Meal planning made easy

I had a super fun evening to share with everyone. This is a fun and easy way to make meal planning a little easier. I decided to host a Friday Freezer Night at my house this past Friday night. The basic idea is to bring enough ingredients to make one meal 5 times. Here is an example : I decided to make Beef Barley Soup. I bought enough ingredients to make this soup 5 times (because I had 5 ladies coming over). This way each of us left with 5 different meals (6, if you made your meal for your family) to either cook this week or put in the freezer for later use. It was a blast! The ladies all came with such yummy food to share! We prepared it all here at my house which took all of an hour. That's right, ONE hour to prepare these 6 meals. I can handle one hour and get 5 other meals in return. Here are some pics:


To get prepared I tried to set up various stations of utensils and stuff that we might use.


Here is my set up for my station


I also made some yummy sweet snacks : Nutella Brownies and Gingerbread Muffins


My new favorite fall drink is Honeycrisp Apple Sangria. It was a hit with the ladies and with me!! PS: I used Brandy instead of Peach Snaaps, it was just as good.


This young lady made her meal before she got to the house so she got to help out and read cookbooks while the rest of us slaved away ;)


We made messes but it was soooo worth it!!


See, the sangria was a hit and a well needed drink while we were mixing. We were working hard!


Yummy spaghetti for spaghetti pie


Oh yeah!!


This young lady made the best chicken salad pasta that my family has snacked on all weekend! It never even made it to the freezer.


The best part of the night was the 3 hours of conversation afterwards. It is so important to connect with other mommas. It makes us feel normal and less stressed about our lives and children. Our conversations were heartfelt and allowed us all to get to know each other a little more. It is nice to feel connected with strong, smart, and loving women in our big town. We weren't meant to be momma's alone, it isn't good for our souls. Then throw in a freezer full of food, it was a great night to say the least!

A huge THANK YOU to all 5 mommas that came out to my house carrying huge bags full of supplies and food to try an idea I had. You all had delicious meals to share and your friendship means a ton to me.  We had a good time! We talked of continuing this and I can't wait to stock back up that freezer and refill my "feel like an adult" bank.

My last pic will be of this stuff: Christmas Crack.

I made this for a football party last night. It is ridiculously delicious. It is SO incrediably bad for you but that doesn't even stop you from eating it. Good thing I am only making it once, never again for the pure fact that I can't keep my hands out of it.