My favorite meal-prep trick of all time is letting Dream Dinners help get supper on the table. Company founders Stephanie Allen and Tina Kuna from Snohomish showed the whole country there is an easier way to make dinner. Cook for a day, pack your freezer with meals and spend the extra time you save with your family.
But four years ago I was diagnosed with gluten intolerance and now I have to worry about things like “Is it soy sauce or is it gluten free tamari?” and “Does it have barley malt in it?” Anyone who deals with a food allergy or intolerance knows that cross contamination in public kitchens is a big issue. How best to be vigilant is a personal decision.
I still get a bit weepy when I think of the glory years when I would head out to Dream Dinners on a Friday night with my cooler in the trunk and come back with a whole month’s worth of dinners. It was easy to divide the meals in half, which made the mission cost effective. A dinner for six would feed my husband, the kids and me for two nights. Having dinner in the freezer meant we were less likely to eat out, which saved us money — and the humiliation of restaurant dining with small children.
Now that I am gluten free I prepare almost all of our meals at home. I try to double one recipe a week and put that in the freezer. Theoretically, this means I should always have several meals ready to go. In actual practice, those random meals get squished behind frozen blueberries and an empty tub of ice cream somebody has eaten and then jammed back in the freezer. Nine months later I discover a Pyrex with “Raspberry Chicken” written on it with faded masking tape.
That’s why I was thrilled to find a magazine this September that bragged about its cook-for-a-day, eat-for-a-month meal plan. Three stores and six hours of cooking later, my kitchen was a disaster. I had run the dishwasher three times and every surface area was covered in mess.
When my husband came home from work, he thought I was cooking dog food. The aroma of chicken, pork, beef, blistered peppers, marinara sauce, squash and rice pilaf mixed into something disgusting.
The plan was designed to combine different prepared foods, plus a few fresh ingredients, into a new meal every night. Pork and blistered peppers would become chili, beef and buttered noodles would become Hungarian Goulash.
Twelve nights into it, our taste buds were burning out.
I’m sorry, but the addition of cilantro doesn’t magically turn beef stew into anything else but beef stew with cilantro. Still, the time I saved was priceless, not only in terms of cooking, but also in menu planning.
No matter how you pack it, the freezer is a mom’s best friend. Unless of course, you’re eating dog food. Then maybe you should just order pizza.
Jennifer Bardsley is an Edmonds mom of two and author of the book “Genesis Girl.” Find her online on Instagram @the_ya_gal ; Twitter @jennbardsley or at teachingmybabytoread.com.
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