Cook for a day - Eat for a month

Though after over-eating during the holidays, you would think that cooking 30 meals would be the last thing I would do before school started again, but that was exactly what we did on Saturday. Having more time in the New Year was one of the greatest incentives. We had already been cooking one major thing on weekends to eat during the week. Unfortunately I do not have Andrzej's unending capacity to eat the same thing every single day until the end of time.  I need variety!

So here is the plan - cook 3 portions of 10 recipes in one day, freeze it in ziplocs (which are not made with cancerogenous-leaching-plastic yay!), and voila! Food for a month and eat the same thing only three times a month! That I can do.

We ended up doing 4 times the following recipes:

*crustless quiche

*lasagna

*potato/chickpea curry

*pea soup

*ham-potato casserole

*spaghetti sauce

* and hummus with the extra chickpeas

I did the groceries and the spaghetti sauce on Friday night.  We cooked everything in the morning starting at 8am and by noon we were all done.  And it all fits in our fridge-freezer!

Plus: Less cleaning, great time investment, costs less 

Key: Planning recipes (www.allrecipes.com is a great tool), making stations in the kitchen  (chopping, spices, cans, assembly) 

Minus: You need all the cooking gear for it to be time efficient (food processor, crockpot, good knife, big pots)

I wish I could say I thought of this by myself, but I looked it up in a few books.  Here is the best one:

Frozen Assets

And some others:

Month of Meals

Cook Now Serve Later

Fresh From the Freezer

(All of which are available at the Ottawa Public Library.)