A new interest

Before I get to the meat of this post, am I a bad mommy if I'm sitting here blogging while my children are in their rooms, awake from their naps and calling for me to come get them? I just don't think I'm ready yet... its been one of those days.

So, I'm newly interested in cooking ahead. I don't go all out Once A Month Mom cook ahead cooking, but I am learning the immense joy of havaing meals, or peices of meals, ready to go in the freezer.

It all started with chicken thighs. I found it on sale for 99 cents per pound a few weeks ago and bought some. Trouble it, it was bone-in, skin-on. I hate bone-in chicken. I can deal with skin... bones are harder. Especially after you've frozen the meat and its not completely thawed when you're trying to debone it so you can turn it into something that your 2-year-old will hopefully eat. So, I tossed the whole package into the crock pot with 2 cups of broth. When it was done, I had three 24 ounce tuperwares full of meat and 4 cups of broth, all of which when into the freezer. The next night, dinner was so easy! I made chicken stew and it went together so fast... all becuase I didn't have to cook the chicken.

So now I've pre-cooked more chicken. I've got homemade egg rolls that I made a few weeks ago frozen and ready to go. I froze extra enchilada filling. Extra rice from Cafe Rio style burritos. And now I'm doing beans. Two pounds of beans cost me $2 and, cooked in the crock pot, pretty much zero effort. It will yeild me at least a dozen can's worth of beans... at a fraction of the cost.

Maybe I'm nerdy, but its got me excited. And maybe I will try the Once A Month Mom thing one of these days. Today, a full day of cooking sounds like a nice change from a full day of mothering.