy will entertain them and let me do my thing in the kitchen.

Getting the little ones out of the house will allow you to focus on the task at hand.  No more worrying about little hands around the stove or raw meat.

 

Plan For Interruptions

As busy moms, we understand how interruptions can change the game plan for the day.

Sometimes the baby needs to nurse or someone needs a snuggle that only Mom can fill.  But on a big freezer meal cooking day, not all interruptions are child related (especially if you followed tip #1).  The doorbell might ring or perhaps your meat just takes longer to cook than you expected and you have to wait for that before you can proceed.

The second tip, of my freezer meal cooking tips, is to plan for these interruptions.

There are all sorts of interruptions that are out of our control that we should take into consideration when planning our days.  I am not one for planning my day down to the hour or minute because of this.  I, instead, plan my day by approximate blocks of time and give myself plenty of time to allow for interruptions.

This is completely contrary to the advice I gave on Time Saving Tips.  In that post, I suggest you give yourself a tight timeline.  Challenge yourself to a power hour of cleaning, for example.  But when I am planning out a big day of batch cooking, I like to do the opposite and give myself extra time.   I do not like to feel rushed when cooking.

If I think that making 5 dozen cookies will take me 3 hours, I will give myself 3.5 hours or even 4.  Perhaps I am preparing a lot of ground meat for hamburgers, tacos, meatballs, or other dinners – I know that I can get grossed out by meat and may need to step away and take a mental break.

Interruptions happen, and we cannot let them derail us and throw us off the track.  You have to get back on and keep going, even when you are unexpectedly sidetracked.

 

Caffeinate

Coffee or tea it doesn’t matter what your beverage of choice is.  On a freezer meal cooking day, I like to make sure I have an ample supply of caffeine.

If you have read other posts on my blog, like Why I Practice Daily Gratitude or Must Have Swaps For The Zero Waste Kitchen, then you may have noticed my tea making an appearance.

I LOVE TEA!

On a busy freezer meal or batch cooking day, I love to have a cup of tea on the go at almost all times of the day.

Freezer cooking can be tiring and keeping energized is needed to get yourself through a busy day.  When I am starting to feel worn out, I take a break to make myself a tea.  I find making tea to be relaxing.  Even though it only takes a few minutes, it is a great mental break to allow you to push through and check off everything from your to-do list.

Some days, it isn’t about the caffeine in the tea.  It is about the calming effect of taking a moment to make that warm cup of tea.  The ritual of preparing your beverage of choice.  It is more about the mental break from stimulus over the stimulating effects of the caffeine.

 

Plan Your Meals

Have you ever been feverishly working away on a big batch of meals and you realize it is all of a sudden dinner time?

That used to be how every freezer meal day went.  I would have no clue what I was going to make for dinner and it would be too late into the day to figure something out.

Now I plan to use one of the meals I am preparing or will order something like Chinese food.  If I am really prepared, maybe I will have made a homemade pizza the night before and will have that to throw in the oven as an easy dinner.

When this freezer meal cooking tip was suggested to me, I thought it was so obvious and yet so perfect.  It is often overlooked because you spend the day cooking; there will be something for your family to eat.  But sometimes you put everything in the freezer before you decide that is what you want for dinner and then it takes too long to cook so you just order pizza.  Planning ahead for what’s for dinner will make life easier.

 

Ask For Help

Don’t be afraid to ask for help.

This is good advice, no matter what aspect of life we are talking about.

If you have older children, you can ask them to help out with cooking or cleaning.  You can ask your spouse for help – whether it is taking the children so you can work or help with the cleanup.

Another way to incorporate help is to invite some friends over to help you!

I love having Moms Night In.  Invite a bunch of friends over and ask them to bring a recipe or two to contribute.  You can all help each other with freezer cooking and, because you are hanging out with friends while batch cooking, it does not seem like work.  Even if you just have a friend who is willing to come chat and chop vegetables with you, having someone to talk to really helps move the day along.

I hope you enjoyed these freezer meal cooking tips!  If you did, please share this post on social media!