Monthly Cooking Project (1st attempt)

Have you ever had one of those days, where you just don't want to cook? Maybe it's too hot, and you just don't feel like heating up the house more? Maybe you've been gone all day, and just want something quick? Or maybe you're just like me, and don't even think about what you're going to eat, until you're actually hungry, and at that point you just want food, and you want it NOW? Maybe it's just me, but I fall into all of these categories, all the time. On top of that my mother has just gotten sick of cooking, after many years of trying to plan dinner menus.

Basically our eating habits have been going down fast, and we both know we need to be eating better. My mother has been working hard to be healthier for almost 2 years now, and didn't want all her hard work to go to waste, and I know I've got a lot of crazy schedules, and hard work ahead of me this semester, so we decided to do one big cooking day.

I really do mean BIG cooking day. We tried to make a full month’s worth of meals for the 3 of us all in one day. (Well two if you count our big prep day.)

We spent all day Friday picking out menus, and figuring out what ingredients we needed. I typed out our list, and color-coded it by where we were getting each ingredient. Yes I am that OCD.

We got all that we could Friday afternoon, but saved all of our fresh ingredients for Saturday morning when we headed over to the farmer’s market just minutes from our house.

The rest of the day was spent making several dishes from scratch, putting them into individual portioned size containers, and clean-up.

We had a lot of fun, but we worked hard.

On the left: Apple Bean Bake (basically baked beans with apples, and it is AWESOME!)

On the right: Vegetable Rice Casserole. I'm hoping it's good.

This is our Pinto Bean Mix. We used it for several of the dishes we made, and then divvied up the rest into baggies of one cup portions for later use.

We sautéed up tons of carrots, celery, onion, and green pepper. It's such a basic start to just about any dish, so we put it in several of the things we made, and then portioned it out into baggies. We're hoping we'll have enough left over to use in next months big cook day.

Sweet Potatoes to go with the Meatloaf my mother made for her and my daddy.

My wonderful Vegetarian Chili, and Cornbread muffins! I love this stuff (as do many of my friends) and it is a fabulous meal for me to have on hand.

All of the Casseroles! In the back is a South of the Border Casserole, and Enchilada's with Beef and Beans. In the front is a Zucchini Casserole, Manicotti, and Enchilada's with Beans.

Our day's work! Some of it is in containers of 2 proportions for my mother and daddy, but most are just in individual proportions. Everything is nicely labeled with what it is, and the date.

All stacked in the freezer in the garage. Some of this will go back to Logan with me, but I'm pretty impressed with us! Hopefully this works, and we can keep it up.