MyFreezEasy - A Homeschool Crew Review

At the end of August, at a time when I was so, so tired of menu planning and tired of always eating the "same old same old", I learned there was a review coming up with a menu planning company called MyFreezEasy. 

I asked to be a part of the review and was selected, and in early September began my Premium Annual Membership to the MyFreezEasy.com Freezer Meal Plan Membership!
Specifically, we are receiving the Premium Annual Membership.
Week 1: The day I received access to the website was a Tuesday. We do our shopping weekly, normally, on Saturday, so I couldn't do any menu preparation that week. I spent those first days looking at recipes, menu plans, and watching videos. On Friday I came up with a menu plan for the upcoming week using meals from the MyFreezEasy website. I selected five recipes. Following the plan, you make two each of five meals, giving you ten ready-to-prepare meals in your freezer.
A big part of the program includes not only acquiring the supplies, but also setting aside an hour to prepare the ten meals all at once, bagging them, and getting them into the freezer. I did not have the time to set aside that week to do the one-hour meal preparation session, so I made two meals a night, and we ate one and froze one.
I needed more storage bags, so it was on my grocery list to get more one-gallon zip-style storage bags. My wonderful husband knows I need his help, and he does grocery shopping for me most weeks. In shopping, he picked up "slider" bags instead of "zipping" bags. Seemed the same to him. Do not make that mistake. It changes your bag opening from like a 20" circumference to about a 14" circumference. One person trying to spoon or ladle food into bags with a small opening is not a pretty sight. I don't usually have someone who can hold the bag open for me. Buy the zipper opening bags!
Week 1, it was interesting and new. We had artichoke hearts in a meal, which I never do. The meals were so different from my normal fare!
Week 2: Got my meal choices selected on Friday, again, for our Saturday shopping, which occurred on schedule. I shopped because hubby was at a Boy Scout camping trip. I spent a lot of money. Hmmm....
I got home and worked to get meals prepared in advance. As I worked, I started to see some differences between the MyFreezEasy methodology and my normal methods, differences that explain how this program saves time for the busy mom. I also noticed some oddities (odd to me, anyway) in the serving sizes the meals plan for the individual servings (will explain more below).
Having my bagged meals ready in advance now (for 15 meals by now, five left from last week and ten now from this week), daily meal preparation went quite smoothly.
I was surprised how quickly, for my family, we became discontent with the meals available to choose from. By the end of the week we had decided to do "family favorites" (not from MyFreezEasy) the following week. It just seemed like the MyFreezEasy had begun to seem too similar to each other. And that combined with a change in the weather (autumn), we were really hunkering for a week of family favorites.
Week 3: Did not purchase or prepare any MyFreezEasy this week. Spent more time looking at potential meal choices and watching training videos on the website. Ate meals from my arsenal of family favorites. Still have ten frozen meals in the freezer for the days ahead.
Week 4: Really thought we'd do more new meals this week, but the freezer is full, life is busy, and we decided not to. By now new meals were/are posted for October, so it is fun to know I have new variety to choose from in the weeks ahead. ***************************************************************************************************

MyFreezEasy is designed to help busy moms for many reasons. First, it is designed to "Help you to save time in the kitchen". I learned, while preparing meals, some techniques used by MyFreezEasy that save time over my normal methods, but on a normal basis I am not sure I want to use these time-saving techniques. The specific shortcuts I noted are:

• Using garlic powder instead of pressing a fresh clove of garlic;
• using onion powder instead of dicing an onion;
• using canned and jarred products instead of fresh (particularly tomatoes).

I think I had not realized how "whole foods" my thinking has become. So now I am tweaking the program to be a better fit for me personally. I would rather take the time, when preparing my meals, to dice an onion and press some garlic. I know it takes longer and creates more clean-up, but I believe in doing it because I believe it is better for my family. When I can manage it. When I can't manage it, time-wise, I'll now also remember some time-saving options I used to use but had forgotten.

MyFreezEasy also advertises that it will "Help you save money on your groceries". When it came to the actual shopping cost in week 2, it is hard for me to be certain I spent less money on that one trip. However, I can't say with certainty whether food cost me more, less, or even the same because food is not the only thing I bought. Sometimes additional items are needed that run up the bill like laundry detergent and other household items and I'm not sure what else I bought that day.

The main way this would have saved me money when I was a younger mom is this -- I often had no plan for dinner! I had two young babies. This was pre-computer days in my house, and there was no way to cruise the internet for ideas. Hubby would get home from work, and desperate for a break from the kids I'd leave them with him and go to the grocery store. I'd cruise the aisles until inspiration struck and then check out with dinner, and would also pay for whatever else had hopped into my cart while I had shopped while hungry. "Oh, yeah, I need milk... And I definitely need chocolate..." 

