Freezer Meals

At First Baptist, we have a ministry called Caring Community Ministry. The purpose of this ministry is to support foster families that are a part of our church family, as well as to minister to foster families in the Portland area. A big part of this ministry so far has been helping with meals. I wanted to share a couple of ways that we have organized meals, because they are great things that I hadn't heard of (or thought of) previously. They can be applied to anyone you are organizing food for (new baby, illness, loss, or just to help out / show your love). 

One of the first tools we have used is www.takethemameal.com. This website is awesome! You can set up a meal schedule for someone & anyone you want to share it with can access it by entering in the recipient's last name & password you come up with. You enter the recipient's address, contact information, and the days you want the meals scheduled for. You can also add information on the number of people to prepare for, any allergies, special instructions, likes/dislikes, etc. It makes it so easy to organize meals & everyone can see what dates are taken or still open. You can also put in the food you are taking so the recipients don't get the same food over & over. 

One of the other things we have done is prepared freezer meals. These are meals you put together in a gallon ziploc bag, label with instructions, and put in the freezer. The day before you want to make the freezer meal, you put it in the fridge to thaw, and the morning of just throw everything in the crockpot. Super easy & convenient for those you are taking food for. See pictures below. Getting together with some of the women from my Sunday School class to put together these meals was a lot of fun. We spent time together, listened to worship music, and had so much joy in being able to prepare these meals for others. I'm also posting pictures below of the recipes we used. Enjoy!