Yes, I Cook. No, the world isn't ending.

I had a productive day yesterday.  Ages ago at lunch with Ginger Sister she mentioned something about people who cook once a month, and they cook up lots of meals and freeze stuff and just pop something in the oven when it’s time to eat.  So before our move to the new house I decided to give that a try.  Mainly because I know that if I didn’t, that we’d spend a fortune grabbing “fast food” just because we’d both be too tired from the moving work that neither of us would want to cook.  We liked it and I learned a lot in the process.  So yesterday was my second go-round.

I started off making six casseroles with potatoes, sausage and green beans.   It can be a nice combination if the sausage is good and the last time we went shopping I found a five pound bag of cooked sausage and so I bought it.  (And no, I didn’t use all 5 pounds in these casseroles.) 

While I was cooking I had the laptop in the kitchen and I figured out the calorie content of each serving as I went along.  That made a tedious job somewhat intellectually interesting.  And it amazes me how the pile of low calorie high nutrition veggies are equal to a cup of some higher calorie food.  It’s really interesting to cook and do the math at the same time!  So I ended up with some meals under 400 calories and some over 600, so I can do a better job of keeping an eye on my weight.

Then I made six quiches and they look lovely.  I buy the deep dish pie shells at Wally’s and then load them up with veggies plus some sausage.  Each one got three eggs and a ½ cup of milk and cheese on top.  Surprisingly with all that good stuff in there, it’s still a good meal and not nearly as many calories as you’d think.

Then I made six veggie casseroles with a bit of ham for flavor and some tofu to bring up the protein.  I baked them for an hour and that was that.

Then I baked four pork loin roasts and they turned out beautifully and they make the house smell wonderful.  I wonder if that makes my dogs hungry to smell such good things?

Hubby got home just in time to skin two packs of chicken thighs.  So after he did that and popped them in the baking pans I dressed them up with a variety of marinade/flavors from teriyaki to lemon pepper to the last of the honey mustard dressing.  We had the honey mustard ones for dinner and they were yummy!  Those turned into eight pans in the oven, four to a rack and maybe that even saves some energy to cook that much food at one time.  Maybe I lose when I reheat them later, I don’t know.

I made two huge pots of rice, one a Mexican style and the other with a combination was more of a fried rice with some interesting spices plus some pineapple juice that made it taste “sweet and sour” and it turned out pretty good in my opinion. 

Then I packaged up pork loin or chicken thighs with rice and veggie casserole, some in individual servings and some in doubles for when hubby is home.  I counted and it looks like I made 80 meals.  I’m pretty impressed with myself and who knows if it will last me a month or not but I can spend a day making some other kinds of things for a little more variety later on.

I don’t use recipes, so this kind of thing is really an experiment.  And in these kinds of quantities, we’re up a creek if I make something we hate or something that doesn’t survive the freezer.  LOL!  That hasn't happened - YET.  I spent some time on the internet doing research and it looks like some of the good folks who use this method are making primarily meat and potato dishes and a heck of a lot of cream, sour cream and cheese which doesn’t seem all that balanced to me.  I was amazed at the lack of veggies or anything green, but maybe those people are adding a green salad to the meal they are reheating.  But why make food ahead if you still have to make the salad?  That just doesn’t make sense to me but maybe it would if I had fourteen children.  So anyway, I wanted to make sure the meals I was making were healthy and balanced.  When we cook in a hurry we don’t choose a healthy diet and so I have been intentional in my food choices when shopping for this kind of cooking.

When we first started to go to the church we currently attend, the word got out that hubby does most of the cooking.  At the time that was a convenience issue.  As a school teacher he got home long before I did and sometimes I’d be home quite late from the gallery and if the man wanted to eat, he was going to have to make something.  The ladies at the church would talk to me about recipes and stuff and though I understood that they were just trying to make conversation, that just wasn’t my life.  As a business owner I didn’t have time for trying new recipes and entertaining.  It was interesting to notice that their assumption was that my husband cooks because I can’t.  We may be a little outside the box but it would be a mistake to think that I can’t cook.  I can.  I prepared the meals in my family from before I hit my teens, I’ve had years of practice cooking for a family and when I prepare a meal for guests, it gets good reviews.  I still remember one sweet lil church lady suggesting that maybe someone should get me cooking lessons for Christmas.  What a strange assumption!  So wrong on so many levels.  I’m self taught at a lot of things, and if I got “lessons” for Christmas, please let it be something I can use!  (Like dance or metal-smithing or hot glass.)  I’m actually pretty good at creating a delicious, attractive and healthy meal.  And then I put in my facebook status that I was spending the day cooking.  And another woman from church made a comment about that being a sign of the apocalypse.  There it is again.  What’s up with that?  Yes, I cook.  No, I doubt that it will cause the end of the world.  Yet. 

I just had to sit and think about it and decide that I have nothing to prove to these people.  Anyone can tell by looking at us that we are NOT starving.  And though it may be a high priority in some circles for me to stay home, try recipes and take care of my husband… well… that’s just not my life.  And who knows, it may never be.  And before anyone decides to be sad for my husband, he is a capable man who is actually a good cook in his own right.  And his life would be much less dimensional if I deprived him of this creative outlet where he can make the things he likes best.  Society’s roles just don’t work for me, and much less when sweet little church ladies seem to suggest (not with their words but with their expectations) that somehow God is wrapped up in these social gender based role issues.  Honestly, I’d just like to create a new “normal” where women and men both get to do the things they are good or choose to do - regardless of gender.  But look at me, I’ve left blogging and gone on to preaching.  Oh wait, a woman preaching?  All together now:  <GASP!!!>