Reinforcing Good Behavior

over the past two weeks I was frequently reminded why I do what I do:

Reminder #1: MAKE EXTRA AND FREEZE IT! With so much time away from home, I haven't had a cook day since June so on the nights we were home, I relied heavily on purchased convenience foods (such as those highlighted here) and stockpiles of homemade food in the freezer (such as that bonus batch of meatballs and carnitas tacos made with extra meat pulled from a large pork shoulder).

Reminder #2: SAVE MONEY! Since I buy multiples of pantry staples when they go on sale (with a coupon!) I only needed to spend grocery money this week on basics like milk and produce, with the rest of the budgeted money going towards lunch and other treats for the pirate party. It is a great feeling to pull that off without over-spending.

Reminder #3: COOK AHEAD! One of the packages of chicken I bought for the party came with half breast meat and half thigh meat. I didn't think the thighs would skewer well, so I saved them to cook later in the week and the night I decided to cook them was a night that Deputy Handsome was at work. Trying to get dinner on the table in a timely manner with now-two-year-old Little Miss telling me over and over how "hungy" she was at the same time Mister Man decided NOT to take a nap was all the motivation I needed to start prepping my menu and planning my cook day for next week!

Are you motivated too?

tips for successful make-ahead meals

this weekend my mom left me a cookbook she used when my brother and I were kids to help her get through the week. The book emphasized making a bunch of casseroles at once and freezing them for an easy dinner at a later date (and here I am thinking that my ideas are somewhat original. ha!). I haven't had a chance to study any of the specific recipes yet, but in reading the introductory chapters, I was reminded of some guidelines that I want to pass along to you to help you plan your own make-ahead menus:

• slightly undercook rice or pasta for make-ahead meals and store sauces separately. When you combine and reheat, the starch will finish cooking. This is also good because during freezing or refrigerating, the starch absorbs the sauce so that the saucy texture is diminished in the meal and the pasta or rice becomes bloated and soggy.
• bread or cheese toppings on casseroles can also become soggy when stored in the fridge or freezer. Store separately and add during the reheating process.
• freezing a large dish that will last two consecutive nights is not recommended as repeated heating and cooling encourages bacteria growth. it's better to store separate portions that will be eaten in one sitting. 
• a good way to ease into being a make-ahead mommy is to simply double a favorite recipe and freeze half for later. Do this a few times and you'll have the beginnings of a freezer stockpile! Frozen meals should be used within eight weeks. Keep a list on the front of the fridge with use-by dates and incorporate the frozen meals into your weekly meal plan on busy nights. 
• both freezing and microwaving can affect the strength of seasoning. Microwaving decreases garlic flavor while freezing increases it. Saltiness increases during microwaving but decreases in freezing. Pepper can turn bitter and increase in flavor during freezing. Herbs tend to weaken. Here are a few suggestions to overcome the seasoning problem:
• for a non-layered casserole, measure and add seasonings to thawed dish just before reheating and serving
• for a layered casserole, make the dish as directed and adjust the seasoning to taste the next time (don't forget to write the adjustments in your cookbook! mine are covered with notes to myself!!)

The above tips are taken from "Casseroles: Meals in Minutes" by Sue Gregg. 

