Preparing for Baby: Freezer Meals

I mentioned previously that I'm working on freezer meals for when the baby comes. My plan is to basically cook double the month of November so we have roughly meals for a month after Zombie Baby appears. I know what I'm doing won't make our lives a breeze, but I'm hoping that it will help us not order pizza every other night or rely on our moms to come make us food while we are sleep deprived and figuring out this whole parent business. We'll of course have to shop for some of the sides and items like milk and eggs, but this will cut down significantly on our time in the kitchen as well as cleaning!

To prep for this, I bought a package of Ziploc containers as well as aluminum casserole tins with lids and pie tins. Then, of course, I figured out which meals I would make for each week which was more or less a guide rather than a strict menu plan.

Below is my overview plan. I'll do follow up posts with details, recipes and instructions for anyone interested in doing some prep cooking be it for a baby on the way for you or someone you know or perhaps you just want to have a stock of dinners in your freezer!

Pre-Week 1: (I had a few things to cook the week prior that were suitable for freezing, so I jumped the gun in October)

• Spaghetti Sauce
• Tomato Beef Chili

Week 1:

• Meatballs
• White Bean Chicken Chili
• Creamy Chicken Spinach Pasta
• Florentine Stuffed Shells
• Pumpkin Doughnut Muffins (these might not make it to January :) )

Week 2:

• Macaroni & Cheese
• Chicken Pot Pies
• Vegetable Lasagna
• Mashed Potatoes

Week 3:

• Sausage Egg and Cheese Strata
• Laughing Cow Chicken (Saved individually)
• Beef Enchiladas

Week 4:

• Classic Beef Stew
• Cottage Pie (Shepherd's Pie but with beef)
• Sweet & Sour Chicken

Carl isn't completely inept in the kitchen either, so hopefully between the two of us when none of these sound good or we run out, we still have some options. Some easy dinners I plan on having stocked in the pantry and freezer are as follows:

• Buitoni's Cooked Cheese Tortellini with Pesto Sauce (Both are kept well in the freezer for months)
• Polish Kielbasa with Zattarain's Jambalaya Mix (Freezer for kielbasa and pantry for rice mix)
• Waffle Mix and Turkey Bacon (Mix in the pantry, bacon in the freezer- btw- bacon thaws unbelievably quickly!)
  

So that's the plan. We'll see how well I can stick to it, especially with Thanksgiving thrown in there. Eek..the holidays are going to be here before we know it. I suppose I should get my butt in gear on preparing for those as well. What was I thinking have a baby in January? ;) So much going on in the next few months!