Okay, I admit it: since becoming a homeschooling mom, cooking has all too often become a duty not a delight for me, and, thus, I was happy to be offered a chance to review a Premium Annual MyFreezEasy.com Freezer Meal Plan Membership from MyFreezEasy.
The promise of help me fill my freezer with delicious and simple meals to keep my family fed nutritiously despite the craziness of life was one I was excited for!
What is MyFreezEasy?
MyFreezEasy is a monthly membership program with two membership levels:
- Basic Membership allows you to log on each each month to access new meal plans.
- Premium Membership allows you to access the monthly meal plans, PLUS customize your own meal plans in order to make 10-12 meals for the freezer in less than an hour (depending on how fast you chop and how many little helpers you have, which can, in truth, make prep a slower - but more enjoyable - in my experience.)
Meal plans come in a variety of types to accommodate different preferences and needs:
There are also additional recipes you can use that are categorized under:
- type of protein: chicken, ground beef, other beef, pork, seafood, and vegetarian
- cooking method: slow cooker, dutch oven or saucepan, baked, skillet, grilled, or one dish
- dietary preference: gluten-free, dairy-free, gluten-, dairy- and soy-free, paleo/Whole 30, and Top 8 allergy free
Once you have your recipes chosen, you simply download and print out shopping lists, instructions, etc. and get to prepping.
The downloads contain:
- recipes
- shopping lists
- assembly notes
- and assembly instructions printable labels.
These are organized both as a collective group (say, a shopping list and prep instructions for doing all the recipes in your plan at once) and as single-recipe lists and instructions. I found this QUITE handy so I could decide if I wanted to shop for and prep all the meals at once (which I initially thought I would do) or do one or two recipes at a time (which is what I ended up choosing to do since my young cooking crew - children - slowed down the prep process, so doing only one or two recipes at a time was "enough" for us.)
You also get access to an assembly video each month as well as:
- a video library
- a resource library
- and a free freezer cooking workshop
So, basically, you get access to loads of helpful resources and, most importantly, to meal plans which are created and packaged to help you spend as little time in the grocery store and in your kitchen prepping as possible in order to prepare 10 meals for your freezer.
MyFreezEasy in Action
When I first logged into MyFreezEasy I quickly realized that the preset monthly meal plans would not work for our family, for, although there are gluten-free options among them, the gluten-free recipes were meat-heavy and one of my children is vegetarian while I use meat more as a condiment, usually, than a main portion of my meal.
Not to be chagrined, I quickly clicked through the "Member HQ" to the "Build Your Own meal Plans" button which brought me to where I could search meals by protein, cooking method, and dietary preference. Using these, I was able to find enough skillet and slow cooker meals to accommodate my meat-lovers and my vegetarian, as well as my gluten-free, casein-free kids. (I admittedly wished there were more gluten-free, casein-free AND vegetarian recipes though, and also dreamed of future options for "seasonal picks" where recipes with what is typically in season would be features - say tons of zucchini recipes for the summer, butternut quash ones for this time of year, early greens for the spring etc.)
Then, it was off to shop, and, a day or two later, to prep chicken and chickpea recipes with the kids. (The chickpea one was slightly modified by us from the chicken one.)
These recipes were bagged and put in the freezer, save one bag of each, which went straight into our crock pots.
And cooked up into delicious meals for meat-lovers and vegetarians.
eggplant recipe, which we ate "as directed" several times and, then, blended the leftovers of to make a delicious sauce for gluten-free, casein-free pizza.
Then, another morning, my daughter helped me quickly put together an eggplant recipe.
We ate this recipe "as is" over rice one time and pasta another. Still another time, we blended it into a delicious sauce for gluten-free, casein-free muffin pizzas.
There were also other recipes on our initial plan, but - oops - before making the with the ingredients we had shopped for, we pilfered the ingredients for other meals. So, we will be replenishing those ingredients and testing the other recipes we downloaded from the September meal plans along with the new ones we plan to try out from the October meal plans.
Surely, we'll have more fun prepping this month, and I just LOVE that I still three bags of ready-to-go slow cooker meals in my freezer now. MyFreezEasy has been a pleasure to try out!
