Marathon Cooking!!!!

I found myself in a new situation and not one that was fun.  With starting my new job I have found it hard to make dinner when I am not getting home until 6:30pm.  I was grabbing dinner on the way home almost every night.  For almost two weeks we ate out every night...YUCK!!! I got fed up and decided that I had to change something somehow. 

So in a dramatic fashion I decided that I was going to cook all of my meals for an entire month in one weekend.  Have them in the freezer so that all that needs to be done night to night is thaw them and reheat or bake them.  Don't ask me where that brilliant idea came from cause I don't know.  I know a lot of you are thinking she is crazy!!!  I may be!!

Because I can't do anything half way I started this mid month and decided to do not 4 but 6 weeks worth of meals all at once.  So I sat down and made a list of foods that we like to eat.  I also sat down with a calendar and started just writing in the foods we like to eat until the whole 6 weeks were full.  I did make Wed. nights leftover night.  I also accounted for a few weekend days that we would be out of town.  Then I proceeded to make my grocery list.  Wow that was quite the list!

Let's talk about quite a shopping trip also.  It was a lot of stuff and a lot of money as you can well imagine.  It was a kick in the gut to spend all of that at once.  Once I broke it down by week I realized that I only spent about $60 per week for 6 meals plus one meal of left overs that will feed 4 people.  Not too shabby is what I decided.  Then it was home to cook. 

I wasn't sure how to start this out or how long it would take.  So I just went with what made sense to me.  I cooked up all the meat for all the different meals.  I also chopped any vegetables that would be needed with a little bit of help from Chef Leyton and my mom.  Then just one by one I started putting the meals together.  I wish I would have taken a picture of the disarray that was my kitchen at this point.  I also wish I would have taken a picture of my freezer with all the meals after I was done.  I didn't however so now lets just move on. 

To make this as simple as possible I put everything for one meal into a bag and labeled it with the date that we would be eating it and what it was.  For any of the casseroles I labeled those with the date and what it was along with cooking temp. and time.  I also went to the dollar store and bought the tin throw away pans for a lot of the meals.  Makes clean up super simple also!!!  I did cover them with press and seal wrap and tin foil so that they wouldn't freezer burn.  Then organized them by week in the freezer so that it would be easy to find them.

So for the first 6 weeks it went pretty well.  I did learn that you can't cut up potatoes and freeze them.  They turn into black mush when they thaw out.  So I either wait to cut them until I am making the meal or you could buy frozen ones at the store to save time.  I have also realized that there are a few of the recipes that you either have to adjust the time or temp for cooking.  And you can't leave press and seal on when baking or reheating because it melts :)  But all in all it was a pretty good experiment.  So I moved onto doing it for another month. 

Jan. meals went very well.  I spent a little bit more per week for the meals I decided to make.  I also tried a lot of new recipes off of Pinterest that I had been dying to try.  Mostly all good a couple that we probably wont have again.  It's really working for me and our family!  Best thing we have only eaten out a couple of times during the weekends when we have wanted to for something fun to do!!