I was introduced to the idea of a big day of baking almost 9 months ago by Money Saving Mom. The premise is to spend one day of baking goodies to store in your freezer to last you for a few weeks. I never knew how valuable this idea would become to us.
I was never much of a baker so muffins, biscuits, cakes, etc, really didn't come naturally to me nor did I find use in baking them. One day I realized my hardworking carpenter husband was plowing through 2 expensive granola bars a day to satisfy his need for extra sustenance and energy...meaning 1 box lasted us 3 days and cost us $3. I decided to try baking a batch of muffins to substitute the granola bars. SUCCESS. My husband was taking my homemade muffins to work, costing me only pennies to make.
A couple months later, I recognized another trend. On days when there were no leftovers from supper the night before, my husband was grabbing lunch in a drive-thru which added up over the month. When I asked him why he didn't just take a sandwich he said he needed something easy to grab at 7am when he was heading out the door. The next day I baked a batch of homemade pizza pops and stuck them in the freezer. My husband RAVED.
What started out as me trying to save us a few bucks here and there, became a tradition we now can't live without. Every couple of weeks I plan on having a big baking day, where I bake batches of muffins, breads, waffles, homemade pizza pops, granola and other goodies. My husband has even come to REQUEST that a baking day is in order because he's running out of goodies.
If you have the time, spending an afternoon stocking your freezer with quick and easy homemade convenience foods will stop you from buying the prepackaged full-o-garbage convenience foods as well as halting those visits to the drive-thru window. It feels very satisfying and comforting to know that you are saving your family money as well as giving them good food for their bellies.
Today's baking day landed me with:
a dozen Chocolate Zucchini Muffins
I had an extra 1/2 cup of grated zucchini so I made a dozen Carrot Spice Muffins and subbed in my leftover zucchini for some of the carrots.
Fresh blueberries are stupid cheap at the grocery store right now, so I stole some out of my huge container to make a batch of my family's favorite Wildberry Muffins.
I also made a double batch of Banana Bread and made half into muffins and half in a loaf pan.
We've already been eating the banana bread like crazy and the wildberry muffins are much better fresh so I'm leaving both those baked goods out for us to eat and the rest have gone into ziplock bags in the freezer. That should tide us over for a few more weeks.
Check out Frugal Femina's Baking Buddies to get more ideas for your own baking day.