Monday, November 09, 2009

Menu Plan Monday and Freezer Cooking Plan


Welcome to another week!

I have big plans for doing a freezer cooking day on Wednesday. While I've done some extra batch cooking and helped my sister with her cooking days, I've never attempted a "once a month" cooking day before. It takes a lot of planning and seems like a good amount of concentrated work but should be a nice trade-off for about a months worth of meals. I wasn't able to join in with Crystal's big cooking days last week, so I'm doing my own this week!

Before I delve into my freezer plans, here's a simple supper menu plan for this week. Because of other plans, I only needed to plan for 3 suppers.It's a busy week with being gone most of the day Tuesday, cooking all day Wednesday and then babysitting Thursday and Friday.

This Week's Supper Menu
Tuesday-Breakfast-in-a-hurry, bagels, tangerines or grapefruit

Wednesday-Pasta with spaghetti sauce(from cooking day), salad

Thursday-Salmon patties, rice, green beans

The freezer was overdue for a defrosting and cleaning, so that is in progress as we speak. What a pleasant dripping sound! I began pulling odds and ends out of the freezer last week to use things up. For breakfasts, we've been eating pancakes that I'd forgotten about and I took a bag of bagels out this morning to use.

Freezer Cooking Day- The Menu

I'm not sure exactly how many meals I'll have of each item, so I'm just listing the amount of batches/recipes that I'm planning. many of my recipes will make more than one meal for the two of us.

1. Chicken Chimichangas- (1)
2. Chicken fajita kits-(2)
3. Chili (x2)
4. Fish & veggie packets (x2 or 3)
5. Spaghetti sauce (x3)
6. Cheesy Beef and Rice Casserole (x2)
7. Meatballs (1)
8.  Quiche (x2)
9. Spaghetti pie (x2)
10. Chicken pot pie (1)
11. Hummus
12. Israeli spice seasoning blend(1)
13.Brown rice for recipes and extra to freeze
14. Kidney, pinto and garbanzo beans for recipes and extra to freeze
15. Mashed potatoes(1 -10 lb. bag potatoes)


Time will tell whether my plans are overly ambitious or not! And whether I ever want to even think about cooking again!

Freezer Cooking Day- Prep Work

Between today and tomorrow, I'm working on this list of things to do before the cooking day. Hopefully having at least some of these items crossed off by Wednesday will help my cooking day to run more smoothly and help with the lack of space in my kitchen.

1. Make menu. 
2. Take inventory of items on hand.
3. Grocery shop for needed items.
4.Take stock of foil, pans, bags and containers.
5. Defrost and clean out freezer. In progress!
6. Make plan for Wednesday(order of prep and assembly).
7.Make chicken broth. In progress!
8. Defrost meat. In progress!
9. Cook and chop chicken. In progress!
10. Brown ground beef.
11. Shred cheese.
12. Soak and cook rice. Soaking in progress!
13. Soak and cook beans. Kidney beans and pintos are soaking!(I'll soak the garbanzo beans tomorrow and cook them Wednesday morning.)
14. Cook bacon.
15. Chop veggies and onions.
16. Make pie crusts for quiche and pot pie.

Update: It's 4 pm on Monday. I'm about ready to call it quits in the kitchen for the day. I feel like I've made a lot of headway on the prep work and now I'm tired!!! I plan to put the rice and beans on to cook first thing in the morning before we leave for the day. Hopefully, I'll get to the cheese, veggies and pie crust in the evening if I'm not too worn out. Otherwise, I'll do that first thing Wednesday morning. Right now, I'm off to make a dessert for tonight!!! Be back tomorrow!

So that's my plan for the week. What's yours?

For more menu planning inspiration, visit Organizing Junkie, the home of Menu Plan Mondays!

7 comments:

Debbie J said...

I'm not as organized as you are this week, but tonight we are having oven fried pork chops and tomorrow night we are having hotdogs with chili. I am intrigued by the freezer cooking, but will probably only have time to do batch cooking. I'm interested to see how yours turns out! Good luck!

Mary Ann said...

Debbie-

I'll be posting updates throughout my cooking day as well as before as I get the prep work done. I'm hoping I'm not too crazy!!!

Thanks for the sweet comment!

gail said...

oh, you make me tired just looking at all you accomplished. but i'm sure it feels good once you're done. the most i've ever done is about 10 freezer meals at once.

hope the completion of all the meals turns out well for you.

TJ said...

Wow I'm impressed. I've never heard of cooking for a whole month. I'm worn out just reading your schedule. I'll be checking back on the progress. :)

Kathryn said...

Something I do....I always save a copy of my list, and I write in how many pounds of beef, how many pans, or servings, how many cups of cheese as I cook. Then I can go back and see the exact amounts the next time. I have my cooking day lists saved since 2007, and its really fun to look at. Also, sometimes I come across a dish that I haven't made in a while.
Wish I could help you, but you look like you are almost done!! All I can say is that it gets easier and faster every time I do one.

Jenny said...

Hope your cooking day went well. I always do a big cooking day right before school starts that lasts through Thanksgiving - or longer if I do some batch cooking in between. i then do another session over Christmas Break and Spring Break if we are home. This is my life saver and really the only way my family gets to eat at home on a regular basis.

Tricia@onceamonthmom.com said...

Great job! Hope you like the spaghetti sauce recipe!