Cooking Queen

Some of my running buddies have been doing this prepared meals thing for a few months & it sounded perfect for me. It's organized so that once a month, 15-25 women get together & pre-make 10 meals. I was sad I didn't have my own cute apron...



There were 5 stations & each group had about 5 women that prepackaged a single meal & then we put that meal in large, labeled Ziploc baggie and into our cooler before moving on to the next meal station.



It's really a LOT of women in the kitchen bustling around a top speed and going through about 427 baggies every 5 minutes. We did all 5 stations and packed up 5 meals, then took a quick breather to clean and re-stock each of the stations with meals for round 2.



So I got 10 meals for 4 people for $150 and about 3.5 hours of labor. I still need to add sides, but I'm excited about the variety and having everything all measured out already that I can just pull out of the freezer without much thought.



For my first meal, I tired the pork chops with bacon and sage.



Any meal that starts with bacon is going to turn out alright...it was hard not to eat these while the rest of my meal cooked.



Just tossed a bit of salt and pepper on the pork chops- we had 6 total.



Cooking lesson 1- don't drain and save the hot bacon grease in a plastic measuring spoon.



Throw in the sauce ingredients for a few minutes & dinner is ready!



I was really happy with how our first meal came out & how much easier it makes cooking if I don't have to browse through cook books, make a grocery list, run to the store, measure out everything, put all the ingredients away, and then wash all the measuring devices.



Later in the week, I cooked the chorizo on the stove & then threw it in a crock pot for the day over some chicken breasts. It wasn't my favorite, but wasn't too bad either.



At the last minute, we invited H's mom over for lunch after church. I was able to pull of a gourmet meal of London Broil in less than 30 minutes.



And last night, we had the maple encrusted salmon- very yummy and super easy! I'm trying to cook as much as I can before we leave & before we move, but I will be signing up for more dinners in the future.

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: Home alone tonight- going to play with the puppies and get lots of packing done.