Frozen Assets

What if I told you I had a way for you to gain an extra hour each day … or seven hours per week … or nearly thirty hours per month? Would you start wondering if I’d fallen out of the crib onto my head a few too many times as a baby? Well, this deal is for real. I have a commodity to offer that’s more valuable than gold … or land … or diamonds. That precious gem is called: Time!

Wouldn’t you love to free up quantities of time each and every day? Time that could be spent sitting down with your spouse on the couch, or actually putting your feet up after work for a few undisturbed moments? Wouldn’t your children relish curling up in a parent’s lap for a cuddle and a chapter from the family’s latest read-aloud book before dinner?

“Mom, What’s for Dinner?”

And wouldn’t you love having an easy answer for that perennial question, “What’s for dinner?”

What’s for dinner tonight could be as simple as something you whip together in fifteen to twenty minutes: Salisbury steak, homemade fish chowder, Aunt Emily’s favorite lasagna, roast turkey with all the fixings, marinated chicken breasts, or whatever else your family enjoys eating. And you won’t spend an hour or two slaving over a hot stove every night to achieve these culinary miracles. They might require the minor effort of throwing a baking dish into the oven and forgetting about it for an hour; or stirring something over a stovetop burner just until it’s heated through. Make a salad, slice some French bread fresh from the corner bakery, and voila’, you have a dinner that would make Martha proud!

Say Good-Bye to Crisis Meal Planning

If your home is anything like mine, you’ve probably found that five o’clock each evening is one of the most hectic times of the day. Mom and Dad are just finishing up a long day of work at home or at the office. The kids are hungry and tired after a full day at school and afternoon sports. It’s time to fix supper or at least we should be getting dinner started if we want to eat a meal before midnight! But what’s for dinner tonight? Well, your guess is probably as good as mine … and it seems more often than not, nobody knows. So the whole family hops in the car and heads through the local drive-thru for the third time this week.

Someone I know once called this “crisis meal planning.” Each night’s dinner is the latest in a string of mealtime crisis-management decision. Everyone’s tired. The kids are hungry. The whining is starting in earnest. What’s a parent to do?

“What will we have to eat? Um … well … I just heard that Fred’s Diner is having a sale on cheeseburgers this week. Let’s go! Everyone in the car!”

Rather than planning ahead to prevent panic and poor nutritional choices, many families coast through their days without giving a thought to dinner, and then discover they’ve crashed headlong into that nightly mealtime crisis once again.

Cooking ahead for the freezer can be the answer to this all-too-frequent mealtime dilemma. The process of cooking an entire month’s worth of meals in one day is an efficient and cost-saving alternative for many families, but spending eight hours in the kitchen is daunting for some who would like to try this method. The mini-session is the perfect answer for these people.

Whether you choose to double or triple recipes during your regular meal preparations, cook a full month of meals at a time, or simply choose a mini-session or two, you’ll find this methods of cooking ahead for the freezer will save not only your time, but also your money and sanity. No more “crisis” meal planning; you’ll have dinner on the table regularly with little more fuss that heating a thawed freezer meal and adding a quick salad or side dish.

So … are you intrigued? Are you ready to at least read about the idea and give it some thought?

Okay, let’s get started!

Start Here: My Introduction to Frozen Assets

~Debi

ABOUT: Deborah (Debi) Taylor-Hough is the author of a number of popular books including the bestselling Frozen Assets cookbook series, Frugal Living for Dummies®, and A Simple Choice: A practical guide for saving your time, money and sanity. She also edits the Simple Times e-magazine.