Christian Homekeeping

I was tired of buying lemon juice and it going bad before I had time to use it up.  I thought, why not freeze it?  So, I opened a jar of organic lemon juice and used some old baby food freezer cube trays I had and although it worked, they were difficult to get out.  I think I would prefer silicone cube trays for this but at least I am saving a bottle of lemon juice from going bad now.

Several years ago I started freezer cooking for a month and then that evolved into freezer cooking for 3 months and I did this for about 2 years or maybe more.  I no longer freezer cook.  I've been asked as to why I stopped and I decided to share my personal reason.

The main reason I stopped freezer cooking is because I don't believe it is healthy.  I believe it contributed to my ill health that eventually came about, that along with stress.


I'm not talking about frozen food, such as vegetables, that are actually better for you frozen than fresh vegetables that have sat too long.  When a farmer picks vegetables and immediately freezes them, it locks in more nutrients than when he picks fresh and is transported and sits at the store and by the time you eat it, it has lost a lot of nutrients.  The BEST way to eat vegetables is from your own garden.  Pick and serve that day or week for the best nutritional value.  Second best is buy from a local farm within a week after they pick it.  Third best is frozen.  Canned is of course is the worst from all the studies I've read.

So, frozen vegetables are great but what is not great is buying store-bought vegetables, frozen vegetables or canned and then mixing them in a meal and freezing them.  You really are going to miss over half, if not more, of the nutrient value.

Cooking raw meat and then freezing it is not a good idea either I believe.  Stick with fresh or frozen raw meat.

Also, I used a lot of canned tomato products to make homemade sauces and I believe that was incredibly not-healthy!  When you open a canned item, especially an acidic item like tomatoes - you should use it right away.  Never use it to make homemade sauces that will be not be used within a few days!  I believe there is a health danger to freezing open canned items.

Now you know why I quit freezer cooking.  I believe it was a large factor in my ill health as what you eat for 3 months doesn't show up in your body till the next 3 months.  It can take 3-6 months to rebuild your nutritional stores in your body and health.  Fresh is usually always better - cook fresh meals for your family.  Learn how to garden!  We really need to get back to the basics in our country, not only for health reasons, but for financial and to develop a good work ethic in future generations.

I'm back to doing a lot of freezer cooking, though not as I did before my son was born when I made 3 months worth of meals but I'm getting there.  One thing I do like to make in bulk is our pizza and spaghetti sauces.

I make enough pizza sauce to last us for two months.  I divide it so that we have enough for 2 pizzas on Friday, using the leftovers on Saturday for lunch.  We used to only make one pizza and this sauce would have lasted us 4 months but now we are utilizing the extra pizza for leftovers.  On Friday morning, I sit one of these on the counter from the freezer and by the time I make the pizzas it is thawed completely.  I also normally do these in Ziploc bags but when I went to get them, I was out, so I had to use the containers we normally use for spaghetti and jam.



I couldn't find the recipe for the pizza sauce I use on Crystal's website (The Family Homestead), so I'm posting it here.  The one she has up now does not include the soy sauce.  I'm pretty sure this pizza sauce recipe came from her though, I've been using it for 8 years or so now!

Adapted from Crystal's recipe at The Family Homestead

Bulk Pizza Sauce
makes about 14 cups (enough for 14 X-large pizzas)

106 oz. Tomato Sauce
24 oz. Tomato Paste
1/2 cup Italian Seasonings
2 tsp. crushed garlic
4 tsp. soy sauce
4 tsp. salt

Mix together with a whisk and divide into freezer bags or containers.


We used to have spaghetti every Tuesday but now we just have it twice a month but I still need spaghetti sauce for my lasagna casseroles, which take 4 cups of sauce per casserole.  I left 4 cups of sauce in my measuring cup because I'm making my 2 lasagna casseroles today.  Here is the batch I make with a large 106 oz. tomato sauce can:




This recipe makes 16 cups of sauce for 4 lasagna casseroles with enough leftover for 2 spaghetti meals.

