One thing we do is to take some time on a weekend and put all the ingred for a more complex crockpot meal into a ziploc. Then we freeze it and when we want to cook it we just open the bag and dump in the contents.
A way to take advantage of sales on meat and to make life more convenient is to buy large amts of meat at once. I like to cook the meat up and then package it into 1 lb portions and freeze them. I have trouble standing for long, so I use the crockpot to deal with this. It works esp well with ground beef, pork and boneless chicken. I just pack the crockpot to the top wtih ground beef and turn it on, ditto with chicken and pork.
When the meat is done, pull or chop it into bite size pieces and then freeze in ziploc bags in 1 meal size portions. For us that is usually a pound. I do track how much meat went in so I know how many bags I will get. I use the weight of the raw meat to determine the number of pounds rather than the weight of the cooked meat. Most recipes use 1 pound meat, cooked, which means to cook one pound of raw meat. Of course you lose fat, etc.... during cooking, so I divide the cooked meat into however many packages as the pounds of raw meat that went into the crockpot. I didn't explain this to Jess at first (it didn't occur to me) and we had several fewer meals out of that batch of meat, but my guys were thrilled because they were 'soooooo meaty', lol. Of course it killed the budget though.
Be sure to NOT throw the liquid away after you portion out the meat. Chill the liquid in the fridge overnight, then take off the fat that hardens on top, and freeze in 1 or 2 cup portions. If you don't have containers, use muffin tins or small plastic cups and put the frozen stock into ziplocs the next night. That liquid is the same thing you buy as stock in cans at the store, but it is much healthier and cheaper as you already have it from the meat you cooked.
If you put frozen ingredients into your crockpot, you MUST use the high setting AND have at least 1 cup of water/liquid in the pot. Why? Otherwise the food will stay in the danger range (40-140 degrees Fahrenheit) for too long. That is the range where bacteria thrive and food should never be in this range for more than 4 hours. That is total 4 hours, not 4 hours raw, then more time during or after cooking. If you don't have the liquid and the crockpot on high, it won't heat the food fast enough to get out of this range.
