Own Your Beauty!

Sunday, December 26, 2010

EXTREME bulk cooking!

I am a lady with a plan.  The first month of next semester is going to be straight up insanity.  I am stage managing the first show which begins rehearsals on January 9th and closing night is February 12th.  So we will be rehearsing 6 days a week, until 10:30pm every night with about 1 hour for dinner break between classes ending and rehearsal starting to come home, take care of doggie, get dinner, and get back to the theatre.  My goal is to cook, portion, and freeze enough food that I don’t have to cook for the entire month other than baking a fresh loaf of bread on the weekends for the upcoming week.

With that goal in mind, when I went to the store last week I stocked up on ingredients that could be used for a ton of different recipes and different types of foods.  If I do all Mexican flavors or all Italian or all soups I get bored fast.  Variety is key!  I also wanted to cover breakfast, lunch and dinners.  Breakfast 2 days I week I will be at home for and 3 days a week will be at work so I needed something that could be portable and easy to grab and again, wouldn’t mean eating the same thing every damn day.  With lunch away from a microwave 2 days a week I will probably make some things on my day off that don’t have to be reheated, like pasta salad or peanut butter sandwiches.  But I hope to get a small soup thermos too so that I can take soup and bread and don’t have to reheat it.  We shall see.

Anyway – here is my list of everything I am planning on cooking and storing in the next 1-2 weeks

  • Breakfast:
    • granola
    • yogurt
    • breakfast burritos
    • cranberry pumpkin muffins
    • instant oatmeal (my own mixture)
  • Lunch/Dinner:
    • Roast Chicken
    • Smoked salmon quiche
    • salmon patties
    • baked pasta w/ chicken sausage
    • curried lentils and rice
    • salmon potato chowder
    • chicken noodle and veggie soup
    • chili
    • chicken enchilada casserole
    • brown rice
    • multi grain pilaf
    • split pea soup
    • ???  If I have leftover ingredients I will turn them into something!!

Cooking at this moment is this roast chicken in the crockpot, which when done will be eaten some plain, some in the chicken enchilada casserole, and the carcass boiled down for broth to make the chicken noodle soup. 

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I love roasting chickens in the crockpot, they get so ridiculously falling off the bones tender and when you are done stripping the carcass, just toss it back in the crockpot with the juices and a bunch of water and veggies and turn it back on overnight for extremely easy chicken stock!

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Seasoned with a blend of sea salt, Italian herbs, and TJ’s Everyday Seasoning.  A quartered onion on the bottom, garlic rubbed under the skin, drizzled with olive oil, lemon juice and maybe 1/4-1/2 cup of white wine and that’s it! DELICIOUS!

Also cooking is a pot of veggie chili and a pot of brown rice.  I also plan on cooking up some curried lentils tonight so I can package it in single servings with the rice.  And if I am feeling particularly ambitious I might tackle the baked pasta this evening too.  If not I will pick it up again with a few projects tomorrow!

Wish me luck in my totally insane bulk cooking endeavor Smile and if anyone has any great ideas for make ahead, no heat lunches let me know.

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