I declared that I am not cooking this week. But there is still a little work in turning giant ice cubes of soup into an edible meal. How I thaw and reheat my frozen food depends on how I froze it to begin with.

Some foods, I make and freeze in bulk. These are usually single-ingredient items such as chicken stock and beans. I freeze the chicken stock in plastic containers which I can thaw in the fridge on the day I need them. I do the beans in freezer bags and freeze them flat so they stack nicely and are easy to find.

For baked meals such as casseroles or enchiladas, I purposely originally cook them in a foil-lined metal pan. After cooking, I put in the fridge for a while to cool, then put the entire pan in the freezer. When it is completely frozen, I pull the foil (and food) out of the pan, wrap it in more foil, then put it in a gallon freezer bag. This is much easier than trying to freeze an actual pan, and they stack nicely as well.

When I want to eat one of these, I put it in the fridge the day before to thaw. Then I just put it in a pan and reheat it in my toaster oven. You could probably bake it from frozen, but that would take some serious time in the oven.

For large amounts of soup (no picture), I use a gallon freezer bag. The day I want to eat it, I thaw it in the fridge for a few hours so it will come out of the bag easier. Then I put it in the CrockPot or reheat it on the stove.

I like to freeze smaller amounts of leftovers for Brett to take for lunch. Many items like soup, I put in a plastic container. I recently made some burritos and then individually wrapped them in foil.

They’ll thaw slightly in his lunchbox and he can just throw them in the microwave at lunch.

There are awesome freezer-cooking gurus who have super-organized freezers with bins and labels and tracking sheets. That’s not me, but hopefully I’ll be able to develop a system better than, “Just throw it in there.” Recently, Brett wanted to take a burrito for lunch but couldn’t find them. So freezer organization is on my long-term to-do list. Or if anyone wants to come do it for me … I’ll trade you some frozen meals! :)

I’m taking the week off cooking. I truly enjoy making meals, but it’s a really crazy week – scheduled activities each day plus I’ll be gone two evenings doing fun stuff with friends.

So I’m not cooking. I looked in my freezer and calculated that my stockpile of meals will keep us well-fed for a week with little more effort than thawing and re-heating. Some of the stuff has been in the freezer for a while anyway and needs to get eaten.

Our menu:

• BBQ chicken and veggies
• chicken enchiladas with black beans (also from the freezer)
• baked (whole wheat) pasta (recipe from More-With-Less cookbook)
• Moroccan stew
• beef and cabbage soup

I’ll just get some salad and bread to go with the pasta and soup, and we’ll be good! That’ll be great for the grocery budget this week, too. I like to freeze recipes that can be a complete meal in themselves like soup or casseroles that have protein and veggies. And all these meals were made from scratch, taking only a little extra time weeks/months ago to prepare.

So this busy week I am thankful for my freezer – it’s putting something on the plates so I can take something off mine.

Turkey breasts were on sale this week, so I thought I’d get us in the Thanksgiving spirit and have some early bird.

My meal:

• turkey breast in the slow cooker
• mushroom dijon gravy (from this recipe)
• roasted broccoli
• carrot and potato mash
• fresh apple cake

This may look like a big, time-consuming meal, but I planned ahead to get everything done. The only work for the turkey was at 9am, then it was doing its own thing all day. I made the cake and mashed potatoes while Hannah was napping. I also used the bagged pre-cut broccoli florets and pre-sliced portobello mushrooms (both on sale) which cut down prep time.

The slow cooker turkey recipe was so easy! I ended up overcooking it a bit, but with the gravy it was delicious. Brett didn’t talk for a while, he just made happy eating noises.

Our lives were changed when we discovered roasted broccoli, and we eat ridiculous amounts of it. And it’s really easy – just coat florets in olive oil and salt and pepper. Put on baking sheet and roast for 20ish minutes at 450ish degrees. Crazy good.

I made up the carrot and potato mash. I cooked the carrots then I cooked the potatoes then I mashed them up with some butter and milk. They were very flavorful, and the carrots give a major health boost to normal mashed potatoes.

Hannah is not eating broccoli or mashed potatoes at the moment, but she tried everything and liked the turkey. There was a wishbone in the turkey breast, so we taught her what to do with it.

I think she got the good end.