make ahead meals to freeze recipes - Enjoy Your Meals More With Make-Ahead Cooking

When you come home tired from a busy day at the office and you have to face a hungry family, then having a family meal somewhat looses its joy.

Or, perhaps you are even a stay at home mom but it always seems that your children need your attention the most when it is time to prepare the family meal.

Maybe you miss having a few minutes to relax and talk with your husband when he comes home from work because you are too busy preparing dinner.

By changing your meal preparation to doing most of the cooking ahead during some less rushed hours, you can have more time for other family activities. And you will be less stressed and find yourself enjoying the family time a lot more as well.

The mechanics of make-ahead cooking is really very simple. What you need to do is shift meal preparation to a part of the day, or even a day of the week, when you have more time, store the food and then with a small amount of effort, complete the meal for serving.

For instance, if you are a stay-at-home mom, maybe you have more time while the children are napping or away at school. If you are a working mom, then maybe you have more time on Sunday afternoon to do some make-ahead cooking for meals to be served during the week.

You will need to properly refrigerate or freeze make-ahead dishes. When actual meal time comes, take out your make-ahead dishes and complete the last minute steps. You may even add some simple to prepare dishes to round out the menu.

You will be more relaxed, which will probably make the rest of the family more relaxed while everyone enjoys a good home cooked meal.

You may also want to use make-ahead meal items when you are planning on entertaining guests.

Here is an example make-ahead meal item recipe:

Meat Loaves (Barbeque)

1 beaten egg
½ cup milk
½ cup chopped onion
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup soft bread crumbs
½ teaspoon dried crushed oregano leaves
1 ½ lbs. ground beef

Make-ahead preparation:

Combine egg, bread crumbs, onion, milk, salt and oregano in mixing bowl. Add the ground beef and mix well. Divide the mixture into 6 loaf portions. Shape into small loaves, wrap and freeze.

Serving Instructions:

Bake the meat loaves, uncovered, at 375 degrees until done (about 40-45 minutes). Combine the following ingredients, bring to a boil and then spoon over the meat loaves during the last 10 minutes of baking:

2/3 cup catsup
1 Tablespoon mustard
1 Tablespoon brown sugar
1 Tablespoon lemon juice
1 Tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

Your meatloaf loaves can be served with some freshly prepared rice or pasta.

This is just one example to get you thinking about how you could design some make-ahead meals for your family.

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