Cooking Day was way too easy, but boy did I love that!

In all truth, I usually have to psych myself up for cooking day.  And if I don't start in the morning, it becomes a chore.  Today was almost too easy.  I had only 9 meals to prepare, and there is no challenge in so few.  What did draw me in was the anticipation of those wonderful words, "I am done" and the accompanying emotions of success, not to mention a full freezer.  The task took about 1 1/2 hours.

The ground turkey that I buy comes in a group of 4 packages each about 1 1/2 pounds.  I browned the contents of each package in a skillet, one at a time.  The fat was drained and the meat put into a 3-cup freezer container and simply labeled "ground turkey."  I repeated this process three more times using the same skillet and utensil.  Do let the food cool before putting it into the freezer.

Then I tackled the chicken.  I bought a different package than usual, and so admittedly, came up short and did not prepare two meals, but I was able to:

• boil some tenderloins, shred the meat and add taco seasoning.
• use several tenderloins for Chicken Bake prepared in a 9"x13" baking dish
• prepare Huli Chicken marinade to pour over a Ziploc bag of chicken which is now frozen

Next time I grocery shop (which is only once a week) I will buy the additional chicken and finish those meals, too.

One last meal to prepare was Corn-Dog Casserole.  You see, I will be gone for 11 days in January serving in the kitchen at the Honduran Women's Bible Conference, and so needed a few kid-friendly meals.  Kid-friendly now means able to be cooked by a kid, and this is one that satisfies that requirement as well as their palette.  On this menu I also included some "out" nights as I know my hubby will likely take the kids out for a meal or someone will take pity on my family and invite them over for dinner.  You know how it goes when Dad is in charge of the kids. 

And now, my freezer is full.  This month there's even room for ice cream!