Hellobee Boards

I also just heard about this a couple times this week on FB. If either of you try it, let me know if it's worth it!

This is great in theory, but gosh, it's a lot of cooking on one weekend! I haven't done anything like this yet because I can manage dinners with no problem right now, but this would be super handy if I was working.

@artbee: yours too?!!! I thought I was the only one!

I am now, thanks! A coworker and I have been talking about this, I want to fill our freezer before the baby comes so I don't have to worry about cooking!

If I did this I would prefer to do just the dinners and just do enough to get us through a week or two of meals at a time. Probably not all the savings, but I can stand to eat freezer meals 2 nights a week, but eating them all the time is yuck.

We have done some freezer meals in the past. I have a hard time with it, though. I am not a big fan of leftovers and freezer meals always seem like one big leftover meal to me.

Neat idea, but my freezing skills leave alot to be desired.

What's the best way to prevent freezer burn an insure food retains tastiness and decent texture?

@Thehistoryofus: @mediagirl: I'm hoping the frozen factor won't be too yucky? To be honest, it has to be a step up from the constant crap we've been having for dinner!

@jessiejo17: Why would it have been too much if you don't mind my asking?

@ladyfingers: Her Whole Foods and Paleo meal plans seem as healthy as meals out of the freezer can get to me! Lots of fresh veggies.

@bluestriped bee: Thanks for the review! It is probably going to be a couple weeks (at least) before I will have a whole day to do all that cooking. But I'd rather get it done in one day, and DH luckily loves to wash dishes! Though maybe not THAT many dishes!

@MRS. LEMON-LIME: @bluestriped bee: I think I am going to borrow my mom's vacuum sealer to guard against freezer burn. I think it also just depends on your freezer - EVERYTHING used to freezer burn in my old freezer (I'm talking ice cream that's been in there 4 days), and since we've moved, it's a lot better.

I just found this, too! We did one of her Paleo recipes the other night and it was pretty good. Two more nights' worth are in our freezer, too!

I love the idea of doing it once and having all sorts of meals ready to go, but it's hard to find that kind of time with a toddler who doesn't really entertain himself.

So this weekend I attempted the Paleo January menu. Um, that is NO JOKE. I had my mom helping me, so it should have taken half as much time, but we spent 6 hours and only got halfway! I still have to finish the other recipes - and I really do have to, because I have a ton of fresh meat and veggies in the fridge!

My first impressions:
- It is a LOT of work for recipes that seem just OK, to @mrsmate's point. We'll see how we like them after a couple weeks but just from putting it together, nothing seemed amazing enough for all that work.

- The system is far from foolproof - I chopped too much or too little of a few different things, and I was following it exactly, so I'm not sure where I went wrong.

- The Mini Tacos were super hard to make and didn't turn out at all. Overall, I feel like the meals should be super easy and simple to prepare so you can go quickly, and that didn't seem to be taken into consideration.

- You still will have to buy/prepare sides. Most of the dishes will seem incomplete without a salad or some veggies with it. So that's kind of a downside to me.

Overall, I'm a little skeptical, but I'll know better once we've been eating the meals for a while!

@daniellemybelle: We just did the Paleo menu this weekend too. Did your acorn squash recipe turn out? Our was a total disaster. I agree, I ended up with a LOT of extra stuff that I chopped and was left scratching my head sometimes at their directions. We had the bacon wrapped chicken last night and for the amount of effort that recipe took, SO not worth it!

I might feel differently about this in a month because we will have enjoyed the benefits, but right now I'm not sure it was worth it.

And, I know it's Paleo, but OMG, that was A LOT of bacon.

@daniellemybelle: We ended up tossing the acorn squash, it was that much of a disaster. I couldn't even salvage it from the original recipe either.

We had the bacon wrapped chicken bites last night and the night before--they were underwhelming. I'm defrosting the spinach chicken tonight though.

As a "mood eater", I'm not sure that freezer meals are really going to end up being my jam, but with the first trimester tireds and yuckies we were really hoping that we wouldn't be resorting to takeout so often. We'll see!

@LittleGBee: Oh no! Can you tell me why it was a disaster? Maybe I can avoid it!