200 posts and Once A Month Cooking

The other day I mentioned doing meal prepation ahead of time. I replied to Lauren's comment with an entire blogpost. So I thought I'd better post it:

I would like to be better about doing the meal prep ahead. I always try to cook up my hamburger in advance and bag it up in meal portions for spaghetti, enchiladas, tacos, etc. But then I got a book called Once a Month Cooking by some chick and MaryBeth Lagerborg (I've loaned it to a friend). They take it to two week or one month menus (I have never done a whole month), shopping lists, and preparation. I've taken several of their good recipes (on my recipe blog supercoolmomsrecipes.blogspot.com) that we like and try to prep to the ready to freeze stage.

I love it when I do it! I took one of those 3 lb bags of chicken and prepared 3 meals from it (chicken pasta soup, chicken packets, and filling for chicken pot pie) while I was doing that (browning and boiling the chicken breasts), I browned 3 lbs of hamburger (for spaghetti, meat pies, and enchiladas), then I used the chicken water and tossed in some carrots, celery, onions, and potatoes (to make potato soup). I also used the same carrots, celery, & onions for the chicken soup, chicken pot pie, and meat pies. All while watching 4 episodes of Project Runway!

I worked from about 9 pm to 1 am. But it was so fabulous to come home the next day and simply warm up potato soup. The next night we did chicken packets (I thawed the chicken mixture, slapped it in the middle of a roll of refrigerator croissants (made into a slab), then made it pretty and criss-crossed flaps over. Baked it and we had dinner done in about 20 minutes. Last night I thawed my meat pie mixture, while prebaking some pie crusts, then tossed my meat/potato mixute in and baked it for another 12 minutes - Wahlah! Meat pies in about 25 minutes!

And NOW for a fabulous, fun announcement! I just noticed that

my last post was my 200th!!!

So, I'm sending a little sumpin'-sumpin' to the three ladies who commented on it! Remember, you can't win if you don't play/comment :)

Michelle in CA, Melissa (Are You Serious), and Jules you have just won some fabulous tidbit from the studio of Janie, that I haven't made yet, but email me your address and I'll send it in the next month or so (being realistic here)!!! You are all WINNERS! I LOVE Comments!

My supercute little graphic up there is courtesy of my recipe blog - fabulous cuteness all by my awesome friend Janna Billman!!! She did this Blog design too!