Summertime Freezer Cooking

So, I read a lot about freezer cooking online. There are a lot of ambitious people out there who do things like cook once for a whole month by using freezer cooking. But it can also be as simple as freezing some extra leftovers for later when you cook a regular meal, and everything in between. When I was thinking about how to set myself up for success in terms of healthy (and thrifty) eating during my bar-studying couple of months, I realized that freezer cooking might come in handy. From what I have heard, bar studying is pretty manageable for June (and late May) but can get a lot more stressful during July (the exam is at the very end of July). So I got the idea that I should find some recipes that freeze well, make them here and there throughout June, and thus have less cooking (and grocery shopping) to do in July. This is especially easy cooking for one - not only are there plenty of leftovers from cooking a single batch of a recipe, but if I double recipes I get even more.

So far I have cooked a couple of things that I've frozen for later. I made some shrimp spring rolls and froze about half of them in a freezer bag. Just this week I made Cincinnati Chili (recipe is linked). I doubled the recipe, which made 6 servings, ate one serving for dinner, refrigerated two, and froze nine servings! I put the nine servings in three separate freezer bags so I can spread them out over time. As you can see below, I froze the chili flat in the bags so they wouldn't take up much space. I don't have a chest freezer or anything like that, so I will have to be careful about how much space these meals take up. I will update from time to time on how freezing is going. Hoping that cooking all the time will be one less thing to worry about come July!

The chili I ate for dinner - on top of whole wheat spaghetti, with chopped onion and shredded cheddar cheese.

Chili in the freezer! Ready to be thawed and enjoyed later. 

If you happen to be reading this and have any (at least moderately) healthy recipes that freeze well, feel free to send them my way!