my rockin day in the kitchen....

Something had to change this school year. I just can't spend the same amount of time in the kitchen as I have in the past. I've thought now and again about doing once a month cooking, putting up a whole bunch of freezer meals, but it's such a *long* and time consuming process. The last time I tried to do this was when Jack was still a little baby. I picked a day that John was home, but still, it took me two and a half days to finish all the meals and really burned me out. So, this time I downloaded some mega menu mailers from savingdinner.com. I have used other menus from this site now and again, and I love the Saving Dinner cookbook. Still, I didn't want to make them all at once, especially since now I have to double most recipes anyway,,,it would be a *lot* of work for one day. I picked a few recipes from the first menu to use this week, and yesterday I made them up and stocked them away. It really was very easy to do, not only because it was just a week's worth of dinners, but also because you don't actually cook all the meals like you are instructed to do in most freezer cook books. You prep all the ingredients and put them together, but the cooking is saved for the day that you plan to serve the food. Altogether I spent about three hours in the kitchen and put up 7 dinners, plus a big loaf of banana bread and some chocolate chip muffins for breakfasts, and a batch of brownies when a quickie dessert is needed. I also made a batch of broccoli cheddar soup to keep in the fridge for lunches during the week, and a jar of homemade ranch veggie dip.

Speaking of lunches, the afternoons of making hot lunches every day are also gone. The time just doesn't exist anymore. With the doubled recipes, we should have enough for leftovers for at least two or three people to have for lunch. For everyone else, I made a list for the fridge of not-too-junky lunch choices....raviolis, hot dogs (usually not a common indulgence around here, but I got Hebrew National--less junk than most brands, and on whole wheat buns), veggie burgers, tuna fish, salad and sandwich fixings, plus the pot of soup in the fridge....we should be set pretty well.

So, I'm excited, three hours on Saturday and I'm pretty much done cooking for the week. We will still have breakfast-for-dinner on Sundays, and I'll make a couple of nice desserts from scratch on slower days, but that's about it!

Still wanting to share pictures of our school room. My camera is MIA.