It has been a long time, now, since my girls were babies. They each have households of their own, now, and our family table holds myself, my husband and my 16 year old son. When I had teen-aged daughters at home, on a desperate day I could call home and say, "I'm running late! This is what we're having, and the directions are here. Can you get dinner started, please?" That doesn't work with my son. He can cook, but he's never bailed me out by picking up the cooking baton when I drop it. And in a pinch, my hubby knows how to make hot dogs but would usually rather order something from out. So it definitely saves money when I can call and say, "The sloppy joe sandwich mix is in the freezer. Please take it out and put it in a bowl of warm water!"

MyFreezEasy can "Make getting dinner on the table less overwhelming." If dinner prep is done in advance, the skillet meal just gets poured in the pan, the oven meal pours right into the baking dish, or the crock meal is emptied into the crock first thing in the morning and is ready on time. It is definitely less overwhelming.

**************************************************************** I want to tell you how this cool program works. There are several ways to use MyFreezEasy, so I'll discuss each way separately and then wrap them all together with additional options.
The first option for using MyFreezEasy is to pick a menu plan of the month. Menu plan can be:

• Traditional Meal Plan (5 recipes, 2 meals of each recipe);
• Gluten-free Meal Plan (5 recipes, 2 meals of each recipe);
• Slow-cooker Meal Plan (5 recipes, 2 meals of each recipe);
• Clean Eats Meal Plan (5 recipes, 2 meals of each recipe);
• 20 Meals Plan (10 recipes, 2 meals of each recipe);
• All Chicken Meals Plan (5 recipes, 2 meals of each recipe);
• All Ground Beef Meals Plan (5 recipes, 2 meals of each recipe);
• All Pork Chops Meals Plan (5 recipes, 2 meals of each recipe).

You can choose one of the above meal plan packages, or you can use a "mix and match" option to create your own specialized meal plan. You tell the program how many servings you need and it adjusts your shopping list accordingly. If you pick one of the above categories you get a PDF file with all the recipes and shopping list for either one or two meals for the category. If you choose one of the featured meal plans, you can watch an associated video to walk you through meal assembly for each meal in your plan. (I can't imagine how Erin Chase ever got all this done!)

If your goal is to fill your freezer with ready-to-cook meals, you might do a different meal plan once a week, and at the end of eight weeks you will not only have fed your family home-cooked meals every night but will also have 34-48 (or more) additional meals frozen and ready in your freezer. Or you could opt to prepare 15 to 30 different meals/recipes once a month in advance. The each night the most time-consuming part of the preparation is already done and you only need to crock, back, skillet or heat to get food on the table!

Another way to use the program is to use the option to swap meals on this month's plans.

This was my preferred method because I like to plan a week's worth of meals that might look like this: one beef; one chicken; one pork; one fish; one pasta; one vegetarian; one night out. So, when you select this option it gives you recipe choices from all the original eight meal plan categories as well as choices from: other beef recipes; dutch oven or saucepan recipes; skillet recipes; dairy-free recipes; baked recipes; gluten, dairy, soy-free recipes; other pork recipes; grill recipes; paleo/whole 30 recipes; sea food recipes; top 8 allergy-free recipes; and vegetarian recipes. 

You can add and drop recipes from any of the 20 recipe groups (there are recipes that overlap and are in more than one group) until you have settled on five recipes and indicated how many servings. Then you click a button and receive a PDF of all the recipes, instructions and shopping lists. It is awesome!

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So I did notice the plans and suggested side dishes do not include as many servings of vegetables as I/we like, so I altered my plans to serve more vegetables. As I became more comfortable with the program, I began to integrate in some of our family favorites for some of the meals.

I also noticed some recipes where I disagreed with the quantities recommended for the number of servings. I prepared a dish called Pasta Puttanesca, for four servings. The directions say to use 12 to 16 ounces of pasta shells. The box says right on it that 16 ounces is eight servings, so why does it call for 12 to 16 ounces for FOUR servings? So I used 1/4 of the box instead of the whole box. So you can make these adjustments, but I don't like having to think this through, and I don't like that I ended up purchasing more than I needed of various items.

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I do love having meals in my freezer now. Yesterday I was able to bless my adult daughter by sending her home with a dinner for this week, a bag with ready-to-heat already-cooked chili. If someone has an illness or birth or death, I have meals I can pull out, thaw and prepare to bless them with.

I really think you might like MyFreezEasy.  Give it a click and give it a try. Here's an option -- there is a Free Freezer Cooking 101 Workshop that you can try! It includes shopping list, recipes and video instructions. Give it a try!

Once you join, you get access to an entire Video Library. The Website has links and videos to walk you through many aspects of the program. There's one to introduce the program, one to tell you how to use the Printables, and a current and archived library of Cooking Workshop videos.

There is even an E-Cookbook of Favorite Side Dish Recipes for you if you join. Try the  and tell me what you think!

**Because I liked this product, I became an affiliate. This post contains affiliate links.**

• Other members of the Homeschool Review Crew also reviewed MyFreezEasy. To read other reviews of this product, click below.