The CONCEPT

I love cooking. Truly, I do. I love entertaining. I love simmering, and sauteeing, and spicing and broiling. I love experimenting in the kitchen, glass of wine in hand, home filled with loved ones.

But I loathe actually HAVING to cook. I hate it with the intensity of a thousand suns. I hate it like hippies hate bras. Like Jimmy Buffet hates touring through dry counties. And I believe that the daily preparation of the Lunch Sandwich (in our home, also known as “the-food-that-must-not-be-named”) is a particular kind of hell.

Enter the frozen lunch.

Making and freezing lunches ahead of time has been a complete game changer in our household. For years now, we’ve spent a few days per semester cooking and freezing, and then had our children (and occasionally, husband) live off of that bounty for months.

It’s helped us save money on lunches, not just because of how little it costs to put them together, but because I can customize the portion sizes to each of my three kids. My youngest doesn’t waste half his lunch if I only send him what I know he will eat.

It’s allowed me to maintain the control I crave, because – let’s admit it – I live in an Intensive Care Unit, I’m actually PAID to be a control freak. I get to control the quality of the ingredients, the nutritious content of the recipes, the preservatives, the variety of my kids’ diets, and the exposure I give them to different foods. So much good stuff to control, amiright?

And with how happy cooking and freezing has made my family, I naturally want to share the wealth. Which brings us to this, my Freezy-Does-It project  – okay … I’m a neonatologist, not a marketing person, cut me some slack. And by all means, suggest better titles in the comments section, if you have’em!

What this series will be:

This project is meant to be a guide for you to visualize the steps involved in preparing and freezing lunches in advance – nothing more, and nothing less. Because maybe your mac’n’cheese recipe is way better than mine, or maybe your kids don’t eat broccoli, or maybe you have a nut allergy. Then, by all means, modify the recipes! My goal is to show you how to streamline the process so that you can customize the recipes to your taste and convenience, and build your own arsenal.

Now, I generally do not buy pre-made ingredients, when referring to sauces, doughs, snack bars, and other bits I use in my recipes. Any elements that I use in my lunches (pesto, pizza dough, and otherwise), I will show you how to make (and I will account for that time during cooking as well). That being said, I really meant it when I said this is all totally customizable. I have absolutely nothing against convenience (heck, that’s the whole reason for this post!), so if you would rather buy something pre-made and use it in your recipe, please do so! Remember, this is supposed to help YOU achieve YOUR goals, not mine.

THE EXECUTION

So! Here’s how this is going to work. During the month of August, I will take a few “cooking days” to prepare for my own kids’ impending school season, and I will document them (I usually spend about six non-continuous hours on each of those days, cooking and packing – ie, there’s plenty of time for me to make phone calls and check email if I choose). I will break the days up into regular posts, and throw in an occasional snack post as well, so you can stock up on granola bars and other homemade snacks. I’ll show you how to reheat your meals, and I’ll give you suggestions for how to use your lunch entrée to put together a full meal for your kidlets (or yourself). Every week, I will put out a “shopping list” for you to prepare for the following cooking day, and will give you any tips for materials that you may or may not choose to have. And in a few weeks, I’ll also review the actual lunchboxes and containers we use – you can feel free to experiment yourself, but I’ll tell you what has worked for us and why.

So! Expect another post later this week with our first shopping list, and a quick discussion of basic necessities (packing materials, freezer space, cooking utensils). We’ll start out with some of our more basic recipes – if this goes well, I can expand and give you some of my more fun menus.

 

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Start Your Engines – Round One

 

Hand Pies, Four Times Over – Round Two

 

Breakfast for Lunch – Round Three

 

The Home Stretch – Round Four

 

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How to Send Your Love By Proxy: Lunchboxes, Containers, and Safe Food Packing

 

How to Send Your Love By Proxy, Vol 2: Quick Tips for Making Lunch-Packing Easier

 

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Additional Lunch Posts

An Easy Way to Cheat on a Weeknight

Repurposing the Waffle

My actual weekly lunch schedule, an extra snack, and the most foolproof Fruit Leather you will ever meet

A Week in the Lunch Trenches

 

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Visit Our Hall of Glory

 

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A WORD ON FREEZER SPACE

I admit, I have a lot of freezer space. I live with four adult-sized appetites, and one healthy child-sized one, and I tend to freeze and pack 20 weeks’ worth of food for all the kids at a time. Plus, once upon a time, I used to do this regularly for dinners as well as lunches.

So, I have a freezer upstairs for regularly-used items, then a downstairs freezer for frozen lunches, and a separate chest freezer (like this one) for when I’m feeling particularly go-getter-y (or for when I make Thanksgiving meals ahead of time because I have the stupid schedule). I call the chest freezer my Sexy Beast, and I make my hubby apologize to it if he doesn’t treat it with an appropriate level of tenderness.

The FDA does specifically say that a closed, full freezer will maintain its temperature for 48 hrs without power (a half-full one will maintain it for 24 hrs), so food does not need to be thawed or refrigerate or transferred anywhere, as long as you keep the doors closed. So even if your power goes out Saturday, your lovingly-prepared lunches should be safe till Monday when the repair guy comes! Just sayin’ …

Now, you certainly don’t have to have this. We’re going to work on how to maximize your packing strategies in order to best use your space, and we’re going to use flash freezing and labeling techniques that make my heart skip more than Ryan Gosling (who, for the record, has NOTHING on vacuum sealing). But you should plan on being able to fit two jelly roll pans or large cookie sheets into your freezer at once at any given time during your prepping. If you can’t do that, it may be worth it for you to take a look at getting yourself a separate freezer – not necessarily your own Sexy Beast, but maybe something a bit smaller and inconspicuous, that can still guard your hard work (and only cost you an extra $0.75 or so per lunch if you hold 4 months’ worth of meals for one person in it, right?).

 

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I’M ON INSTAGRAM & TWITTER:
You can follow me on Instagram @emiponcedesouza. You can also follow me on Twitter @poncedesouza. If you share your photos, use the hashtag #EmisLunches, and please tag me!

 

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