The Joy of (Advance) Cooking

I’m hooked. Cooking meals in advance and freezing them for future use is rocking my world. I am enjoying cooking more, The Accountant and I are cooking and shopping together, and we’re more open to trying new things.

We’re getting into a groove of shopping on Saturday or Sunday, and then cooking meals to freeze and Sunday night’s dinner on Sunday afternoon. I think it’s encouraging us to eat more seafood as well because we can buy the fish fresh at the store and have it right away for Sunday’s dinner. Plus, with shopping by the sales, there’s more money in the budget for the fish. Another great thing is that, if we try something new, subconsciously there’s no pressure because if it doesn’t pan out well – we’re cooking a bunch of other things anyway that we can eat instead!

This weekend we made baked haddock and potatoes with asparagus for Sunday night’s dinner, mashed potatoes for bangers and mash as Monday night’s dinner (just had to cook the beef kielbasa when I got home last night - quick and easy), and Mexican un-stuffed shells – frozen for future use.

My freezer is now stocked with more than 10 meals, ready to rock and roll, and it feels amazing. This was our third weekend in a row of shopping, cooking and freezing, and now we’ve got a pretty good back stock going. My plan is to continue cooking a few meals at a time every weekend that we have the time and energy to do it. On weekends that are busy, or find us just not feeling up to it, it won’t be a problem because we’ll have more than enough in the freezer to get us through the week.

Now that I’m getting a handle on cooking a few meals at once, I’m taking the next step – bigger batches. I’ve never really had the need to cook large portions before. It’s just The Accountant and I, so as long as we had enough for our dinner and maybe some leftovers for my lunch the next day, we were good. But with advance cooking, it doesn’t really take any longer to cook a larger batch and it saves even more time in the long run.

This weekend was my first stab at a big batch. You know those Mexican un-stuffed shells I mentioned that I made and froze? Well I made four meals worth of them! I got the recipe from the terrific resource Once a Month Mom, and I went for it.  Along the way, I learned that we need bigger pots and bowls! I was able to put the meal together just fine, but it would have been easier if we had a huge mixing bowl, and our biggest frying pan and pot just made it. In the amount of time I would normally spend making one meal – I made four meals.

Yeah. I’m totally, completely, 100% sold on this.