Baking Day

As a part of my nesting phase recently, I decided that I should start stocking up some food in my freezer for those post-baby weeks when I won't feel like cooking very much. I don't have a large freezer, so making several weeks worth of food just isn't possible. But my goal is to have 5 meals frozen, plus a few snacks or breakfast items available. I already had some taco soup and banana bread stashed away, but yesterday I decided to get busy on a few more things.

First, I decided to make lasagna. It's quick, easy, and freezes well. I made one pan to eat tonight with a few friends who are coming over and another pan to freeze.

My wonderful assistant, Hannah, posing with our two lasagnas.

Next I tackled the question of what to make with a large can of pureed pumpkin. I usually buy the smaller cans to make my favorite pumpkin bread, but the store I went to yesterday only had the large cans. So I looked online to see what else I could make with pumpkin and I found this recipe for chocolate chip pumpkin muffins. I was sort of doubtful about the combination of chocolate and pumpkin, but the muffins turned out really tastey.

I confess that I ate three of these right out of the oven. I did manage to put a dozen in the freezer though.

Finally I used the rest of the pumpkin to make two loaves of pumpkin bread. One for now and one for the freezer. I took the following picutre this morning before I cut a few slices of the non-freezer loaf for breakfast.

Yum! Overall I felt very productive and also very tired after standing in the kitchen for a few hours. I think I'm going to freeze some pizza dough (since homemade pizza is a weekly staple around here) as well as a pan of enchiladas. Not today though. I need a cooking break!

What are some other ideas of meals that freeze well?