A single girl's freezer revolution...

I don't want to have to cook every day.  I don't want to have to spend time preparing food, and thinking about food and cooking food every single day. There has got to be a way to eat well without all the overhead.  



This is what I was thinking in the weeks before I started my experiments.

Every time I mention this scheme to a woman, her eyes light up and there's a bit of a wistful look.  What would we all do with the extra time?  What could we do after work if we already knew what was for dinner?  Pull out the weekend project?  Write the book?  Plan a revolution?  How about relax?  Wouldn't that be wonderful?  Just the idea of extra time every day is exhilarating.

I'm a few months into this experiment and I'm finding there are benefits beyond just extra time each day (and that peace of mind of already knowing what's for dinner).  For one thing, there's the food.  I'm eating better.  I'm eating food I wouldn't normally cook.  I'm willing to make a whole pot roast or a whole pot of stew even though I'm cooking for just one person.

So far, the recipes I've experimented with are mainly winter-y soups and stews but it's nearly garden season so I'll experiment with entree salads in the near future.  I'll try to include general calorie information in recipes.  I do tend to aim more or less for a 40-30-30 breakdown of calories in my own meals because I find my body tends to be happy with that.  I tend to aim for about 300 calories per meal and most of my recipes avoid wheat and sugar.  So, keep that in mind and adjust portion sizes and ingredients to suit your tastes and needs.

I've experimented with how frequently the big cooking weekends have to happen.  I tried every other weekend but the work to reward ratio wasn't quite right.  I tried every 4th weekend but the quality of the food deteriorated (maybe if I had a vacuum sealer?).   The answer seems to be that every 3rd weekend is just about perfect.