Portion control through freezer cooking

One of the easiest ways to not overeat, is to not have food you don't need lying around. I try to control my portions partially through freezer cooking. I cook up a big batch of whatever, then freeze it in single-meal portions.
The last time I did this, I cooked up 13 or so pounds of ground beef that I had gotten for pretty cheap. It wasn't the lowest-fat beef, but eating the right portion of the better-tasting non-low-fat beef is more satisfying to me.

I got out my biggest mixing bowl and threw a bunch of ground beef in. 4 or 5 pounds. Crunched up crackers, threw some Sweet Baby Ray's in there, garlic and onion powder, salt and pepper, some random beef spice I got for free at Meijer a few weeks ago, a couple of eggs, some milk, etc. (I don't measure- my meatloaf is different every time.) I pat it into cube-ish loaves, about 3/4 pound each. They are about 8 ounces cooked. I also make it into meatballs, because that's what the kids like best.
I cook them somewhere between 375 and 400 for about 35 minutes or so- the meatballs maybe 20-25 minutes.


I also just brown a large amount of the ground beef, and freeze it for later. So, I can just pull ground beef from the freezer and plop it into whatever recipe I am making- spaghetti, tacos, soup, whatever. I do about 1.5 cups in each container- about 8 ounces, usually.

I also made up hamburgers, but don't pre-cook those- I just make the patties and freeze them frozen. 1 each for me and Doug, and 1 for the kids to share. I make it similarly to the meatloaf- throw a bunch of stuff in, mix it up, and hope it tastes good.

I ended up making 7 meatloaves, 15 hamburgers, a bunch of meatballs, and 9 containers of cooked ground beef that day.

We ate the meatballs that day, but that means that I spent about 2 hours in the kitchen and ended up making enough "meat" for 21 meals (7 meatloaves + 5 hamburger packages (3 per package) + 9 plain ground beef.

I won't go into too any detail, but I also cooked up chicken that day, too, and got enough for another 6 from that! I don't think cooked chicken freezes as well as beef, so I don't do that very often.

When you're ready to eat, you can just pull meatloaf directly out of the freezer and nuke it for 2 minutes. While it's warming, mix together brown sugar and ketchup (maybe 1/4 cup total) and put on top after the 2 minutes. Microwave another 2-3 minutes till heated through. Delicious!