Yeah Right Pinterest

If you know me even a smidgen you know that I am slightly obesessed/addicted to Pinterest. LOVE IT. So so much.  And see, here's the thing, I actually DO some of the things that I pin. Maybe like 2% but 2% of 2294 pins is still ... a bunch. (It's too early in the morning to do math. It's not even 8am). 

Also fun fact, I can tell school around North America is starting soon because I get about 57 notifications every hour of other people pinning my school/lesson/classroom ideas. 

Anyways, my goal for a long time has been to do a pinterest favourite. Freezer Meals. Where you prep and cook like 50 meals all at once and then put them in the freezer for later. Then on those busy weeks where you want a hot, healthy, good meal you can just pull one out in the morning, throw it in the crock pot and come home to a house that smells like you have been slaving over a hot stove all day, when in fact you have been working or shopping or doing crafts all day.

As I am heading back to work full time next Monday (my feelings on this topic are Ughay - a mixture of ugh and yay), I decided that this week I should find a super-star mom/wife/homemaker and copy her blog and suggestions for bulk cooking. I pinned a few options and decided on this one because the recipes  varied and looked tasty.

She advertized 11 freezer meals in 3 hours for $50.
Not so much. 

The website did provide a shopping list which was super helpful, but my groceries ended up costing around $160. America has cheaper food. Plus I had to buy some things that I don't normally have on hand so that upped my costs quite a bit. I think if I did this whole set of recipes again, now that I have a lot of the random ingredients in my house I could probably do it for $100. No way could it get done for $50. I spent more than that on meat alone! Shopping at Wholesale Foods! Anyways, I'm not upset, because I separated most of the recipes into two portions so I actually have 19 meals in my freezer. And most of them will feed us for two meals. After all is said and done the number of actual meals comes down to about $2/person/meal. Which is pretty good. Because the recipes are really awesome and I am SO excited to try them.

Step one: get a good playlist going. 

One of the things I didn't read well enough before I began, was the amount of work that would be required. With this website all the meats need to be pre-cooked. Which was a lot of work. A LOT. While it was cooking I kept busy cutting, and prepping, and mixing other ingredients, but I was expecting to just throw everything in a bag and cook it later. BUT, if I had read the website more thoroughly she explains why she pre-cooks all the meat.

This project, including shopping time, took about 4.5 hours. 3.5 hours for the cooking/prepping, which is pretty close to what was advertized. I also did dishes as I used them so that took up more time, but it kept my kitchen cleaner and me sane.  I'm happy with this. It was a SUPER long afternoon. A lot of work for sure, but I decided that I would gladly spend even 5 hours prepping 19 meals than spend 15 hours cooking all these meals from scratch later on. Plus these recipes smell and look amazing! I want to eat them all right now!

The highlight of my cooking experience though, was when Arron came home from work and came in the door saying "Oh man! I could smell all the food three houses down! And I was praying, 'please let it be from my house, please let it be from my house!'"  I take that as a compliment, if he can smell the good smells from three houses down when he was in his tool, grease, and oil filled work van, it must have smelled pretty great.

Kitchen Before (Notice the picture frames on the fridge - pinterest, and the labels on my spice jars - also from pinterest)

Kitchen during

This is me making the VERY last recipe. I was so hot and tired.