This all actually began a few months ago. Several girlfriends on a road trip to see the Material Girl in Quebec City with nothing but hours of time on our hands to have thought provoking discussions and come up with brilliant ideas! At some point, the idea of a meal swapping group was discussed and we all agreed that it was a wonderful idea! After returning home from our weekend away, our little group, we lovingly refer to as "Meal Deals" was born.
Regretfully, we did not start blogging about our experiences right away but now that several months have passed, we recognize how useful it might have been to track the meals that we have prepared, reviews from our families and basically the lessons learned. So in the interest of time and space, I am going to try to recap our first few months and hopefully continue from here!
Two things we did right away was to set up a private Facebook group for communication and discussions and then we had a meeting - with wine. No cooking, just us, a few cookbooks and some wine. Although Meal Deals would prove to be very beneficial to all our families, it was just as important that our group include elements of friendship and fun!
Membership was one of our first areas for discussion. Five of us sat around the table to begin this process. We come from varying size families (a family of 5 to a family of 2) and the unique challenge of having one family who are vegetarians. Our solution was that four of us would swap two meals - one vegetarian, one with meat - while our vegetarian friend would only swap the vegetarian meal. As a result, most of us would receive 9 meals each month including our own, 4 of which would be vegetarian. We decided to hold our membership at five people until we got the hang of bulk cooking and a better understanding of the types of meals that would work well for freezing.
The second consideration was storage and identifying a system that would be portable and also not require a lot of space in the freezer. A bit of research pointed us towards Ziploc bags for freezing liquids/soups and disposable tinfoil containers for casserole type meals. We are still searching for the "perfect" system but generally use a combination of both of these storage systems.
We agreed to swap monthly as that would give everyone approximately 2-3 meals per week each month. We also decided that at each swap, we would provide the recipes of what we had made and have some discussion as to what we would make next month to avoid duplications and solicit input on the types of meals preferred. We also agreed that it would be virtually impossible to cater to each family's likes and dislikes so while we are mindful and try to accommodate dislikes when we can, there are no restrictions on ingredients (except the vegetarian meals).
September was the first month for cooking and we swapped meals on September 28/12. The meals we prepared this month included: Chicken Enchiladas, Shephard's Pie, Meatloaf, Quinoa, Vegetarian Chili, Morroccan Stew, Spaghetti Sauce, Sesame Chicken, Thai Chicken Pizza.
The first meal swap was like Christmas! We were all giddy with excitement as we emptied our coolers and filled them back up with a variety of yummy foods.
In October we made: Squash Soup, Mushroom Risotto, Mexican Lasagna, Chicken Casserole, Spinach & Mushroom Quiche, Shrimp Pasta, Pizza Casserole, Beef Stew, Meat Lasagna. For this swap we met at a Thai restaurant and had a nice meal out before swapping in the parking lot!
This month, we did a mini-review of the meals that have gone over well with our families and may be worthwhile repeating and the meals that were less successful. Popular meals include lasagnas, meatloaf, soups/stews and casseroles. We learned that pasta has to be defrosted pretty fully before reheating or it will break apart and that sauces made with cornstarch tend to gel when reheated. The quinoas and risottos did not retain their full flavor or texture and are a bit time intensive, so not likely the best return on our efforts.
So far, we've had a few hiccups: One group member has a freezer malfunction which almost resulted in lost food until a kindly neighbor helped out! This past month, we really struggled to find a date that would work for everyone for a meal swap and as a result, we ended up doing a couple of swaps with limited socializing & fun involved...we're hoping this won't happen too often.
I will try to keep updating this blog with reviews of the meals we've prepared, the lessons we've learned and the fun we are having with our freezer meal swapping - I hope you will keep following along!
