Friday, September 14, 2007

For the Freezer: Getting prepared

I did Once a Month Cooking ages ago when I was working full time, doing a monster cooking day and then just reheating meals throughout the month. It was handy, but the recipes I was using were certainly not healthy. I'm preparing to do a big batch cooking session on Sunday and Monday with Core recipes and local ingredients, a tasty and healthy way of having a home cooked meal even when I'm too tired to cook.

All of these meals will be prepared with locally grown, organic ingredients and will all fit the Eat Local Challenge that I've been so lax about following this past week! I think this will make up for my lack of cooking this week, haha.

Here's the menu:

Meatball chili with pumpkin (Crockpot) pumpkin adds a subtle sweet creaminess and plenty of fiber and vegetal goodness, but no strong pumpkin flavor
Pot roast (Crockpot)
Beef picadillo (Pressure Cooker)
Mushroom, and barley soup (PC)
Chicken cacciatore (PC)
Unstuffed cabbage with meatballs in sweet and sour tomato sauce (PC)
Chickpeas with eggplant-tahini sauce (PC)
Sweet and sour lentils with 5 spice rice
Shephard's pie

To get ready today, I'm cleaning the kitchen and going to the Grocery Outlet and Country Sun today. Mr.M will get the CSA box tomorrow while I'm at school and I'll visit the farmer's market on Sunday morning for any other fresh ingredients on the list.

On Sunday, I'll prepare a big batch of meatballs, mushroom barley soup in the pressure cooker, beans for the chili in the pressure cooker, chop veggies, and put the pot roast in the crockpot overnight.

On Monday, the crockpot will make the meatball chili, and I'll spend the day rotating meals in and out of the pressure cooker. Once it's all done, I'm sure I'll be exhausted, but I'll have two or three packages of each meal in the freezer and can relax about my school night meals for the next month or more.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I would love it if you would post your recipe for the meatball chili with pumpkin!

Anonymous said...

Living in Virginia, the seasons are starting to change and I get nervous at the farmer's markets about all the veggies that won't be there next week or the week after -- I totally overbought with plans to preserve some and think I will be stocking my freezer this weekend as well.

Momaste said...

Jasmine, we have a few more weeks until there is any big shift in veggie availability, but I know what you mean about stocking up the freezer so you don't miss it!

I'll post the pumpkin chili recipe in another post. It's very tasty!