hazards of cooking day

tripped over my feet and dropped a full jar of spaghetti sauce. ugh! i'm surprised i didn't just SCREAM out of frustration. that kind of stuff really gets me mad. but i held it together. kept my cool. grabbed my camera and decided to blog about it. why get mad, really? what's that gonna do? right! :)

look, it splattered all the way up the refrigerator door

maybe I should just let the dog come in and lick it up. it seriously crossed my mind. but then again, that's a lot of sauce for one dog to lick up and she may barf if up on my carpet afterward.

i am SO annoyed! off to clean it up...

the longest "cooking day" EVER

Saturday I bought my groceries to cook for the month. I say that loosely because I'm cooking more like enough meals for a month and a half. I haven't cooked like this since the meal swap at chili's and the only reason is that I haven't made it a priority. I've regretted that I haven't done it each month. I prefer it this way. I DO NOT enjoy waking up and trying to figure out dinner. I'm not good at planning week by week so this seems to work best for me.

Anyway. I'm doing it...BUT is has taken me ALL WEEK! I usually will start at night and then finish up the next morning. Just didn't happen that way. I have done a little bit every morning this week. I'm almost finished up but this has been the longest "cooking day" EVER! :)

Here is what I've made:

Chicken:
Chicken Enchiladas (2)
Chicken & Pasta Salad
Angel Chicken Pasta
Judd's Chicken Tetrazini (2)
Teriyaki Chicken (2)
Chicken Burritos (11)
Spicy Chicken Tacos (3)
Chicken w/ Tomatoes & Peppers

Pork:
Sweet & Sour Pork Chops
Breaded Pork Chops

Beef:
Mushroom Pot Roast
French Onion Pot Roast

Ground Beef:
Hamburgers (16)
Baked Spaghetti (2)
Creamy Lasagna (2)
Stuffed Shells (2)
Beef Enchiladas (2)
Slow Cooker Spaghetti & Meatballs

Other:
Mac & Cheese (4 sides)
Broccoli Casserole (4 sides)

WHEW!

my little helper

wouldn't you just love to have this little sweetie helping you in the kitchen?

i always forget how much i enjoy having a little baby crawling around in the kitchen. yes, she gets in the way sometimes or needs to be redirected but i love having her at my feet. i love seeing her piddle and explore. i love watching her pull all the tupperware out of 'her' cabinet. i love it. she's a great little helper!

that's a lot of carrots...

the red bowl was filled to the rim before i added the proper amount of carrots to the mixer. isn't that a TON of carrots!

i'm making a carrot cake for my neighbor Mike. he fixed our old computer this past weekend so the kids can have a computer for homeschooling - word processor, games, and internet access. PERFECT!!! what a blessing that will be for us! always nice to have a computer friend who can do wonders with your old computer!

so, Mike's favorite dessert is carrot cake. i've never made one but i've had Katy's and her recipe is AWESOME. if i don't have a good recipe, i always know Katy will. :)

i made my list this morning. while at the store i picked up the 3lbs of carrots i believed the cake called for. i even thought "that sure is a lot of carrots." but what do i know? i'm no carrot cake expert. :)

got home. peeled the carrots. shredded them in the food processor. at least i didn't have to do that by hand, that would have been a job! i kept thinking, why would anyone make a shredded carrot anything without a food processor!!! :) when i saw the bowl of carrots i REALLY thought that was a LOT of carrots for one cake.

i was right. the recipe called for 3 CUPS not 3lbs! HELLO! good thing i caught that before i tossed them all in. i actually think it would have been near impossible to mix that many carrots with anything! ha!

so...i plan to make a carrot salad today. i could probably do that and still make another carrot cake. maybe i'll make carrot cake cupcakes and freeze them. i don't know. maybe i should google recipes that call for shredded carrots. i have plenty to go around! :)

Meal Swap at Chili's

My 10 Bags of Tamale Pie - I set them on the counter and dumped all the ingredients in the bags. Pretty easy! The "hardest" part was browning the 10 pounds of beef! AHHHH! That's a lot of beef! :)

I bagged the pie mixture and then bagged the cheese in a snack baggie. I put the pie and cheese into another bag with the recipe facing up so they could see what meal it was.

