Monday, March 26, 2007

Mega Cooking

I can't stand cooking. Next to grocery shopping it's my least favorite chore. And to me it is a chore. Laundry is tedious, cleaning a pain, but cooking is downright troublesome for me. Not that I'm a bad cook. I can make most recipes turn out fine. I just don't enjoy doing it. Or planning it. Or shopping for it.

Then at the Hearts at Home conference a couple weekends ago I heard a speaker talk about the benefits of freezer cooking. So I picked up the Freezer Cooking Manual, browsed through the recipes, and made a list of chicken recipes to try. I found chicken on sale (though not the deal Llama Momma found) and bought a bunch of packages.

Saturday I cooked. For four hours. Since I was only doing single recipes to see what my family likes it wasn't nearly as efficient as it was supposed to be. At least that's what I'm hoping. In four hours I only put away four entrees and four sides. The idea is to spend 8 to 10 hours and get 30 entrees put in your freezer. The problem is I still don't like to cook, especially not for 8 hours straight. But I guess those 8 hours would buy me a month of no cooking. So maybe it's worth it. If I could just work a little faster and maybe with a friend.

I'm not giving up on it yet. Eating from the freezer could be my salvation. In fact it actually saved my exhausted body on Saturday night. We had frozen pizza.

8 musings:

spaghettipie said...

AMM - Do you have a Super Suppers or a Dream Dinners (or something similar) near by? I did those for quite a while, and it was awesome. The food was good (better at Dream Dinners), and I went for 2-3 hours once a month and made enough meals for the entire month. They take care of the shopping, prep and cleanup! You might check to see. The founders of Dream Dinnners also recently published a cookbook as well.

Anonymous said...

I think I have told you that we have recently used Super Suppers twice since I have the same loathing for cooking and lack of time. We have really liked it (and the food) although I'm not sure it is saving money (just sanity). BUT, I might be up for doing some hours of cooking in your kitchen at some point together.

Llama Momma said...

I'd love to hear how the meals turn out! I think it would be a blast to do this together sometime.

spaghettipie said...

Batch cooking can be fun with a group too. My friends have done it before where everyone brings a couple recipes to make (depending on the number of people). You go shopping and prep the food on one day, and then do all the cooking and assembling on a second day.

L.L. Barkat said...

Curious... what is it about cooking that you don't like... if you can pinpoint it? I'd be interested to hear that.

Lara said...

Sorry all - your comments have been getting stuck in my Spam filter.

Spaghettipie-Dream Dinners is nearby. I may check it out. It's the whole not knowing whether we'll like the recipe that makes me gunshy on trying them.

Becky & LM-let's cook! I'll let you know when I'm thinking of doing it again.

LL-the drudgery of planning and grocery shopping mostly. Plus the fact that when it comes time to cook I can think of a dozen other things I'd rather be doing. And then there's the cleanup afterwards. Oh, but I do like to eat! : )

L.L. Barkat said...

Yes, I see. I have greatly reduced the first two kinds of drudgery by using a meal plan (it was a pain to put it together at first... keeping track of what I made for a month, trying to include variety... but I've been happier ever since).

this makes shopping easier too, because you get into a rhythm after awhile (oh, and cooking gets easier too because the recipes eventually get memorized)....

I'm still working on the cleanup issue. (Kids in training!)

Anonymous said...

Try a Cooking Co-op. Monday I cook dinner for myself, and 3 other families, on Tuesday friend #2 cooks, Wednesday night we eat at church, Thursday Friend #3 cooks, and Friday Friend #4 cooks. We save money because you buy in bulk and only cook once a week! Weekends can be leftovers, take-out, or you can cook for just your family. Fun, fun!