Crockpot Cooking

The week before Baby2 came I put together a bunch of crockpot meals to freeze.  I've been comparing and contrasting the benefits and downfalls to these.

Benefits:

1)  To make dinner is super easy.  I don't have to do any (or much) prep.  Just any sides, like make rice or boil noodles or steam veggies.

2)  Most of the meals have been enjoyed by Husband and Baby.  They seem to like a lot of them, which is always a plus.

3)  These meals make a lot of food (more than I anticipated), so there are always leftovers for Husband to take for lunch the next day and for Baby and I to eat for lunch at home the next day.

4)  We haven't had to do any major grocery shopping in a while.  I think we've saved money on groceries by preplanning it out and not buying unnecessary items because we had to run to the store for one item and end up coming home with more.

5)  Since I bought all the spices and sauces for each recipe, I still have a bunch in my pantry that I can use for next time, saving me some money.  

6)  My family is eating healthier.  It's not fast food, or processed.  It's actual recipes that I put together.

7)  I'm pretty proud of what I did end up putting together, since I'm usually not such a chef.  I'm usually more of an "instant" meal type person. 

Downfalls:

1)  It took a lot of work to prep.  A lot of cutting and sorting.  I would need to find an extended amount of uninterrupted time to do that again.  Although now that I know what I would be doing, I think it would probably go quicker.

2)  Not every meal has been a hit and we've ended up tossing some food.  Although now I know what we like and can exclude what we don't

3)  It was a lot of money to fork out at once.

4)  Freezing the meals takes up a lot of room in the freezer.  We are lucky to have two refrigerators, and I used up a lot of space in both.  

5)  I have to remember to pull a meal out in advance to defrost.  Otherwise it won't get cooked and we are scrambling to find something for dinner. 

6)  Sometimes crockpot meals get old.  Gotta mix it up a bit.

In conclusion, I guess it's not such a terrible idea.  I think I convinced myself to do it again.