Here is my cooler, ready to go. They each needed to grab one bag from the cooler and one box of Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix.

So I've been doing this kind of cooking for a few years now, batch cooking and then freezing it. We've tried to cook as a ladies event with our small group from church every so often and it's been fun but this time we decided we would make 10 meals of the same recipe and then we would meet at Chili's for dinner and swap meals before we left. It was GREAT and so fun! We must have looked a sight laying out our meals on the curb at Chili's! ha ha!!! I can't believe that NO ONE in our group had their camera! The picture would have been priceless! I loved assembling the meals at home, I loved getting to go out to eat with some great friends, and most of all...I LOVED coming home with 9 different meals that we will be able to enjoy this month (left my meal I made for our family at home in my freezer).

If you haven't tried cooking ahead like this you really must try it...just once!!! It is a life saver as a mom. That 4-6pm time frame for most families with kids can be a little scary and if you haven't thought about dinner until then you are probably going to end up ordering pizza or eating something not so homemade or delicious! You've been there, I know! :) Try it, you'll be hooked and you won't want to go back to the old way! :)

A full first Saturday of September!

Today was a busy day for the Williams' family. I started the morning off finishing my cooking for the month! With my recent travels and busy schedule, I hadn't carved out the time to get it done. We had slim pickin's for dinner a few nights here, I was scrambling at dinner time every night but I absolutely didn't want to shop for dinner and waste money when I needed to just plan a time to cook!!! One night we had Chick-fil-A (not that I don't LOVE that place!) b/c Anthony had ordered it for clients a couple weeks ago and it just happened to be some "special" Friday, I don't remember what they called it, anyway if you came back they would refill your order for free! We were able to pick up 6 boxed lunches and some sweet tea! Perfect! Even had some for the next day's lunch. Needless to say, it was time to get on the ball and get my cooking done! So I started last night, cooked a few this morning, headed to the pool for some time with Anthony and the kids. It was such a beautiful day, I had practically forgotten that I really like being outside! It was such a nice reminder that this heat is almost over and the fall will be here before we know it. I got to take a nap and then I got Anthony and Harrison ready for a very special FIRST!!!

Anthony and Harrison went to their FIRST college football game tonight! Whoowhoooo!! I'm sure there will be many more in their future but it was fun to see Harrison get all excited about it. Anthony had tickets to the Carolina Railhawks (soccer) and to a University of NC Football Game (playing JMU). They had first planned on going to the soccer game but changed their minds to football. One of our neighbors, Jay and his son Alex who is 6 and just started playing football, went with them and Anthony passed the soccer tickets on to the airport. Harrison was very excited about having a guys night out! Boys need those times with their dad with no mommies, you know! I'm sure they are having a blast eating food and watching the game! I snapped the picture of the two of them right before they left with Harrison holding their tickets! Harrison is really looking more and more like his daddy! Especially when he's in the mood to wear a ball cap!

I finished up my cooking this afternoon (22 meals in the Freezer...yipeee!), walked on the treadmill, and played with Jackson. He must have played in the bathtub for over 30 minutes. I'm usually one of those "fast" bath mommies but we had the time and it was fun! He's in bed and I'm going to go and practice my music. I sing in church tomorrow for the first time since we've moved to NC. I'll be in the DLC tomorrow (hard to explain, but sort of like a simulcast service but not like Kinetic where the music is different than the sanctuary) and then I'm in the Worship Center for the next two weeks. I'm so excited to be getting involved in the music ministry at our new church and to start serving again. So, off to practice! Can't wait to hear about the game when the boys gets home!