At the beginning of the new year, six weeks out from my due date, I made the final list of what needs to get done before baby. There are a million things we could be doing and in an effort to not be overwhelmed or overtax myself, I made a list of what’s important to us. I’m letting go of the rest.

Knowing how good food makes me feel, having a number of meals stored away in our freezer is really important to me. My approach is to incorporate a little bit each week while doing my normal prepping. I’m battling both my own exhaustion (standing up for hours in the kitchen is much harder with an extra 27 pounds) and limited freezer space. Our 2015 meat shares just arrived in the last month so both my indoor and garage freezers are packed. But I’m going to do what I can. 

First up was making a plan. Please excuse the horrible picture, my phone came down with a case of gray spots last week and we haven’t had a chance to switch me back to my old phone yet. I want to have around 50 servings of breakfast and lunch/dinner items in addition to soups (an easy way to freeze veggies) and then be well stocked on snacks and shelf stable food.

All the breakfast food I plan to store in single servings so we have some food that is very easy to grab out of the freezer and defrost immediately if needed. Also, sometimes it will be nice to not defrost something that is 6 – 8 servings since there’s only two of us. For the lunch and dinner foods, I planned a mix of precooked frozen meals and frozen crockpot meals (FCP). I don’t have a reason for doing a mix other than it sounded like a good idea. I also made a list of snacks and shelf stable food to make sure to order and get organized in the pantry before the baby comes. I hear breastfeeding women are ravenous and I want to be prepared with good, nutritious food for the baby and myself.

So that’s the plan. I thought I’d share my weekly progress for anyone else looking for ideas to stock a freezer for a baby or maybe an upcoming surgery. Or even just for good crockpot and frozen meal ideas. Here’s what I completed this week. Last year I made this sweet potato chili with beef and it was so good. Thankfully I didn’t just talk it up in my head over the last year. Greg doesn’t often comment on food, so I know when he asks not to have something again (raw kale salad) he truly doesn’t like it. If he comments on how good a dish is (this chili), it really is that good. I doubled the recipe but beware, it nearly overflowed in my crockpot. This made two servings for us for dinner (over sautéed kale), five lunch portions for me this week, and then 6-serving and 4-serving frozen dishes. Also known as a sh*t ton of chili. I’m excited to pull these out of the freezer next month. 

This is an incredibly simple salsa verde chicken that I’ve made several times in the past. You can eat it plain, in lettuce wraps, on a salad – totally versatile. It works really well as a frozen crockpot ready meal. Toss all the raw ingredients in a ziplock and freeze. Defrost overnight in the fridge and toss in the crockpot (or straight into the crockpot with a little extra time). I made three bags in under ten minutes. I would have made more, but at two pounds of chicken each that’s already quite a few servings for us. We’ll eat one later this week and the other two will stay frozen for post-baby. 

I’ve linked several times to this chorizo breakfast casserole (I skip the cheese and usually add spinach but forgot to buy this week). It’s one of our favorites and I made a double batch to slice and wrap in foil for the freezer. We ate a few of them for breakfast this week but I was able to make myself eggs most mornings so I added eight or nine servings to the baby stash.

Previously I mentioned that one of my goals is to stop wasting food. On Sunday morning, after Alfred and I had gone on a 3 mile walk and Greg had gone to yoga, I really just wanted someone to make me brunch. But I’m staying strong to my Whole30+ (day 12) and we had some leftover brisket and half a bag of frozen kale that needed to be used or tossed. In about ten minutes they were transformed into a tasty dish: sweet potato hash + brisket + kale + a runny egg. It was so good and nothing was wasted. Success.