Next Steps

as nice as it was to have a menu pre-planned for my marathon cook day, that menu was not very friendly to my grocery budget! So now that I know I can cook multiple meals in one day, the new challenge is matching up those meals with what's on sale this week.
When grocery store ads come in the mail on Wednesday I sit down with my coupon folder (more on that later) and ads and put together a menu for the coming week and a shopping plan. Strategizing the best way to use our money makes me feel like I am using my brain and it's a welcome task after reading "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" for the sixth time in a row. I look at all the store ads and even though I do the majority of my shopping at Vons, if there is a great deal to be had at Ralphs or Albertsons, I'll split my shopping into multiple trips.
Once I see what produce and cuts of meat are on sale, the next step is building a meal. If I don't have something specific in mind, I pull out a few of my favorite cookbooks from my collection (want to make me happy? buy me a cookbook.) and scan the indexes until I find something that sounds good and will fit with the ingredients I plan to buy and what items I already have in my pantry. Foodnetwork.com and epicurious.com are also fun places to search for recipes.
Of course this adds more time into the planning process, so if money wasn't an issue, I could just keep using Rachel Ray's suggested weekly menus but I do need to be careful about how much I'm spending at the grocery store, so the extra time is worth it to me.
This week I've already done my Vons shopping and I picked up boneless, skinless chicken breasts for $1.97 a pound; 93% lean ground beef for $3.47 a pound; cantaloupe for $1.50 each and red bell peppers for 88 cents each! Later I'll be heading to Ralphs for a Buy One, Get One (BOGO) on ground turkey to stock my freezer.

How it All Began

about a month ago, I was tuned into Food Network while I nursed Mister Man and saw a commercial advertising a new show with Rachel Ray called "Week In A Day." Her strategy is to cook five meals in one weekend day so that when you come home after a long day at work, you don't have to really even think about dinner - just pull something out of the fridge and heat it up!

no thank you.

This concept is not new - TV dinners have been around since the '50s and many dieters turn to prepackaged frozen meals to help with portion control.

While I wouldn't consider myself a foodie (I'm not fancy enough), I do love to cook and eating food that tastes good is a luxury I will not go without, even when the budget is tight. Prepackaged frozen dinners just can't deliver the same goodness as a made-from-scratch meal.  

So, back to Rachel Ray ... as soon as the commercial was over, I set my TiVo to record her show and later did a little research on the show's website. The episode "It's A Breeze" featured five recipes that all sounded delicious to me, so I decided to try cooking for a full week in just one day. And as it turned out, I needed to do it all in just one morning as the day I picked to cook was already full in the afternoon and evening, but I was able to complete four out of the five meals (all except the Grilled Chicken Caesar Mac, so I froze the chicken and saved it for the next week), take a shower, nurse Mister Man a couple of times, cut up fruit for a salad and make it to lunch on time, bearing that fruit salad! Of course, had I tried to do this on a day that Deputy Handsome was at work, it would not have been possible but between Mister Man's frequent naps and the love that Little Miss has for her daddy's undivided attention, I was able to cook, in just one day, good-tasting, make-ahead meals for an entire week. 

TIPS FOR A SUCCESSFUL COOKING DAY:

• do some organizing on paper first - I make a list of each of the meals to be cooked and the dishes needed to prep, cook and store each meal. This is so I can plan for dish-washing time and also to make sure I have enough of each needed dish or container to go around
• the night before, make sure the kitchen is spotless so you can jump right into cooking and don't have to wade through last night's dishes
• the day you pick as your cook day is as important as what you plan to cook. if you have kids, make sure there is someone else besides you who is responsible for them and for keeping them out of your way for a few hours

Hello.

Little Miss , 22 months old
Mister Man, 11 weeks old

Ever since I gave birth to my son in March, the most frequent question I hear (right after: "so, are you getting any sleep?") is: "so, how is it with two?"

Exclusively breastfeeding an infant and also trying to keep a hungry almost-two-year-old happy while their daddy works night shift is definitely not easy, but I've found that the more I can do ahead of time, the smoother the week will go. Everyone is happier when there is time for reading books and dancing around the living room instead of constantly hearing "don't touch that - it's hot!" And as I sit on the couch staring into baby blue eyes, I feel better knowing dinner is just a few minutes away for the rest of the family too.
Make-ahead meals take planning and organization (I love to plan; I am not naturally organized) and I certainly didn't come up with how to make this happen all on my own. There are lots of resources that I've found helpful and hope to keep on learning and sharing as I go along my journey to be a make-ahead mommy who still has plenty of time in the day for make-believe.