I was speaking with two different clients last week about upcoming busy weeks in their lives. One was about to return to work after paternity leave, the other was anticipating getting through her first week of exams - both knew their schedules were going to be totally up in the air.

If you know you have travel, work events, holiday parties, guests in town, etc coming up then this message is for you!

When we know our schedules are going to pick up, rather than default to take out regretsies, let’s do something about it! Take one thing off your plate (he he) and get your food in order. You’re doing this for your future self. Making a plan is not going to be enough - I want you to make the food, freeze it, and simply pull it out of the freezer when you’re slammed!

It’s time to start looking at your freezer as your pantry, and your pantry as the place where very little food should live. The pantry should hold canned goods, oils, and very little processed snacks. The freezer can be your backup resource for healthy home cooking.

Because I love you, I wanted to give you a list of easily freezable meals. Pick two of these to make in addition to your batch cooking this weekend:

• Turkey Meatballs
• African Curried Coconut & Chickpea Soup
• Braised Beef & Brussels Sprouts Stew
• Chicken Cacciatore
• Chicken Sausage & Shrimp Gumbo
• Creamy Shrimp & Tomato Curry
• Crockpot Vegetarian Curry
• Avocado Salmon Cakes
• Chicken Enchilada Soup
• Black Bean & Quinoa Burgers
• Chocolate Chicken Mole
• Cuban Ropa Vieja Shredded Beef
• Orange Thyme Pork Kebabs
• Ratatouille
• Frozen Banana Truffles
• Chicken Bruschetta
• Baked Ziti

As you’re making this, focus on how happy your future self will be to pull these out of the freezer so you can spend your energy on kicking ass in all the other areas of your life.