2020 Fill Your Freezer February

After a health scare last month with someone in our family, which in turn ER visit, a rare disease diagnosis called Eosinophilic Esophogitis. Which is a food/environmental allergy that goes undetected by the usually allergy signs (rashes, hives, anaphylaxis) it is a chronic inflammation in your body that manifests in your throat and can cause you eating and swallowing issues. How we found out: a food impaction!

All that to say, Fill Your Freezer February this year will be a little different. We are still on the elimination diet to help figure out what food(s) are causing a reaction. So we are currently NOT eating: nuts, eggs, dairy, gluten, soy and fish. Which I guess means, this should be a really health freezer prep! So although lasagna, pesto chicken, homemade pizza dough, and banana bread are all great ideas to stock the freezer up- you won’t be seeing that in these Fill Your Freezer February posts!

I’m sure you guessed it, but the first thing you need to do is to clean and organize your freezer! Due to baby Connor’s arrival in December and those sweet (and hard!) post partum days we went through all of the freezer stashes I had made! And since we were busy with research and doctors appointments in January I still hadn’t cleaned our chest freezer out.

By no means do you have to take everything out and wipe your freezer down, but if you aren’t sure what all is in your freezer, this is a good time to take everything out, sorting it into sections as you go (ex. fruit, chicken, breakfast etc), wipe it down, and put each section back in.

Take note – mental or physical pen and paper- on what types of items you would like to add to Fill Your Freezer. Personally, having breakfast items prepped and or ready to pop in the oven are super helpful with a newborn. Dinner is a little easier because I try to make sure I prep as much as I can for dinner while he sleeps in the afternoon… So that is something to think about in your season of life. If nothing else try to come up with 5 items for each meal that you can tuck away this month to help yourself out in the future!

My Fill Your Freezer February “Rules”

#1. Use our normal grocery budget

I know a lot of people come off a Pantry Challenge in January and I know it can be easy to blow the Febraury budget trying to fill in the gaps of everything you may have used up last month. GET CREATIVE:
-Make your own taco seasoning mix
-Plan your menu and freezer cooking off of sales. Take one protein and one vegetable that is on sale and see how you can come up with 3 different meals using those two items!
-Double Dinner. Eat one and freeze one.
-Don’t forget the treats! Even though we are on a ‘special diet’ (gosh , I loathe that saying) we have still found ways to enjoy treats!
-Search Pinterest, your favorite food blog, search hashtags on Instagram, or recipe sites like allrecipes.com

#2. Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, and Snacks.

I mentioned it above, but I try and make sure I get a variety of meals. Especially focusing on the current life situation!

That’s it!

I sure hope this inspired you and didn’t discourage you! Click Here to check out the previous Fill Your Freezer February posts! Feel free to leave a comment, a good freezer recipe, or a question! You can also email me at findingfaithsfuture@gmail.com . I will probably be sharing tidbit on Instagram too !