This fall I'm working two very part-time jobs, in addition to teaching four kids at home. One job entails working from 3-5 p.m. three days a week, and the other job is one day a week from 6-8 p.m. The other day I had a head-smacking revelation that, duh, cooking dinner is really messing up my already complicated life. This may be partly due to the fact that Jim is working late almost every night during his department's busy season. A few years ago, my friends were talking about 30 day cooking, and I didn't pay much attention. I think now is the time for me to give it a try. The idea is so simple, although I'm not so sure about the execution. It involves spending a day cooking and freezing the bounty of your labors, to be eaten over the next month. Not being crazy about doing anything for a whole day, I'm going to start out small. I found this book at the library, which should help in getting started.
My plan is to cook as many meals as I can in half a day, and freeze them for the days when we're just too busy to cook. I also hope to prepare extra batches on other days, also to be frozen.
The worst part is going to be cleaning out not only our small kitchen freezer, but also the small chest freezer we have in the garage. I also need to clean out the pantry and cupboards, since I'll have a lot more ingredients to put into them. I'd love to hear if other people are doing this, how it's going. We'll see how it goes...
2 comments:
go grace! i've always meant to give once-a-month cooking a try and never have. can't wait to hear how it goes for you. I just read a great suggestion in a magazine about how to freeze things like casserole and lasagna. you line the pan with freezer paper, assemble the dish, freeze, and once it's frozen, pop the whole thing out. I think you're supposed to wrap it, then, and put it in a freezer bag. but, it doesn't take up one of your dishes and takes less space in the freezer. when you're ready, you just stick it back in the pan. that's probably in your book, anyway, but i thought it was a great idea. good luck!
I think I did see something about that, but I need to go back and reread the how-to part. I'm still just on the cleaning out the freezer and cupboards part!
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