Adapted from Crystal's recipe at The Family Homestead

Bulk Spaghetti Sauce
makes about 19 cups

106 oz. Tomato Sauce
24 oz. Tomato Paste
60 oz. Diced Tomatoes
4 tsp. Salt
1/2 cup Italian Seasonings

Mix together with a whisk and divide into freezer bags or containers.


As you can see the only difference between pizza and spaghetti sauce is the diced tomatoes, soy sauce and garlic.  You can use garlic in your spaghetti sauce too though, but the soy sauce is normally just used in the pizza sauce.  You use diced tomatoes in spaghetti sauce to make it more liquid but you leave it out in the pizza sauce so it is thicker.  These are easy to make in bulk when you purchase those 106 oz. huge cans of tomato sauce, which is what I do!  Two of those cans lasts us 2 months of lasagna, spaghetti and pizzas.  We only need 12 of those a year and we buy them in bulk for just $56 a year for the organic sauce.

My daughter begged me to let her make the strawberry jam this time and I didn't think she was old enough yet to do the whole process, but she did it!  She picked off the stems, soaked them, rinsed, blended and added them to the sugar and pectin mixture and stirred.  I also thought that she couldn't pour them properly into the containers with the ladle without spilling them all over the sides but she sure showed me lol!  She did it almost perfectly!  Even though we only make jam twice a year, it is now her chore and one she loves doing.  I'm so glad that she is willing and enthusiastic about learning these things, it sure makes my job of teaching her that much easier.

I have been putting these off for too long, sorry for those whose questions I'm not getting answered until now.  I tried to answer all the questions in the Freezer Cooking Guide but some I wasn't able to, so I will go ahead and answer all of them now.

Q. When I go to cook a meal that's already been frozen, what's the procedure? Do I need to defrost for a period of time, or simply pop the frozen dish in the oven?

A.  Here is what I do: for meals that have any type of pasta, I do a quick-thaw, which is basically filling up a large bowl or the sink with room temperature water and placing the ziploc bag in the water for 10-20 minutes or until you can break it up and get it out of the bag.  Then, I put it on a skillet on the stove and heat it till very hot, constantly turning as it starts to melt even more.  This way helps to prevent soggy pasta, and heating it on the skillet also helps to make the noodles crispier.  I've done it the other way and let it thaw for hours in the fridge or counter and its a soggy mess.

For meals that are casserole dishes, I simply take them from the freezer and put them in a pre-heated oven and bake.  With spaghetti and pizza sauce, you can either thaw them in the fridge or counter and heat them on the stove or microwave or you can quick-thaw them in water and heat them up.

Meals such as BBQ Beef and other sandwich fillings, taco fillings or those that go with rice, I simply let them thaw on the counter or in the fridge most of the day.  Then I will heat them on the stove, in the oven or sometimes the microwave in a microwaveable-safe glass dish.  You will find that while they are thawing, the sauces really help marinade the meat.  The meatloaf, for us, is way better after its been frozen then before!

Q.  Can rice be cooked and froze in the freezer?  I would also like to start making meals for up to at least two months and one of my family's favorite side dishes is rice. I know it would be nothing to cook it that day that we eat it but if it can be cooked in big patches and froze and then popped in the microwave that I would love to try it.

A.  Yes it can though we prefer freshly cooked rice.  If you want to freeze rice, simply cook it and then let it cool and transfer to ziploc bags.  You can portion it out but you don't have to because rice is easy to break off, even when frozen.  Do the same with rice as you would with pasta, do a quick-thaw and then heat, although I would think you would need to add some water to the rice when re-heating.

Q.  will you be putting a 3-4 month menu of how you divided and eat your delicious dinners?
how much do you spend at the store for cooking 3-4 months of meals at one time?
do you have any leftovers? if so what do you do with them? 

