Do you have a Prep Day? A Food Prep Day that is.  Well, I definitely have one (sometimes two) and it’s changed the way things run in my kitchen for the better.  Sometimes when I come home from the grocery store, the last thing I want to do after I’ve shopped at a few stores with my energetic four year old is create more work for myself.  However, doing a little prep work isn’t really more work, it’s something I would have to do anyways to prepare the food and it’s going to save me on time the whole rest of the week!

Since I am buying groceries for 6 people every week, just loading and unloading the food can wear me out on a busy day.  I’m always in a rush to get the frozen foods, meats and cheeses into the refrigerator and freezer as soon as we walk in the door.  The rest of the groceries I just set on the counter for a bit.  I usually lay my daughter down for an afternoon nap, make myself a quick sandwich for lunch and clear my mind for maybe a half and hour.  After that, I am refreshed and ready to get prepping!

 Here’s a few of the things I chopped up, stored in my Glad containers & got ready this week:

Veggies.  I had some leftover peppers, onions and asparagus from my Colorful Grilled Pork Kabobs this past weekend, so I chopped them up and stored them in one of my trusty Glad containers for a simple veggie stir fry dinner.

 These vegetables can also be used for a nice omelet in the morning too! My husband would love that!

Soup.  I don’t know about you, but I like soup all year round.  I guess I don’t care for it when it’s 80 degrees, but this week we are having a little cool spell and with cloudy skies and temperatures in the 50’s or low 60’s, I love to have a bowl with a sandwich for lunch or an easy dinner.  Sometimes my kiddos come down with something out of the blue too.  It’s always nice to have some soup on hand.

 Making any homemade soup can be simplified during the week if you have a container full of chopped celery, onion and carrots ready to go in your refrigerator!

Sandwiches.  I swear over the past few months my boys have gotten hungrier and hungrier.  They are asking for extra fruit and sandwiches in their packed lunches too.  They must be going through growth spurts! My family really likes Tuna Salad Sandwiches.  I, on the other hand am not too fond of preparing it when I am still a little sleepy at 6 am on a school morning before I’ve had my cup of coffee.

 Having some Tuna Salad ready in the refrigerator is great though!  It’s a nice alternate to my kiddos usual PB&J or Turkey & Cheese Sandwiches and it only takes a few seconds to prepare them with bread and fresh lettuce for a nice lunch later on in the afternoon.

Lemons.  I love lemons!  Of course I like to use them in baking, but on a hot day, a few slices of fresh lemon in my water or freshly brewed iced tea is always enough to brighten my day.  Wash a few lemons, slice them up and have them ready to quickly add to your favorite refreshing drinks this summer!

Just prepping a few things on the day I grocery shop has really changed the way preparing dinners go during the week at our house.  I am not rushing last minute to figure out what to make and there is also a lot less food waste throughout the week because the food is ready to go and planned for, not just pushed to the back of the refrigerator.  It also stays nice and fresh, in my airtight, convenient Glad containers!  Challenge yourself this week and schedule a Prep Day of your own!

Interested in getting more Food Protection Pointers and Recipe Ideas from Glad? Make sure to Follow Glad on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest & Instagram!

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This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Glad Food Protection. The opinions and text are all mine.

The post Do You Have a Prep Day? appeared first on Cozy Country Living.

Usually when I make dinner there aren’t any leftovers.  No food left over to pack for lunches or warm up for dinner the next day.  Our large family with 4 growing children has no problem eating everything I make most of the time and that’s great!  Sometimes it’s nice to have some leftovers though.  A serving sized bowl filled with a comforting soup or that delicious casserole from the night before are really nice to have on hand, especially on an evening when you just don’t feel like cooking.  Sometimes if my husband works late I wait to eat dinner with him.  These Make Ahead Freezer Meals for Two are perfect for busy evenings or those times when you just want to relax and enjoy a nice, quiet, homemade meal with your significant other.

My Crockpot Lasagna is a perfect meal to make ahead of time and freeze in containers for two.  Glad’s freezer friendly, rectangle shaped 64 oz. containers fit two large, thick servings of lasagna perfectly.  All you have to do is let the lasagna cool, cut it, store it in the Glad container and freeze!  When you are ready to serve it, you simply reheat the lasagna and serve it with a fresh salad and some wine for a delicious meal.

I often cut two pieces of the lasagna and store them in the freezer before I serve the rest for dinner.  If you don’t have a large family, that’s okay!  You can still prepare meals like this, you will just get more “Freezer Meals for Two” out of it!

Using your Slow Cooker or Making One Pot Meals for these Make Ahead Meals for Two works out really nice.  These types of meals are very simple to prepare and don’t usually require a lot of tending to.  On the weekends when you are cleaning up around the house or doing laundry, take a few minutes to prepare an extra Slow Cooker or One Pot Meal so you can have several nice dinners stored in your freezer.

