The question I get most often is, “How do you find the time to sew and do your design work?”    The obvious unspoken questions are: Do your children eat? Is your house a pig sty? Are you really homeschooling? Do your kids just watch TV all day or what? Are you on speed? Are you superwoman?

I have a few answers for you, my friends.  No my children do not starve.  Which brings me to part one of How To Magically Make More Time…..

FREEZER MEALS

I have found that most freezer meals on pinterest or in books range from slightly to grossly disappointing.  Usually freezer meals are reserved for desperate measures. They involve cream of yuck soups and are high in carbs and low in nutrition.  We usually don’t care because those meals are given in love and are truly a blessing.  When making freezer meals to eat often, I don’t want to sacrifice our health or the importance of having meal time together as a family.  I also don’t want to sacrifice good taste.  Most importantly, I WANT TO SEW DURING NAPTIME instead of make dinner.  Sound fun?  It is. #worthit

THREE IMPORTANT RULES FOR FREEZER MEALS:

1. Healthy – everyone has a different version of healthy. My version is meat, healthy fats, vegetables, whole grains.  Our family is fortunate not to have many allergies or food intolerances, but you can definitely adapt most of my recipes to your needs.
2. Easy – the finished meals cannot involve anything more than reheating.  No multiple packets and steps. That is not a meal.  That is food prep.
3. Tasty – nobody really likes freezer meals that have no taste or are just full of chicken breasts with jam and cream of yuck.  Let’s just make really great food and freeze it.

You don’t have to hold a big freezer meal making marathon. Especially if that makes freezer meals daunting for you.  I usually buy enough ingredients to make four meals of one recipe. I make them all, we eat one for dinner that night and I freeze the other 3.  However, it is super fun to have a girls night and make them together with friends or to host a freezer meal swap!

I’m sharing our family favorite, Tater Tot Casserole Recipe with you!  If you’d like the rest of my recipes for free just sign up for my newsletter(at the bottom of my home page) and they will magically arrive in your inbox!  FOR FREE.  Delia helped me make these lovely TTC’s last week because I wanted to finish sewing a quilt this weekend.  As Martha Stewart would say, “It’s a good thing.”

One more thing, I openly apologize to my mother (who faithfully reads all my blog posts) for complaining about tater tot casserole when she used to make it while I was growing up.  To be fair, hers had mushy zucchini in it.  Love you though. #bestmomever  🙂

Stay tuned for two more editions of How To Magically Make Extra Time (for sewing) (or whatever your happy place is).

-Andrea