cooking

Well, I spent all day yesterday cooking and freezing meals. (For those who don't know, about once a month I cook 10-20 meals to freeze so that most nights I can just throw the pan in the oven or microwave and not have to stress about dinner after work.) I haven't done a big cooking day since my break in December... I've been too worn out to even attempt it. But I'm off and I'm feeling mostly pretty good now, and so I planned a total of 17 meals I wanted to cook. I got 11 done yesterday. I seemed to go a little slower than normal. So this morning I did 5 more. I have 2 left to do tomorrow, but they are both quick and easy. So now my freezer is restocked and we have food to eat for the next month and a half. Here's a pic of my freezer. Everything in there I made in the past two days except the pizzas, popsicles and ice cream, of course.

For those who are wondering, here are a few of the foods I made: Manicotti, Tuna Tortellini Gratin, Taco Soup, Chicken with Red Potatoes, 5 Spice Chicken, Baked Ziti, Chicken a la King, and Broccoli Cheese Soup. Some of them I doubled so when I say I made 17 meals, I cooked about 12 entries but some of them were doubled.

I know what some of you are thinking. Do these foods really taste good? Is this like eating leftovers night after night? I was skeptical before I started. But then I started thinking about it. Sometimes I would buy premade lasagnas or pasta meals at the store that were frozen and overall they were pretty good. And they'd often cost $10 or more. And on busy nights, we'd end up eating fast food and that would cost $15 or more for our family and wasn't healthy. So if we liked the frozen foods at the store, why shouldn't we like the frozen foods I make at home. Wouldn't it be healthier and cheaper and make my life easier than having to cook every single night... especially after working all day? So I decided to try it out. I started small. I'll admit: we haven't liked every recipe. But I now have about 15 tried and true recipes and each time I try at least 2 new recipes. And you don't have to do it my way and take a whole day and cook, cook, cook. You can start small and just double or triple whatever recipe you're making and then freeze the extra(s). However, I would recommend getting a freezer cookbook because some modifications needed to be made. Most things you only partially cook before freezing. For example, pasta should only be cooked about half the time so it doesn't get too soggy. So like for lasagna or manicotti you cook the noodles briefly. THen you prepare it just like you normally would. but then before baking it, you cover it with saran wrap and foil and freeze it. Then you take it out and thaw in the refrigerator for 24 hours and then bake it for the normal amount of time (about 1 hour). So there's your lesson in freezer cooking. Sorry!

By the way, here are the two freezer cooking books that I love most:

Dream Dinners: Turn Dinnertime into Family Time with 100 Assemble-and-Freeze Meals by Stephanie Allen and Tina Kuna (This has yummy recipes and can be used for freezing or cooking the same day. They give you instructions for both. I love this book!)

Don't Panic - Dinner's in the Freezer: Great-Tasting Meals You Can Make Ahead by Susie Martinez, Vanda Howell, and Bonnie Garcia also very good... although some of their meals are kind of spicy

Also, to get you started (if I've convinced you of the merits of this plan), you should take a look at

The Freezer Cooking Manual from 30 Day Gourmet : A Month of Meals Made Easy by Tara Wohlenhaus and Nanci Slagle I personally don't like their recipes as well but they have a wonderful organization style and really helped me get started.

There are tons of freezer cooking books available. check out amazon.com or even the public library. :)

Now, this tired pregnant lady should go to bed. Or finish my book for book club tomorrow. I'm only half done. Oops.