Mega Cook Weekend

In preparation for some busy weeks ahead, I planned for a “mega cook” session to stock our freezer full of ready to thaw and bake meals. The idea came from my friend, Pamela, who did the same thing in preparation for her two kids. She didn’t wait as long as I did to cook everything and I didn’t make nearly as many meals as she did, but I’m happy with what I accomplished.

All of the meals were ground beef/turkey based. So, the first thing I did was cook all of the meat and put it in the fridge until I was ready to separate it out for each recipe. If I had done it Pamela’s way, all of the meat would have been cooked the night before and would have made the actual cooking day a lot shorter. However, because I was doing this in my ninth month, I just didn’t have the energy to cook 6 pounds of ground meat and onions after going to the grocery store on a Friday night. (We’re in the middle of last season’s 24 and it’s SO easy to be persuaded to watch another episode…or 2…or 3…) The shopping part could have been done a few days prior as well…just to spread out the work involved in the whole process.

Anyway, here are the ingredients (most of the canned goods came from my stockpile downstairs and I had most of the spices in my cupboard already):

And…here’s what I made (I couldn’t find all of the recipes online…sorry!):

• Turkey Lasagna
• Cheesy Chili-Mac (delish…we had some for lunch when I made it)
• Beef and Cheese Enchiladas
• Shepherd’s Pie (will make mashed potato topping when it’s time to bake the dish)
• Not So Sloppy Joes (x2) (we love this recipe!)

Of course, there are accessories and sides to each of these meals that will need to be purchased or made later, but it’s nice to know that we have a variety of home cooked meals ready to go in our freezer.

By the way, the whole process (not including grocery shopping) took about 5 hours. And that’s making one meal at a time because I can only use 2 of the 4 burners on our stove. Such a pain.