Cooking Marathon

I have made it a goal to stay down in Pocatello on the days that I am in school until about 4 or 5 PM. I am there on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and Talia's daycare doesn't have half days, so no matter when I pick her up, it costs the same amount of money. I decided that I was a lot more likely to get my studies done in a quiet place without the option of other things to do than I would at home with all of its pressing housework, computers, movies, and children.

This decision means two things. First of all, I needed a quiet place to study in Pocatello where I felt comfortable. Second of all, on those nights of the week, I won't be getting home until fairly late, leaving little or no time to cook dinner. To solve the first problem, I found a specific table on the third floor of the library, in a back corner, that faces a wall. To solve the second problem, I decided to try and make ahead and freeze several meals so that we could just defrost them the night before and pop them in the oven. However, I only knew of a couple of meals that would freeze well.

Lo and behold, when I was a little bit bored with studying one day, I let my mind and eyes wander and discovered that I was sitting right in a row full of cook books! Could anything be more detrimental to the supposed no distractions theory? Reasoning that I did still have to feed my family, I allowed myself a few minutes to peruse the shelves and I found this book:

Frozen Assets Lite and Easy: How to Cook for a Day and Eat for a Month

Now, in this book, the author basically teaches you how to cook 30 meals in one day (one very long, hard, hot day.) I'm not really interested in doing that--I don't see any need to have every night's meal frozen. However, it also has "mini-sessions". Each chapter is a set of recipes based around a central ingredient (beef, chicken, turkey, or vegetarian.) It has a shopping list for all 5 meals. So, I decided yesterday morning to try out one of the beef mini-sessions. I chose this one because we have access to a lot of free beef, though my in-laws, and because all of the recipes looked pretty good.

So, I spent the morning shopping. I have been going to the Farmer's Market every Saturday morning for our produce this summer. Traditionally, I have done the grocery shopping on Mondays, but that's no longer an option, so I am having to do it on Saturdays. Also, I have been going to Sam's Club for certain bulk items about once a month. Lucky me, all three of these trips coincided on the same Saturday. The same Saturday, moreover, that Dusty had a fencing tournament, so I had to take the girl's with me. It was a long morning.

By early evening, I was beginning to panic with all of the things I needed to get done, so Dusty jumped in and began cooking. After I got the girls to bed, I joined him and we were up cooking until 11:30. By the end, we had managed to create 8 meals. We were thoroughly sick of cooking (especially chopping onions) but we had done it! We also tasted one of the soups and YUM! it was good!