Crockpot Freezer Cooking

I have mentioned before that I am a recovering pessimist, and as such, I am already dreading August.  Life just gets so much harder in the fall.  So I've been thinking of things I can do now to help make my life easier then.

And one of them is crock pot freezer cooking.

I am going to start small - 5 meals.  I will prepare, freeze, and cook each meal in the coming weeks and see how I like it.  I have tried to choose meals that my son will eat and meals where I can easily pick something off or out of if need be.  Right now, I've narrowed my recipes down to the following:

• Scalloped Potatoes & Ham - my son is obsessed with ham - ham sandwiches, ham pizza, plain ham - and after the last year of him not eating FOOD, we are overjoyed.  I'm sure he will eat this.
  
  
  
• Slow Cooker Chicken Teriyaki - my husband LOVES teriyaki so this one looked good.

• Vegetable Beef Soup - this is my mother-in-law's recipe.  Mmmmmmmmm good.

• Ravioli - I love ravioli, and I've had a bag of it in my freezer for a while now. It needs eaten.

• Crock Pot Pasta - this is a totally new recipe, but it uses beef, which we have an abundance of, so I figured I'd try it.

I made all of these over the course of a few days, chopped, diced, cooked, and froze.  All but the ravioli made two meals, which means that these recipes yielded NINE meals for my family, and all they require is placing the bag in the refrigerator the night before and then throwing them in the crock pot on low for 6-8 hours.  I tried to pick recipes where I didn't have to go to the store for much and that used lots of vegetables.  And I made some modifications...like the teriyaki chicken called for canned pineapples with the syrup, but since we always have fresh pineapple around here (my kids are obsessed), I used fresh pineapple and reserved the actual pineapple juice (which normally I pour into a juice glass and drink).  I also threw in some broccoli and mini peppers since I had them on hand.  I'm looking forward to that recipe!

If this works as well as I'm hoping it will, that means I can slowly stock my freezer this summer and have ready-made meals for the fall, and as the fall is our busiest time of year, I can use all the help I can get. :)