Once-a-Month Cooking Step 3 - Cooking Day

It's arrived!  Your first day to prep all the meals for a month of dinners.  Wear comfy shoes, grab your apron, and let's begin.  

Plan to go out to dinner tonight or order pizza or put something in the crock-pot right now, because you will be too tired to cook from scratch tonight.  :)  A crock-pot suggestions is chicken tacos.  Simply put several breasts in the crock-pot with a packet of taco seasoning.  I've also heard that adding a jar of salsa makes this a to-die-for recipe.

If you are making red sauce for pasta, begin with this so that it can simmer and cool while you prepare other meals.

Chop:  It is recommended that you chop all the onions and celery that you will need in advance.  If you purchased a block of cheese, make sure it is grated. 

Do you need cooked chicken?  If it will be diced, then set it boil now.  If it will be shredded, I prefer to cook it in a crock pot for 5-6 hours.  Shred with two forks and cool.

Ground Beef/Turkey:  Brown it a pound/package at a time and put in separate bowls.  Keep using the same pan and utensils until all the meat is cooked.

Stop here and finish the ground beef/turkey recipes to the point at which they can be frozen.

DO NOT freeze cream, sour cream, cream cheese or white sauces.  They do not hold up well after freezing.

Set aside the meals to cool before putting them in your freezer.  I like and have room to store the meals in the dish in which they will be prepared or in Rubbermaid containers, but I started by using gallon self-sealing bags when I had a side-by-side freezer/fridge.  Just be sure to label the items and add cooking directions, too.



I write directly on Heavy Duty Foil and use a label maker on dishes/pans.

After the ground beef/turkey dishes are complete.  I move on to the chicken recipes.  Again, complete the meals until the point of freezing, cool, and put in the freezer.

 

Do you have specialty meats?  A roast or such?  You may want to freeze it separately, and then prepare it fresh the day you will eat it.  I usually put such meals on the weekend or make sure that they are a crock-pot item for a weekday.

 

Continue to work through your menu until all the meals are prepared.  I usually put a dot with a highlighter in the the corner of the menu box to keep track of what's been prepared.

 

I often have my children prepare at least a meal each so that they learn kitchen vocabulary and how to read a recipe.  It also reduces my work load and gives me some company. 

 

I love my extra large freezer, but I didn't always have it.  For more than a dozen years I stacked a side-by-side freezer with meals in Ziploc bags.  Both styles work to get yummy, homemade food on the table for my family.