A.  The guide I did was geared to once a month cooking and all I can offer right now to show how I do the 3-4 month freezer cooking is my posts under freezer cooking on this blog.  It is so strange how it works out but it is cheaper for me to cook 3 months of meals at once, than if I did 1 month, 3 months in a row.  I think its because I buy larger sizes of certain ingredients and it seems to cost less.  I average about $150 for what I need to cook 3 months of freezer meals.  That is from getting my meat on sale, usually buy one get one deals and purchasing a lot of my other items directly from a farm, thereby cutting out the "middle man" and saving money! ;-)  I portion out our meals to last for one meal, so we don't have leftovers.

Q.  i would love your recipe for granola bars.  I have been looking but can't seem to find it. 

A.  I use this recipe.

Since I had the chicken enchiladas in 2 glass pie plates, it was harder this time to fit it all in the freezer but I did with room to spare!  I will go picture by picture on how I packed the freezer.....

1.  I freeze my 3 glass casserole dishes on the side ledge and divide them with cardboard so they don't get squished.  Then in the second photo, I'm showing you how I arrange the already frozen ziploc bags - standing up for easy access.  I freeze whatever I cook on a certain day in the tray on top and then when its frozen solid by next morning, I move it to the bottom.


2.  This was my first time using pie plates for a freezer meal - chicken enchiladas.  I had 2, so I came up with the idea to break apart a box and then place one on one side and then put the other side down and place it on top.  You can't see it in the photo, but I had another piece of cardboard folded into a triangle to keep the cardboard off the one on the bottom.  It worked perfectly!


3.  Next, I froze Friday's meals in the tray and moved them below on Saturday when they were frozen.


4.  Then on Saturday, I froze the meatloaves and beefy mac in the trays.  Notice how everything fits and there is still room under the tray on the left for more food!  All I have left to put in there is the mac n' cheese on Mon. night.


5.  Here are 2 shots of the freezer above the fridge.  This is where I store my spaghetti and pizza sauces, yeast, bananas for shakes, berries, junk food (yes, we occasionally eat junk), burritos, ice pack, ice, salmon patties, muffins, etc.  This week, I'm taking those 5 pounds of strawberries and making jam.  I'm actually going to move things around a bit in here next week but here is how it looks now:


I hope this helped show you how YOU can fit 3 months of meals in a small 5-cubic foot chest freezer!!  It's all in the packing!  We have packed a LOT of Uhaul's in our days - so we have learned a bit about making things fit and who knew it would benefit my freezer packing abilities lol. ;-)

Some have asked where we got our freezer.  We actually bought it from our 2nd pastor in Alaska, but you can find it here at Walmart for $199: http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=5751096

We have had this freezer, the Haier brand for 6-7 years now and it runs great.  We had a lot of ice build-up on the sides but hubby just chopped it off with a screwdriver and we melted it in the sink lol.  No need to turn it off and let it melt when it comes off so easily!  I keep mine on 2 and the food gets frozen solid as a rock.  I don't think I've ever used the highest setting of 3, don't see a need to.  The cost to run the freezer per YEAR is just about $20 on setting 2, I suppose its more like $26 a year on setting 3.  So cost is definitely not an issue here!  

You normally don't get freezer burn at all in a chest freezer, that is mostly limited to foods put in a freezer that is above a fridge.

I wanted to give you all an idea of how you can utilize a small chest freezer and easily fit in freezer meals along with other items.  First, I will show you the freezer space above our fridge - where we store ice cream, berries, ice, ice packs and whatever else.  I also keep my sauces here and you can see that you can get the ones that stack and then I use freezer bags for my pizza sauce:


When packaging up your meals, you will find that most easily go into freezer bags - only casseroles need a larger container usually.  Here is an example of how little space these meals take up, this is 4 meals of sloppy joes flattened and stacked:


For my casserole dishes, I stack those on the side ledge and put a piece of strong cardboard between them so they don't smoosh together.  I didn't have enough room for the 4th one, so I stack it on top of the other items.  Here are some photos I took of my small chest freezer to give you an idea of how little space freezer meals take up:


Until the meals freeze solid - I will keep them on the top baskets.  Then once they are hard, I stack them with the others in the bottom.  I still have a lot of space for the rest of freezer cooking this week, making 4 total months worth of freezer meals.