Once a Month Cooking

Blogging has been few and far between lately because I've been spending this week cooking.  I'm a planner.  And an organizer.  And a neat freak.  And I possibly suffer from OCD.  So what better way to feed my neurosis than plan, organize and make a million meals ahead of time and then have fun organizing them in my freezer?

But seriously...I like to cook, it just seems that lately LG would rather I didn't.  My first clue is when he gets in between me and the kitchen cabinets while I'm chopping and tries to shove me away with all of his might.  And when he sits down in the living room to play with his cars, pats the carpet next to him with his little hand and says "Sit, mama.  Sit!"  I can't help but sit.

And then poor Gumshoe comes home to no dinner and he is forced to eat dog food.  So a plan was needed. 

I did some research because (just like any other topic) there are websites devoted to once a month cooking.  Once a Month Mom is a great one.  Pinterest also has a lot of great ideas.  The gist is to cook a month's worth of food in one day a few days, label it, freeze it and there you have it.  No cooking dinner all month!  Just pull it out of the freezer and heat it up via oven, skillet, crock pot, microwave...whatever.

So I made a plan and gave it a shot.  I linked some of the meals listed below to recipes, but for some reason I'm not able to underline or highlight them.  Just run the mouse over the meal and if it gives you a link...there you go!  Here's what I made:

-Pineapple Chicken

-Pepper Stuffing (So versatile! I made these with quinoa and ground chicken. We deconstruct this recipe and simply eat the filling with cut up raw bell peppers)
-Hobo Packets (foil packet w/turkey sausage, potatoes, carrots and pinto beans baked at 400 for 40 min)

-White Chili

-BBQ Sausage (turkey sausage sliced and seared, then heated in skillet with BBQ sauce)

-BBQ Chicken

-Curry Chicken

-French Jenny (A hard-to-pronounce French recipe I got from my sister, Jennifer...hence French Jenny)
-Taco Meat
-Teriyaki Chicken (marinated chicken breast)
-Greek Chicken (marinated chicken breast)

-Whole Wheat Pizza/Calzone Dough

-Mashed Potatoes
-Sweet Potatoes
-Roasted Veggie Packets
-"Fried" Rice

After the food was cooked and then had time to cool, I transferred it all to gallon or quart size freezer bags, labeled the bags, laid them flat and sent them to the freezer.  Here are some pics of a few of the finished products...

BBQ Sausage

French Jenny (assembled and frozen raw)

Hobo Packets (assembled and frozen raw)

Pepper Stuffing

Whole Wheat pizza/calzone dough

Roasted Veggie Packets (assembled and frozen raw)

Mashed Potatoes

And here's what the freezer looks like with a million pounds of food in it...

We have a small fridge/freezer in the garage, so I actually put half of all this out there...but you get the idea.  Lots of food!  Most of the meals I made will last for 2 dinners, so we probably have a couple months of dinners covered.  Lots of work, but totally worth it!

Update:
We also make breakfast items to freeze such as whole wheat banana pancakes and whole wheat waffles.  Just make sure to freeze them with parchment paper in between each layer (see pic) so they don't freeze together!  I got the whole wheat pancake recipe from www.100daysofrealfood.com.  Great website for whole food recipes.