Me and My Bright Ideas

This one actually seemed really good.  And I’m very pleased with the end results.  But I think that it was one of the most exhausting things I’ve ever done…probably not the smartest thing in the world when one is 33 weeks pregnant!

Anyway, I got the bright idea that I should put some meals in the freezer for when the baby comes.  I think that a few people will bring us food, but I just remember how exhausting it is shopping and trying to get a decent meal on the table those first weeks after having a baby.

Jeff is actually taking family leave for six to eight weeks this time around, so, technically, he could take over the shopping and cooking, and he will, to a certain extent.  But after ten years of this being mostly my job, it’s faster and easier for me to handle the shopping and the cooking.

So, I got online and started doing some research about freezer cooking.  All I really knew was that not every meal can be frozen and that certain types of food lend themselves better to the process than others.  In the course of my search, I found a website called Thirty Meals in One Day.  It sells cookbooks and software not only about freezer cooking, but also about how to get a month’s worth of suppers prepared in just one day of marathon cooking!

The software offered all of the recipes in the cookbook, plus functions that could generate grocery lists based on selected menus, could save menus, could print freezer container labels with cooking instructions, and could even have my personal recipes added to the database.  As I am generally a very organized person and am married to someone who specializes in efficiency, this seemed to be the perfect product for the Wilkes family!

Of course, I ordered it and set about selecting recipes and messing around with the software.  The book was extremely detailed, far beyond what the software offered…shopping day, day-before cooking prep, step-by-step guide to getting 30 meals in the freezer on cooking day, which really consists of picking 15 recipes and doubling them.  As suggested, I selected two crock pot recipes, three oven recipes, two stove-top recipes, and nine so-called assembly recipes, which had components that needed to be cooked, but would only be baked after freezing.  All I needed was to set aside a day.

On Monday, Jeff told me that he was planning to take Thursday off and take the kids skiing, something he has been trying to squeeze in since January.  The hamster wheel in my brain started turning:  this was my big chance to have a day all to myself just for cooking! 

Monday evening, I generated my grocery list from my selected menu, which included three of my own recipes that were similar to some in the book.  (FYI, the grocery list generated by the software even divides the groceries into categories, like dairy, canned, deli, etc.)  On Tuesday, the kids and I hit Wal-Mart, which I left with enough food for a small army.  When I arrived home, I started the day-before cooking prep, as I had plans for Wednesday.  This consisted of boiling and chopping/cutting up 14 pounds of chicken, chopping 10 cups of onions, and dicing a bunch of carrots and celery.

I was exhausted.  And I hadn’t even started cooking yet!

Thursday was my big cooking day.  Jeff and the kids hit the road around 8:00 a.m., and I started cooking.

And I cooked.

And I cooked.

And I cooked some more.

At lunch time, I sat down to eat and check email on my iPod, and I nearly fell asleep.  I was about seven recipes in to the sixteen or so that I had selected.  I was starting to have contractions, which, of course, is a big red flag to GET OFF MY FEET!

After lunch, I continued cooking, only this time I dragged my barstool around the kitchen, depending on where I needed to be at any given time.  Also after lunch, I threw out book as far as what I should be doing simultaneously and just concentrated on working through the recipes.

At 5:00, I packaged the last meal for the freezer.  Some recipes made more than double, so I had 34 meals lying around my dining room, finishing cooling to room temperature so I could put them in the freezer.

HOLY SMOKES!

I think that is the hardest that I have worked in recent memory.  I had no idea that cooking could be so exhausting.  I now understand why the friend with whom I spent Wednesday afternoon looked at me askance and said, “I went into labor with my second son because I did that!  Do you have someone close you can call just in case while Jeff is skiing?!”

The good news is that I didn’t go into labor, although if I hadn’t dragged my chair around, I probably would’ve ended up back in the hospital!  The even better news is that this gargantuan task is done!  As long I packaged everything properly, we should be in great shape with food for a good while after the baby is born!

Lesson learned?  Freezer cooking is probably best done when you’re not pregnant.  Will I do it again?  It’ll probably be awhile!