Thursday, July 31, 2008

Customizable Convenience: a benefit of cooking for your freezer

Part of the "Meals for a Month" series.

Who doesn't enjoy taking a night (or two, three, or four) off during the week from cooking; simply go to your freezer, pull out preferred meal, and present dinner! The frozen food industry has made this incredibly easy. Stouffer's Lasagna is yummy, warehouse clubs carry a wealth of restaurant favorites, and frozen breakfast and dessert treats abound. You can even buy frozen peanut butter and jelly sandwiches!

One of the primary benefits of cooking your own meals for the freezer is that you can have this same convenience, but customized for your family's needs. Let me illustrate. Suppose you are trying to cut back on your sodium intake. Perhaps you have a gluten allergy in the family. Are you committed to whole grain pasta and brown rice? Do your kids really, really like one vegetable and reject all others? Maybe you cook only with ground turkey or chicken and eschew ground beef. Or perhaps you live alone and are tired of buying the small range of single serve options.

When you cook your own meals for the freezer, you can tweak them to your family's specifications and serving size needs. You will end up with meals that your family likes because they're meals you've made before. You will have meals that fit your chosen health concerns. You will have a far greater abundance of choice than what you typically find in the grocery store. And, you won't have to spend forever in the frozen food aisle, reading ingredient labels to see what's in the box you're about to buy.

Happy Cooking!

2 comments:

Jill said...

This aspect is what I love best about freezer cooking (well, other than the pure joy I feel when I haven't planned dinner and it's 5:00 and I can just pull something out of the freezer and microwave it!).

I really like to cook healthily for my family and this allows me to substitute brown rice or extra veggies or less cheese or whatever. Thanks again for this series, I'm getting more motivated!

Jill

Betsy said...

This is one of the biggest benefits for me, too!