BLOOMINGTON, Minn. — After lugging an Igloo cooler from my minivan into the living room of a two-story home in Bloomington, I nervously watched 10 frozen batches of my family-favorite Zuppa Toscana soup change hands between 10 people whom I had never met.
I was the newest member of the Bloomington Meal Swap, a secret society of suburban soup-makers and casserole cooks on a mission to save money and their sanity, and feed their families nutritious home-cooked food.
I had heard of neighbors’ swapping leftovers, and thanks to Pinterest was no stranger to the freezer meal phenomenon. But a club devoted to sharing cooking duties was new to me and I had a golden ticket.
As I would come to learn, the concept for a meal swap is simple: Each member makes the same number of freezer-friendly recipes as there are members in the group. Sometimes called a freezer club, the idea is to save time and money, since you can buy in bulk or buy items that are on sale to make multiples of the same recipe.