Some of my other favorite Make Ahead Freezer meals for Two include:

This One Pot Taco Pasta makes a lot, so you can have some for dinner and freeze some for later.  Warm it up and serve it with some fresh bread and a salad!

This Savory Slow Cooker Chicken & Biscuits is a delicious and comforting meal.  Reheat it and serve with warm, fresh from the oven biscuits!

 This Old Fashioned Pot Roast is one of my favorite meals to freeze!  It’s such a treat to come home after a long day of work, grab a container of this tender, slow cooked roast out of the freezer and only have to warm it up.  In a few minutes you’ve got yourself a wonderful dinner! Yum!

This Crockpot Pasta Fagioli is also a satisfying meal that normally serves a crowd, but can be stored in several containers for 2!  On a chilly evening, warm up with a bowl of this soup, top it with freshly grated Parmesan cheese and enjoy!

Don’t forget dessert! Recipes like these Nutella Chocolate Chunk Cookies or these Peanut Butter Lover’s Reese’s Pieces Cookies freeze great too!

Don’t forget to use your GladWare though!  Glad will protect your delicious, homemade meals from freezer burn and will keep them tasting just as fresh as the day you made them.  They come in several different sizes, to accommodate any size meal for any size family.  Protect your Food!

This Month is Earth Month & Today is Earth Day!  To do your part and cut down on food waste, consider freezing your family’s regular leftovers for another meal instead of finding them in the back of your refrigerator a few weeks later only to throw them out.  Make a conscious effort to get creative with the food in your kitchen like saving and freezing small leftovers of vegetables for soup, or making a fruit or vegetable salad with small amounts of different produce you have left over.  Shop your refrigerator!

 For more great Food Ideas and Food Protection Pointers, make sure to Follow Glad on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest & Instagram!

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Glad Food Protection. The opinions and text are all mine.

The post Make Ahead Freezer Meals For Two appeared first on Cozy Country Living.

I love serving my family a warm breakfast on a cold morning.  The last few mornings have been quite chilly here and I was in need of something other than a cold bowl of cereal to get my little ones up and out of bed.   I love apples and since it’s apple season, I have been cooking and baking with apples on a daily basis.  Many of the apples my family and I picked at the apple farm earlier this fall have gone into wonderful, comforting desserts like Apple Pie and Old Fashioned Apple Crisp.  Ending a cool evening with a warm apple dessert is great, but sometimes I like to start my day with apples too!

This Spiced Apple Baked Oatmeal tastes and smells like your favorite Autumn apple desserts.  Applesauce, freshly chopped apple, cinnamon and nutmeg are baked with old fashioned oats to make a cozy fall breakfast.  Your kitchen will smell delicious as this oatmeal bakes in the oven while your family is getting up and ready for the day.  To save time in the morning, this can be made the night before and then pulled out of the refrigerator when you first wake up and baked as usual.  This oatmeal freezes very well, so doubling this recipe works out very well if you are stocking your freezer.

If you love fall and warm oatmeal for breakfast, check out this yummy Pumpkin Pie Baked Oatmeal that I am sharing over at Diana Rambles today!  Enjoy!

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Hello there!  Welcome to Week #2 in the Stock Your Freezer Fridays Series!  This week went by really fast for me and I can’t believe it’s Friday already.   If you are new here and would like to catch up on the freezer cooking from this series, you can find the recipes and ingredient list for Week #1 here.   Maybe I am weird, but it makes me really happy when I open my freezer and I see that it’s starting to fill with prepared meals.  It’s the simple things like that, that make me happy!   I did have to do a little cleaning before this week’s meals, because my freezer was a mess!  Things were kind of just shoved everywhere.  I don’t know how it gets to the point where I am closing the freezer and just hoping that the door isn’t going to bounce back open at me after I take my hand off of it.   So, at the moment I have my freezer organized and I even found a few items that I forgot I had.  Maybe I should feel a little embarrassed about that.  Oh, well:)

At our house we currently have a side by side refrigerator and freezer and I don’t think I like it.  I feel like there isn’t much room on the shelves in the freezer, and it’s hard to see what you have when the freezer is pretty full.  We will be updating our kitchen soon, and I would like to do a little research before we purchase a different refrigerator/freezer.  Do you have a side by side, a regular freezer on top refrigerator on the bottom, or drawer freezer?  How do you like it?  I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Recipes for Week #2 of Stock Your Freezer Fridays Are:

(1 pot) Freezer Chili

(18) Apple Cranberry Pecan Muffins

(2 loaves of bread worth) Freezer PB & J Sandwiches

(1 loaf of bread worth) Freezer Turkey & Cheese Sandwiches

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