Changing Times, Changing Meals

It's been quite a while since I've posted on my blog although I've written oodles of blogs in my head as the days and months have gone by. Seasons have changed at our house. Three of my children are now married, my youngest has graduated from college, and a grand baby now fills many of my days. I began cooking in the once-a-month style when my #3 was a toddler and have continued it for nearly 25 years. It has worked great for our family of 6 all these years but as kids have moved out I find myself with too many leftovers or the "wrong" leftovers, that is the child who once finished all the pasta dishes no long roams my house but her own. The child who devoured the meat and potatoes cooks in his own kitchen now. The one who lived on all things tortilla just visits my kitchen, she has her own. And the last, well he loves all things Asian and those foods have not been part of my repertoire. It's time to start all over. In the fall I had major surgery. Beforehand I prepared 24 meals and tucked them away in my freezer. Friends were planning a meal train twice a week and together I figured I had about 8 weeks of meals to carry us through my initial recovery. That plan was huge success, and in fact the meals lasted us until Christmas! Since then, I've put together what I call post-it meal plans - a simple list on my cupboard door for a week or two at a time, but more about those at another time. When I opened my freezer this week to peruse the contents, it was pretty empty. What's that nursery rhyme? "Old Mother Hubbard went to her cupboard but when she got there the cupboard was bare." Yep. That describes my freezer!

So now it's time to regroup. As I go into another month of planning, I have to think: Who am I feeding? Do we need leftovers? What do we like? How many meals do I really need to cook in a week? What's the season? Do we need comfy cozy meals, fast meals, Whole 30 or something else? There's lots to consider as my family has changed. One thing that hasn't changed is that preparing several meals ahead of time- whether 5 or 30 - is still a time-saver and a great help in this season of life.