I was given a fabulous cookbook for my birthday this year (Thank you Annie Carron!) I'll admit, I hadn't had a chance to really use it until today and realized how this little book can improve my life!
Trevor (our one year old little boy) is now eating at the table and eats everything that we eat. You cannot get anything past him, if he sees you have it, he wants a bite! Since he has been eating with us, I have been doing my best to be sure every meal is balanced (all the veggies, protein, fruit, etc), healthy (less salt, less trans-fats, etc) and different (not a weekly rotation of tacos, macaroni and cheese, spaghetti, repeat). We have been doing a pretty good job to this point. Vic and I both are eating a lot healthier and getting all of our fruits and veggies. I also feel really good about Trevor getting a balanced diet. With that being said, I still do not really enjoy cooking and I hate that ever dreaded question, “what are we going to have for dinner?” I have to give Vic credit; he does a fantastic job of getting meal started before I get home from work. The majority of the time we decide in advance what we are going to make that week and he gets it started. It seems like lately, we are running out of ideas and with school and work and wanting to spend all of our time playing with Trevor, neither one of us wants to spend my free time cooking!
Today, I pulled out the Dinner's in the Freezer cookbook. I have been meaning to start using it but just haven't done it. I flipped through it and realized it has a number of wonderful recipes that are easy to prepare AND you can do the majority of it in advance. When I made things like lasagna and soup, I try to double the batch and put half in the freezer. It's really helped the portion sizes as well as making prep half the work. I can spend some time on a Saturday afternoon when Trevor is napping vs. on a Monday night after a long day of work putting a good meal together. Today I made the Orange Teriyaki chicken. I made three batches (took the same amount of time as 1 batch), made one for dinner and put two in the freezer for another time. The book gives you recipes for one batch, 3, 6 or 9. You don't even have to do the math. The recipes are all made specifically to make the actual cooking day easy and fast. Usually the cooking day consists of defrosting and baking. It's great! Now this may not be foreign to many of you as it is the same concept as Super Suppers, and I am not being paid to write this, though I wish I was! :)
I was thinking today, how great it would be to have 3 or 4 people that have the same book or recipes that work the same way, each person prepares 6 or 8 batches of the same dish, we all get together and trade and everyone ends up with 2 batches of 3 or 4 different dishes. The prep would be a quarter of the time and you would have up to 8 dishes in your freezer! This could also be expanded to more people, like 6 or 8 and again, prep time really wouldn't change much and you could buy some of the ingredients in bulk, making them cheaper. Another great aspect is that I NEVER have all the seasonings or ingredients when I want to try a new dish and it costs a small fortune to try to have everything on hand. Then, the chances of using it before it expires are basically non-existent.
I know this is not a new concept and probably something that people do all the time but it's something that I personally would like to try. I thought I'd share in case anyone else might benefit from the idea or might be interested. This would probably work best for families that are the same size. Vic and I still prepare meals for two and just share with Trevor. So, Mom & Erica, are you guys up for trying this???
Yum! I love cooking but then again, I don't have a one year old. I also have Greg, who does much more than his fair share of shopping, finding recipes and the cooking. I will be sure to send along recipes that we come across that are easy/healthy/good. Its hard to get one that is all three at the same time though.
and yes I am up for that. btw-if you ever need a spice that you don't have, chances are we do so call me!. Its amazing how expensive they can be.