I started out this year with the intentions of following Just Bento’s bento challenge quite closely. While that hasn’t necessarily transpired as I thought it might (the reasons for another day and another blog post), I haven’t been completley unaware of what’s taking place in her challenge. I read her weekly challenges and from it take what I think I need. The first week’s challenge of planning ahead was something that I don’t normally do much, and it was the biggest part of the challenge I’ve tried to adhere to.
With these things in mind, I decided to join together with my mom and get a membership to Sam’s Club, the only bulk supply place in my neck of the woods. I took a pic of my first purchases just because I was excited. For my January bentos, I purchased a honkin’ pack of lean ground meat and a honkin’ pack of chicken tenderloins. This worked out amazingly well for me.
Thirty minutes later (or thereabouts), I had everything divided and ready to go to the freezer. The groundmeat was put into the ziploc bags, flattened out, and all air smooshed from the bag. The chicken tenderloins were placed in the bags in even amounts, giving me as a single person enough for about 2 to 2 1/2 meals.
I placed all packages on a flat cookie sheet in the freezer and let it all freeze up nicely. This made sure that everything stacked neatly in the fridge. Then I went back and spent another 30 minutes to freezer wrap each package to avoid freezer burn.
This worked out very nicely for the month of January. While it did limit me to the type of meat I had, I didn’t feel overly limited in the recipes I was able to find. This past month saw Sesame Crusted Chicken Bites, Chicken & Rice Soup, a Versatile Meat Mix for chicken or groundmeat hamburgers & meatballs, Red Pepper Bites using the versatile meat mix, and Country Captain Chicken. All of these were new recipes for me. I still have packs of meat leftover. I’m hoping this weekend to get back to Sam’s Club and purchase some additional cuts of meat, and maybe some pork chops. By having ready-to-go-sized-for-me packs of meat, I think I saved money overall as well. I wasn’t stopping by the grocery store nearly every evening picked up a quick pack of meat to cook for dinner. I only had to purchase veggies and fruit during the month and that was about it. I think this is one of the biggest things I’m going to take away from Just Bento’s challenge: planning. Something my bento life has needed for some time now.
I love Sam’s! Although I wish we had a Costco around here- I like them better. Oh, well. It’s just me and my roommate, but we still save quite a but by buying specific items there every couple months. Laundry Detergent as well as the food items!
I’ve really been meaning to get a Sam’s Club membership for our household. How are the prices as compared to like Super Walmart? For meat, I mean.
Hmm, If you use freezer baggies, do you still need to paper wrap them?
Flattening the meat! That’s what I’m doing wrong! LOL I always end up with balls of burger meat LOL
Could you show how you wrap the items to avoid freezer burn??
That would be so very helpful!
I love buying in bulk! I like how you showed how you freeze them. I do something similar, where I cut out portions of meat, or make hamburger patties or meatballs, put them on a cookie sheet in layers of waxed paper, freeze and then put them in ziplocs. This way I can grab a pattie or cutlet whenever I need one.
I love seeing different techniques for preserving. I second the request for seeing how you wrap the items to avoid freezer burn. Thanks for sharing such great ideas!
I used to be adamant about doing this, but now that I’m strapped for time, I find I don’t get to do this as often. This week, I’ve been forcing myself to empty my freezer a bit, which is working nicely (went through a big bag of dumplings that were starting to burn a bit in 4 days… haha I can’t say I’m proud of that but at least there’s more space in my freezer!) – put it this way, I couldn’t put a flat tray in my freezer the way you have in the pic. One of my “awww” proud moments was when I first moved to the city and my mom came over to see the apartment for the first time, she wandered around and even looked in my fridge/freezer. Later on, my sister (who wasn’t there) told me that our mother had told her (but not me, go figure) how proud she was of how organized my freezer was! Hahaha. If she saw mine now, she’d probably flip out ;X