Meal Planning: Make your friends do some of the work...

Sometimes the sheer monotony of 3 meals a day, every single day, gets the better of me. I have often moaned, "Why do you have to eat again?! Can't we just eat once a week and be done?!" And of course, we have to eat in dishes and use cutlery, or at least drink out of glasses.

Yeah, that's right. I love to cook, I love to meal plan, but sometimes I just don't wanna!

So if this is you, and you want to avoid pizza or the drive-thru why not try this brilliant idea, that I totally did not come up with...

A freezer meal exchange. 

My friend recently organized a freezer meal exchange on Facebook by simply asking us each to make 6 dishes (as in the same dish) and then bring them to her house in disposable dishes (yay! less dishes!). Switch around and you go home with 5 new meals and the one you made as well. Oh, and the kids got a play date, and you got to have coffee together. Super win.

I think the best part of this idea is that you don't have to make 6 different dishes in one marathon session  yourself. You only have to make one, just make a lot, which is actually easier than making several dishes. I rolled 120 meatballs in about 2 hours. And I was able to save money by buying 5 lbs. of lean ground beef on sale. I actually made all the meals for about 30 dollars. And since I made 6 meals for 4 people each... I am serving 24 people. Wow. (Now i feel bad about my usual food budget for a party.....)

If you want to host something like this, Facebook makes it easy. Simply message a bunch of friends and ask who would be interested, then you can make it an Event. We found it was easier to do it a few weeks after we first talked about it, since then people could clear our their freezers and look for sales and such. You want a good group of people but not too many. I would say 4-6 would be fun. If you want more than that, maybe try having each person make only 5 dishes and then each person gets to choose just 5 out of a larger mix. It is also nice to clarify if you are doing full meals (are sides and vegetables expected?) or not.

It is important to talk about allergies, but if your friends all have long lists of intolerances, intense dislikes and allergies, then maybe this isn't the route for you.

You're gonna have to go in expecting a bit of an adventure. You might find your favourite dish ever, something might not be so great. It is food... you didn't make it... you get to eat it.... be happy!

So far we have had only one of our dishes and it was really good. And I still have 5 more to try. Yippee!

Does your freezer help you get dinner on your table? Do you friends help stock your freezer? How?