I heart my freezer!

The past few months I have been cooking like a crazy person. Snow days, national holidays, weekends, pretty much every day off inspires me to do one of two things: bake or cook for the freezer. I LOVE to bake. Lately I've been on a snickerdoodle kick. I just found a new recipe in the Martha Stewart Cookie book that is fantastic. Now that I've tried them, I crave them constantly. That's not a good thing for my ever expanding frame... Anyway, I've decided that I also love to cook for the freezer. In my freezer, right now, I have the following items I have made within the last month:
*Red sauce with meatballs (My hubby could eat these twice a week and never tire of them. We only have one container left, and he's been strongly hinting that I replenish them.)
*Basic Crepes
*Waffles
*Pound Cake
*Chicken Tetrazzini
*Baked Chicken--to be used in recipes when I don't have time to bake a few chicken breasts
*Diced Celery--which will be used tonight in Chicken & Dumplings
*Pizza Crust (one big, two personal pan sized)

All of these things have come in handy. On nights when I know I won't have time to cook, I can pull something out of the freezer in the morning before work and stick it in the fridge to thaw throughout the day. I write the cooking instructions on the bag or container (as I'm doing the initial cooking) to keep things simple. I can then follow those instructions and supper (or usually the time consuming part of it is finished). Viola!

The waffles, pizza crusts, crepes, and pound cake keep very well in Ziploc heavy-duty freezer bags, gallon size. I have found them on sale twice at HyVee for $.50 per box of ten. SO when they're cheap I stock up and have plenty to use the next time I get the urge to start cooking.
*I do wrap the pound cake in saran wrap first and layer wax paper between waffles and crepes.

For the baked chicken, frozen veggies, and red sauce with meatballs, I have been using Ziplock containers that are freezer, dishwasher, and microwave safe. I decided to try these when they went on sale at HyVee for $.67 for a pack of 4 or 5. They are normally $2.97, and they would have been well worth the regular price. They freeze very well, and without leaving the food icky or with freezerburn. When microwaved, they do not warp. When put in the dishwasher after holding the red sauce, there is not any discoloration. They are wonderful, plain and simple.

The chicken tetrazzini, and other things like it, freeze well in covered aluminum foil baking dishes--with a layer of saran wrap over the food before putting on the plastic lid. Then instructions can easily be written on the lid in Sharpie.

Those are a few of my very, very basic tips for freezing--my newest obsession. Walking into HyVee and finding these deals on these items while I'm on this kick has been a great surprise. To save time and money in one fell swoop is always a fantastic task!

Lingering thought: Was it really a good idea for me to work on teaching Eli about the chicken while feeding him eggs off of a fork? Now the fork is always, every time called a "bakaw." Nice.