We drove out to the pumpkin patch last weekend, a lucky little stretch of time in between me traveling to see my sister in Maine and Sam traveling briefly for work. And really, to say it’s a pumpkin patch is misleading as it’s one of those spots with farm animals, apple picking, a corn maze, cider donuts and roasted corn — these people are all in when it comes to fall.

It’s funny as a parent how you sort of project your own desires and traditions onto your kids at an early age: we’ve gone to a farm to pick pumpkins with Oliver since he was a baby, but this was the first year that he, too, was all in. He raced from pumpkin to pumpkin, asking for help putting them in the wheelbarrow – even saying to me at one point, “mom, this one’s beautiful!” So that we didn’t end up buying 27 pumpkins, I’d follow behind putting many of them back without him noticing, snapping a few pictures when I could but also trying to just be there with my people, not my phone. When we got home, O helped me put the pumpkins out on the stoop, arranging them just how he wanted them.

We’ll carve them sometime this week, and Sam will probably insist we roast the seeds. And I’ll grumble about how messy it is and how much work it is but ultimately be really, really happy to snack on them in the days to come. A little gift to our future selves. Which is exactly what these freezer burritos are: a guaranteed way to make your upcoming week easier with just about an hour’s worth of prep time.

While we still have a few months before baby #2 arrives, I’ve been slowly starting to clean out the freezer and pantry and use up little bits of odds and ends we have laying around. And in doing so, I’ve started to think about what I’d like to stock the freezer with this time around. I remember after I had Oliver, friends generously brought over things we could warm for dinner and I’d made soups and casseroles in advance, but when it came to morning or mid-day meals, I was often trying to make a slice of peanut butter toast while holding a newborn baby — not the easiest endeavor. So this time around, on the agenda are more morning meals and (far) less one-handed peanut butter toast.

Let’s talk about freezer burritos for a minute. First off, you can totally make this recipe and not freeze them if you’ve got a family slightly larger than ours. And the great thing about these is you can really add whatever fillings you’d like. In fact, I hesitated to make this an actual “recipe” with specific inclusions because you should just add what makes you happy and what you’ve got around that you’re perhaps trying to use up. As a general rule, keep the amount of eggs, milk, seasoning and tortillas the same in the recipe below, but then feel free to add 2 – 2 1/2 cups of other add-ins and you’re good to go. Roasted veggies, beans, leftover shredded chicken or pork, ground beef or sausage or bacon, finely chopped hearty greens. Go to town. All that said, there are a few good guidelines to keep in mind when putting your freezer burritos together that I’ve learned the hard way (helllooo, soggy Burrito Town). First, avoid veggies with a high water content like mushrooms, tomatoes, or spinach (some people add spinach but I do find it can get a bit watery). Also, remember that you’re ultimately reheating these, so you don’t want to add anything you wouldn’t want to eat hot (i.e. no avocado, romaine or iceberg lettuce, to name a few).

The magic of these burritos is you simply fold them up, wrap them in foil, toss them in the freezer and then reheat in the microwave any time you’d like for just 3 minutes. I’ve been eating them on my drive to work and Sam’s been warming one when he gets home from dropping O off from preschool. They’re little handheld lifesavers, and I can’t wait to make another batch this week. Anything to make life easier now … and in the future, when we’ve got another monkey in the mix.