Sadly I didn't take many pictures of the freezer cooking but here's a recap of the first freezer cooking or "big day" (as some people call it) of 2013. I was behind (as usual) so I didn't get my grocery list finalized until friday morning (on the big day). I decided to use my Access database to plan the cooking but I hadn't tested it in a while and I was a little nervous about whether it would have any bugs or not. Well...it sorta worked. I got to the grocery store and my list said I needed 4 cups of yeast (when I knew I only needed about 3 tbsp) and it didn't show any ricotta cheese when I was pretty certain I needed some. So I did the best I could adjusting the list on the fly and getting all the groceries for me to cook for a month and Carolyn to cook for two weeks.
To cook for 4 weeks I typically do 10 recipes (doubled). So your meals look like this:
Week 1: Meals 1,2,3,4,5
Week 2: Meals 6,7,8,9,10
Week 3: Meals 1,2,3,4,5
Week 4: Meals 6,7,8,9,10
Carolyn only wanted to cook for two weeks so I had her pick 5 out of our 10 meals to make. Here are the meals I picked:
Thai Chicken Saute
Stovetop Sausage Mac N Cheese
Pasta Sausage Soup
DIY Frozen Pizzas
Spaghetti Pie
Chicken Enchiladas with Green Chile Sour Cream sauce
Chicken Broccoli Casserole
Cheese filled meatloaf
Ham and cheese quiche
Tuna Noodle Casserole
I also wanted to make some corn muffins and mashed potatoes to freeze as side dishes as well as some breakfast burritos and pre-portioned smoothie pouches for breakfast. And of course some treats for doggie.
Since I got such a late start on grocery shopping, I didn't get as much made before Carolyn got here as I wanted to. But we still got all the meals made except the frozen pizzas. And then we were exhausted so we just got some chinese food and relaxed for the rest of the evening. Over the rest of the weekend I got the extra soup made that I wanted as well as the the breakfast burritos. I made the corn muffins but they all stuck in the pan so I'm not really sure what I'm going to do about them. I froze the bananas and berries for the smoothie pouches but the oranges at Publix looked TERRIBLE so I'll have to pick up some oranges somewhere else or another time before I can finish those. And we did make the pizzas and ate one of them :) yum!
The pizza was super fun to make and I even made the pizza dough using my fancy new KitchenAid mixer. I think my favorite part of the homemade pizza is that we can each put whatever toppings we want and as much or as little as we want. So the only things I really didn't get to make over the weekend were the mashed potatoes and doggy treats.
Last but not least, thank you sooo much to everyone who got us new pots and pans for the wedding! They really made a huge difference in our cooking. I was able to cook larger meals in one pot when I previously had to use two pots for it so we could fit more meals on the stove at once and finish faster. They are super easy to clean and the silicone covered handles mean i don't have to use a pot holder just to move a pan. So excited about cooking again thanks to all my new toys! :)
Last but not least, thank you sooo much to everyone who got us new pots and pans for the wedding! They really made a huge difference in our cooking. I was able to cook larger meals in one pot when I previously had to use two pots for it so we could fit more meals on the stove at once and finish faster. They are super easy to clean and the silicone covered handles mean i don't have to use a pot holder just to move a pan. So excited about cooking again thanks to all my new toys! :)
