Cooking for 2 Weeks!

By -
"What on earth am I going to make for supper?"


I'm pretty sure I'm not the only who has had this thought at 5pm :)
I’ll let you in on a little secret, I don’t enjoy cooking. Oh, I’ll do it because it is definitely the healthier choice for myself and my family; and in the long run is less expensive.


 So, one way I have learned to “cope” with this, thanks to my amazing sister Sherry, is to cook for 2 weeks in one day! It’s a lot of work but so totally worth it!

Things like this work different ways for different people. Here are a few things that have worked for us that we have learned along the way!



1. Start with a list. If you have any sort of OCD this is the way to go. All ingredients listed, color coded, underlined, whatever works for you!


Or you may be more free spirited and go with a simple straight forward list like this.

Copy of IMG_1788.jpg
Once you have all your ingredients together then its time to get started!

2. Prepare ingredients in bulk where you can. It is so handy to have ingredients prepared and ready to go when packaging meals up!
IMG_1794.JPG

This was for Lasagna, Fries Supreme, Tacos, and Chili/burritos.

This applies to chicken, vegetables, and what ever other ingredient you use in more then one dish; that way you are pulling out and re-pulling out the same ingredient all the time.

3. The slow cooker is your friend! We really enjoy making Mexican Beef wraps, Beans, Chicken and Dumplings in ours! You can pop it in first thing before you get started and that’s one meal done!
The aforementioned Mexican Beef Wraps ready to go!


4. Have more than one thing going at a time. Things need to cook, dough needs to rise, frying needs to be done. These things can all be done at the same time. And everyone knows us women are excellent multitaskers… generally speaking :)

IMG_1792.jpg








Here we have Beans for our chili and burritos and Green Bean Soup cooking as well as Ground Beef and bacon for our pizza frying. (We used the fresh bacon drippings for our beans. They were yummy)









5. Prep the meals as far along as you can. What does that look like? Well for enchiladas we found it works best to make and store the sauce separately so they don't get soggy when you thaw and bake them. Tacos we put meat and cheese in a tortilla and store them in a large ziplock bag. Some meals are meant to be warmed in the slow cooker so all the ingredients can be put in a bag and mixed and frozen that way. Our Foil wrapped chicken (below) was completely ready to be put on the BBQ.



 7. Cute kids are a bonus!

 

 Packaging tips
The main packaging type we use are
- Foil plates (when we have them on hand)
These are great for storing Enchiladas, Lasagnas etc.
- Large ziplock bags
You can store almost any meal in a ziplock bag
- Canning jars
Soups, sauces, gravies, and even chili store really well and are great space savers in the fridge.

 We try to freeze everything we can so we put as little as possible in the fridge.

 And there you have it!

This day of cooking gave us
- Green Bean Soup (Jar)
- Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo (Jar)
- Mexican Beef Wraps (Slowcooker)
- 2 Pizzas
- Tacos
- Burritos 
- Chicken and Dumplings 
- Foil Wrapped Chicken
- Ground Beef for Fries Supreme
- Lasagna (covered dish)
- and a wee bit of extra cooked chicken

And this was only my half! I didn't cook much the next while and enjoyed it immensely. In fact I just finished these meals last week... So its back to cooking supper everyday for me. But a change in pace is always nice!

--
Melodie Wiebe  

Popular posts from this blog

Get Organized!

By -
Image
I’m a bit strange. No, really. I’m sure you never would have guessed, had you just looked at me, but I’m here to tell you, it’s true. I enjoy organizing. Give me a huge pile of tangled yarn or a bulging cupboard that continually tries to spit it’s contents all over the counter when opened and I’m happier than a turkey the day after thanksgiving. <heaves a deep sigh of relief> I’m so glad to get that off my chest. Does this mean my house is always perfectly kept? Not even close. But ask me for a light piece of patterned purple cardstock or a new bottle of peach soap and I can run and get it for you.  I would like to make a clear distinction before beginning to share with you some things that have been a help to me in getting organized. Being organized and having a clean house are two very different things. Houses get messy if they are lived in. I’m pretty sure mine gets dirty even when I’m not in it very often. I like to blame the puppy. <...
Read more

This is My Story!

By -
Image
Jesus has been in my life for as long as I can remember. My parents made sure that us as children were soaked in Jesus and His Word. I accepted him as Lord of my life during evening prayer time shortly after I turned 5. I am so grateful that I did it at young age and was able to grow up in it.  I was homeschooled straight through school and as a homeschool mom now I can see what a super hard, time consuming commitment it is! I am so grateful that my parents made that sacrifice. In my teenage years I was very involved in our church's youth group, at that time God brought a group of young people who were so hungry for Jesus and were not satisfied with the status quo and kept going deeper and pulling those around them deeper and deeper into Jesus and his word. Looking back I can see how extremely blessed I was to have experienced that been surrounded with people like that at a critical time in my life. In last months blog post my sister Sherry talked about her commitment to...
Read more

Two Lives; One Identity

By -
Image
Looking back at my growing up years, I can see why I may have been confused about many things. We were the type of family that went to Mexico for the winter, and came here, to Ontario, for the summer. In Mexico we went to school where we learned to read and write High German and learned to say the Katachism from memory. The general behaviour and way of living was vastly different from Ontario. In Ontario we worked on the fields wearing the type of clothing everyone else wore for work, which was pants with a cap. Our hair was also styled and cut to fit in with those around us. We normally had a TV int he house, which was so different from Mexico where it would have been viewed as a sin. (I think it was here too, but maybe too available to resist) I remember there were Sunday's when we came home from church and my dad would throw the TV out because of the conviction; only to come home with another one a few weeks later. When the summer would drag into fall we had to attend publ...
Read more