Cooking Marathon Reflections & Tips

My journey into serious freezer cooking was filled with ups, downs, and everything in between.  I've made extra batches of certain recipes to be frozen before, but I've never attempted something as grand as this.  I bought a freezer cooking book about 3 months ago and although I haven't read it cover to cover yet I did get a few ideas, all of which I FORGOT when I was getting this all in motion!  What's a new adventure without hilarious mishaps along the way?  :o)

As many of you who read regularly know, I have been on a mission lately to spruce up my home and get my life organized.  It's been a looong busy road, but I am happy to say it's been worth it.  I am not Martha Stewart, Bob Vila, or Betty Crocker, but I feel my projects can at least garner a gold star by those who know me. 

 I decided to give the once-a-month-cooking (OAMC) thingy a try to see if indeed it would make my life easier.  I know the last two days have been filled with enough chicken and ground turkey to feed an army (I in fact, feed an army every day!), and enough cookies, biscuits, and rolls to build my own life-size Pillsbury dough boy, but I am hopeful this will make my life less stressful in the end.  I'm sure all you readers know I have five children ages 6-16 (3 boys and 2 girls), but I am also a Girl Scout leader, homeroom mom, soccer manager, track mom, and I run two businesses.  When I've been running around all day the last thing I want to think about is dinner.  Not that I don't enjoy cooking (to an extent), but I never seem to have enough time to make a nice meal - it's all about what I can throw into a pan and place on the table in 30 minutes or less.

This has been and will remain a "trial" until all this food is gone and I can see how helpful it really was to cook so far in advance.  Each time I've made extras I've always been relieved, so I'm pretty sure I'll feel the same this time around too. 

Here's a list of the things I would do differently if I could start all over again:

1. Create a more detailed cooking list

2. Break up cooking duties into chores that go together, rather than a little of this and a little of that

3. Make a complete shopping list and SHOP FIRST

4. Make sure I have enough pots/pans before I get started

5. Break up the cooking days a little more evenly (I exhausted myself COMPLETELY on day one)

6. Stock up on certain items several weeks in advance (i.e. chicken, canned goods, etc) when they're on sale

7. Find ways to have my kids help (I cooked while they were a school) so they can feel involved too

Here are some of my tips:

1. I absolutely get disgusted when I have to touch raw meats.  EEEWWW  I'll do it, but I don't like it.  I recently grabbed a bag of Playtex brand laytex gloves for free at Walgreens and I love them!  I put them on when I have to touch yucky stuff and they keep my hands clean - yeah!  I always use a rubber band around the top to keep them on, but now I won't touch meats without them...

2. I used to buy foil pans when I would cook extras but now I just use my regular pan lined in tin foil first, then wax paper.  If you do this before you place your food in there you can freeze the food in the pan, then take it out and wrap once it's completely frozen.  This will give your food the shape of the pan without using your pan until it's cooked!  I did this with all 3 lasganas and it worked beautifully.  The only problem was that I only had two pans I could use, so I had to assemble 2 the first day and the last one the second day.  Here's how it looks after assembly:

3. Use gallon sized FREEZER bags to store most items so they can lay FLAT on top of each other for easier storage.  I am lucky enough to have a deep/chest freezer (I think it's the smallest one they make!!), but ALL of this food only takes up about 1/3 of the freezer space.  I already had it 1/3 filled, so you can see how little space this food actually takes up in here:

4. Label your bags with the food item, quantity (if it applies), and the date.  You don't want to try to eat 6 year old pasta shells and get food poisoning (this is a TRUE story - just ask my husband who still refuses to eat anything that even resembles a pasta shell after SIXTEEN YEARS now!).

5. If possible, try to do some prep work before your actual marathon cooking days.  You can spend one day just trimming meats, another day chopping veggies, and so on.  I think this approach would have helped me tremendously.  I also marinated chicken for several hours - that would have been best if I had marinated overnight on day one.

6. Don't be TOO ambitious.  I was.  Now I'm feeling bad because I didn't get it all done.  I was so excited to make smoothies, but since I didn't find all the fruit I needed on sale I didn't get those finished.  I also didn't get to the mini cakes, pancakes, and muffins my kids wanted.  I'm pretty good, but I realized I am NOT super woman!  I will likely do a little bit over the next few days until my list is complete, but I'm still feeling a little bad about not getting it all done "in time".

7. Make SURE you have at least 6 hours of UNINTERRUPTED cooking/prep time for each day you're working.  One of the big mistakes I made was not thinking the days of the week through.  After spending two entire days cooking I realized I had a Girl Scout meeting last night, and our meeting was spent weeding our schools' garden!  UGH!  I don't mind weeding and I love my Girl Scouts, but weeding with a bunch of giggling second graders after 2 days and 18 hours of cooking did NOT make my day any easier! 

8. Cheat, but only if that's they way you roll.  I have no shame in baking PIllsbury rolls and using pre-made spaghetti sauce.  I always add my own seasonings and spices to any mixes I use, but I personally love anything that makes my job easier overall.  Some women are cringing as I speak these evil words, but hey, I mentioned earlier that I'm not super woman!  I still take pride in the fact that I actually cooked these meals, even if I had a little pre-made help!

9. Pat yourself on the back and have a hot bubble bath when it's all done.  :o) 

Thank you to all of you who have followed my journey these last couple of days!  I'll be posting more on this subject as the month progresses.  I'll be starting my plan for next month, and will also be posting some of my own recipes for those of you who asked.

Stay tuned for the Kroger and Randalls ads to be posted later today - I'm working on them right now!