Dinner Starters, OAMC, Freezer Cooking, Bulk Cooking

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I am not a beginner at Freezer Cooking. I never participated in the Bulk Cooking, Make Ahead Meals, Freezer Coking days (or any other catch phrase out there for this task) due to the massive amounts of food made from others folks. The very idea would intimidate me. This time especially I had the kids home all week with snow days. I'm thinking to myself you barely have time to shower, how the heck am I going to do that? In fact, I don't even have the money to buy the massive amounts of food all at once. These are just some of the issues I have always had with once a month cooking or freezer cooking. Still my cupboards were empty from the Pantry Challenge and I wanted to participate in some fashion. Plus I had a load of great items from Kroger that needed processing.

I always cooked ahead certain things though, even when I worked. I even cooked ahead before being frugal (I admit it, I'm a convert). I always made my own spaghetti sauce (both with and without meat). I always made my own meat loaves (have no idea why I just do), and I always made my own meatballs (to name a few). In fact, the list of make ahead grew over the years for me and is now 17 items long. WOW. After being miraculously cured of cancer, my list of make my own non processed foods from great ingredients grew and grew. I would never do all that at one time. I have always staggered when I made what and always made more than a months worth. I would make one or two make ahead item a week or maybe even a month but the main idea is that the items always ran out at a staggered rate. This made sense to me and I always had spaghetti sauce, I always had meat loaves and I never felt rush or had to do mad cooking. Yet I always had dinner "starters" ready like ground beef base, stock, my own cooked ahead dried beans so I did not have to use BPH lined cans. I do not have the resources that most moms have with families and sitters.

This participation was based no the Kroger Mega event and our Hays Dollar Days sales. All fo these items are on my massive make ahead list of items.

• Marinade Chicken Breasts (5 dinners worth)
• Use breast chicken bones & make Stock (added freezer bones ~ 10 cans worth)
• Cook Dried Beans Black, Pinto, White and Kidney beans (4 cans each)
• Make $1 bags of Potatoes into Freezer Mashed (4 dinners worth)
• Made a batch of Vegetarian Pasta E. Fagioli soup (4 servings)