Taurus moon apparently has me thinking about food.  I used to do once a month cooking years ago when my older kids were young.  Anyone else?  My family is not big on leftovers so if I cook big meals we often waste a lot of it.  If I plan and make meal sized portions and freeze the rest, everyone will be happy and well fed and I won't be running out for deli sandwiches or fast food at the last minute. 

 I found this site that has a lot of information. http://www.once-a-month-cookingworld.com

I think I'll do a cooking session on Sunday and see what I can accomplish.   

Interesting idea...sounds like a whole month of left overs to me, but I could be wrong, I've never tried it. 

The way I did it before was just to plan and prepare ingredients.  Like if you cook a big batch of ground meat with onions and seasonings, you can freeze them in meal sized portions and then from that cooked ground beef base you can make spaghetti sauce, sloppy joes, stroganoff, shepherd's pie, tacos, etc.  Or cooked shredded chicken and do the same thing.  

The basic idea is to plan the menus and plan a day to do the bulk of the work.  Casseroles can be prepared and placed in plastic wrap and foil lined casserole dishes in the freezer just until they are frozen.  Take them out and wrap them well and put them back in the freezer.  Then when you're ready to cook them, they fit in the container but you haven't lost all of your dishes to storage.  

I started a document of all of the basic ingredients I like to cook with.  When I did it before I used a book of recipes that included a lot of things like refrigerator biscuits and canned soups or seasoning packets.  I'm more likely to make it all from scratch and avoid processed foods now.  

Reminds me of, I think it was Dave Barry or a similar minded comedian, who said "I've got an idea, how about frozen toast.  When you want a slice you just put it in the toaster."

I like to freeze soup stock.  Like when you have a few carrots and some limp celery left, throw them in a pot and cook them down for soup later.

Err... As a cancer with an aquarius moon, i shriek in horror at the thought of 1. Not being able to cook at least a few times a week, and 2. eating the same thing over and over again. horror i tell you, horror.

Oh well.  We never ate the same thing over and over.  It worked really well for me but I'm pretty resourceful when it comes to keeping things interesting and being frugal with time, energy and food.  

my freezer is tiiiiiiiiny

and currently being taken up by the world's largest bag of frozen blueberries. I love cooking but would do this, because if I run out of time I just miss meals and that's super bad for my overall wellbeing. 

Yeah it isn't that I mind cooking.  I just need a plan and this is one that worked well for me.  I need healthy, filling meals that I can put together with minimal time invested on a daily basis without having to run to the store.  I'm tired of eating crap and feeling bad AND spending too much for inferior food. 

No don't get me wrong, it sounds totally efficient. If I had a family/hardcore time crunching to do I would go the same route. Thanks for sharing.

Do you have a freezer Lupa? A chest freezer?

I have a side by side freezer/fridge and an older spare fridge that gets used for dog food and assorted overflow.  It really doesn't take a ton of space for freezer cooking.  I tend to not stock a whole lot of food in the house so there is plenty of room for enough prepared or partially prepared food for my family.  

I like your strategy, Lupa! Never thought to half-cook parts of the dishes.

When I'm being efficient, which is not always, I make big pots of soup and then freeze them in old yogurt containers and label with a Sharpie marker. Chicken soup, vegetable bean, split pea, lentil. The kind of soups you can eat as a meal.

I also separate the chicken breasts or ground beef into singles or doubles and freeze them in ziplock bags. That way you can nuke one in a pinch and have a quick chicken dinner.

My ex who still lives here never showed any interest in leftovers. I was always so astonished by this. Like if we eat something awesome like a pork roast, you're not going to want it the next day as a hot lunch? Unbelieveable.

What I started doing is doctoring the leftovers to seem like a new meal. Like you could take the pork roast, slice it up, add veggies and do a stir-fry over noodles the next day.

I like crock pot meals - a LOT. Nothing beats tossing dinner into a single pot in the morning, coming home at 6 or 7 pm and it's piping hot and ready to eat. Pot roast, chicken in the pot, pork and sauerkraut... yummm.

I don't know if I would bother pre-cooking like that though. It never seems to take me more than a half hour to cook dinner anyway. Unless it's a Sunday roast or lasagna or something like that. But in the case of lasagna- yeah, I'd freeze those leftovers.

god i love sauerkraut. i'm going to have to tootle off to the grocery store now.

Casseroles can be prepared and placed in plastic wrap and foil lined casserole dishes in the freezer just until they are frozen.  Take them out and wrap them well and put them back in the freezer.  Then when you're ready to cook them, they fit in the container but you haven't lost all of your dishes to storage. 

I had to really think about this. So you're saying, put the pyrex dish, WITH the food, INTO the freezer until it gets stiff. Then take it out, remove the frozen food from the dish, wrap the food in its new pyrex-dish-shaped form, and when it's time too reheat, it will just fit nicely into the pyrex thing?

That is BRILLIANT!

Yes Bananas.  I loved that idea with the casserole dishes.  I read it today on one of the freezer cooking websites.   

 And I do a lot of refurbishing leftovers.  The problem is that if I have a really tough day at work I don't have the energy to make even something simple.  If I make something great that I plan to use in a different dish a day or two later and then I have a couple of hard/busy days at work or my pain thing flares up we end up wasting food.  It's the planning that is key for me.  

 I made an enchilada casserole that was a hit tonight.  Just grocery store rotissere chicken pulled off the bone and tossed with brown rice, mexican style frozen veggies, ranch dressing and some green chiles layered with green salsa a bit of cheese and corn tortillas.  My son enthusiastically asked to take some to school tomorrow for his lunch.  

Oh but re the dish thing, you line the dish with foil, then place a layer of cling wrap over that.  Put the food in the foil and plastic lined dish, close up the plastic wrap, then the foil, then freeze.  It's already wrapped really.  I wouldn't put hot food on plastic wrap though and really prefer to avoid plastic in contact with foods if I can manage it.  

i routinely cook all the fresh ingredients i have, then, if there's more than two days of food, freeze a bunch of it.  at different times of year the coop gives us pure tons of fresh herbs and i always end up frezing a bunch of it.  i have nearly fresh dill for as long as i need it,pretty much, at the rate i go through it.  tastes waaaay better that way.  and if i ever get my herb garden going (it's sprouting atm) well, then... i better start eating more of them!

really, though, i'd need a chest frezeer to do most of it. 

but it's a great way to deal with buying bulk ground meat, for example.