Be Frugal with Shopping, but Gift Generously
Just this week, I was notified about a meal train for a local homeschool family whose dad has undergone surgery. Typically, when I am invited to join such meal trains, my heart says, "Yes!" immediately, but my head says, "Argh! Whatever will I cook?!?" For, I admit, my family does not eat like many other families due to our special diet considerations, picky kids, etc. Thus, I fret over cooking dinner meals for others, knowing our families "tried and true" favorites are hardly what others might consider normal, and I truly do not want to gift another family a meal that might be shunned by children undergoing out-of-the-ordinary life stresses.
Likewise, I do not want to offer another family a meal made with any old recipe I've found online. For, who knows if the recipe will be truly palatable.
Indeed, what I want is a recipe that someone dependable has given a "thumbs up" to, and, now, with the help of MyFreezEasy, that is so easy to do! Instead of debating for far too long about how to "jump on the train" to help friends in need, all I need to do is log onto my Freezer Meal Plan Membership, check out the month's meal plans, and get to helping out.
For example, this week, I was able to look at the meal train notes, which stated "likes chicken dishes" and then head right to the "All Chicken Meals Plans" at MyFreezEasy, which includes:
- Slow Cooker Borraco Shredded Chicken
- Baked Island Chicken
- Red & Green Chicken Enchilada Bake
- Slow Cooker Italian Chicken & Vegetables
- and Mediterranean Chicken Thighs
I, then, used the swap feature to mix and match some of these recipes with ones my family can eat, and now I am set to shop and prep for both my family and another. Easy peasy. And, because my husband and one child have been missing red meat (which we do not eat around here much), I am also including a recipe from this month's All Ground Beef Meals Plan, which includes:
- Skillet Beef with Biscuit Topping
- Bolognese Sauce
- Best Meatloaf Ever
- Stuffed Sweet Potatoes (Filling)
- Bacon Cheeseburger Nachos
It is SO EASY to mix, match, and swap around meals on the MyFreezEasy website!
Final Thoughts
I asked each of my children what they think of MyFreezEasy so far.
My oldest, who is a super picky eater, bluntly said:
I don't like the taste of the recipes, but I liked making them. Cutting the carrots was my favorite part.
He also enjoyed picking the chicken out of the curry to devour it!
My youngest son, who is more of an I'll-try-anything sort of eater, said:
I liked the chicken curry a lot. I also liked chopping carrots, sweet potatoes, and onions. My favorite part was chopping.
He truly got into chopping and prepping (even if the picture above does not make it look like he did, because he was so tired), and he LOVED taste testing the recipes.
My middle child, who is also rather picky, said:
I preferred the eggplant recipe to the others. The curry tasted okay, but the texture was wrong. I want to make smaller chunks next time.
Freezer cooking is okay. On a scale of 1-5, the recipes' tastes all together were about a 2.5 for me. The preparing was a four. It was fun.
She so loved preparing the foods, from chopping to bagging, to emptying the bags.
Dad was not around to ask for an opinion when I was writing up this review, but I am pretty sure I know what his is:
Yum! And keep it coming!
My husband devoured our MyFreezEasy at mealtimes and happily ate all the leftovers in his lunches. He especially loved the chicken curry.
And me? I enjoyed prepping the meals alongside my children, was delighted to have some easy go-to meals in the freezer and, then, my slow cooker and skillet, and am happy that MyFreezEasy makes an effort to accommodate special dietary needs. In the future, would LOVE to see a regular Vegetarian option within the monthly meal plans offered and more gluten-free, casein-free meals that are also vegetarian included in the search options for customized meal plans and am fairly certain I will since Erin seems to be so wonderful at receiving and responding to customer feedback.
I am definitely looking forward to seeing more recipes that my while family can eat "as is" or that I can quickly adapt for everyone (and especially my gluten-free, casein-free, vegetarian, prep-and-bagger girl) as we continue to use our MyFreezEasy.com Freezer Meal Plan Membership. I am also happy to have so many recipes on hand for meal trains that come up for friends in need. Truly, MyFreezEasy makes planning, shopping for, prepping, and cooking meals easier!
Want to try MyFreezEasy before you buy? Get a taste of by going to the website and signing up for a FREE Freezer Cooking 101 Workshop, FREE Sample Meal Plan & FREE monthly email newsletter. While you are there, you can also find hacks for flat freezing, quick thawing and more!You can find MyFreezEasy on social media on:
- Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/freezeasy
- Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/freezeasy
- Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/5dollardinners/freezeasy
One-hundred Homeschool Review Crew families have been filling freezers with the help of MyFreezEasy since September. See what they cooked up by clicking through the banner below to all the reviews.
Enjoy cooking up your freezer meals!
