Personal Progress

It all started last conference.  In one of the sessions (I'll have to go back over my notes to find out exactly who it was) but he stated that we (as parents) needed to fortify our homes against the evils of today and make our homes a safe haven and refuge to our children.  He counseled that we could fulfill this fortification of our homes if we did 5 things:

                             1. Family Prayer

                             2. Family Scripture Study

                             3. Family Home Evening

                             4. Family Dinner together 

                             5. Regular "Interviews" with our children

When I heard this, I was right in the thick of things with photography (aka: no dinners at all were being made, let alone eating together as a family!). I felt very strongly that I needed to heed this counsel and do all that I could to follow these guidelines.  I was just so busy during the week that I didn't feel like I had time to make healthy dinners each night.  It was then, that I decided to cook a weeks worth of meals on Saturday afternoon and then we'd just have to pop them in the oven each night!  This worked WONDERFULLY and we were soon having dinners at the table each and every night!!  Fast Forward to this past month (February 2011) and I had my good friend, Lotus Rummler, come over to help cook for one of my weeks.  She asked why I was only doing a week at a time and not a whole month and incorporating Freezer Meals.... so I started thinking about this.  While I loved having a weeks worth of meals - it still made Saturdays a little crazy with trying to fit in all of the cooking!  I decided that cooking for a month would be a benefit!  I then set off on my mission of learning all I need to take this challenge head on!

Here is a breakdown of exactly what I did:

            * I spent about 5 hours reading and learning the "how to's" of freezer cooking and compiling       recipes that I knew my family would enjoy.I then had to write out the grocery list which took another hour!

           * 5 hours of food shopping and putting the groceries away

           * 17 hours of cooking.  5 hours on my own cooking and shredding 10lbs of Turkey meat and 17 lbs of Chicken!  Then a full 12 hour cooking/assembly day where Lotus came to help

It was a L.O.N.G. day and we have already collaborated on what we can do different to speed up our time and make things go smoother!  Here were some of our thoughts:

*Have stations... like the can opener station, then the raw prep area where we assemble, and then the  wrap it up/prep for freezer station. Pre writing all of the labels and having them w/ the recipes so we don't have to hunt for labels/pens...

*have the ingredients for each recipe collected together in one place, with that recipe with that pile

* organize the kitchen so we're moving in a rotation of stations

*Have a couple of boxes or baskets so that we can load up our recipe ingredients and move them if we need to altogether to keep us from walking back and forth...

* Have each recipe printed on its own sheet of paper and have it with the ingredients for that dish

*Having the kids made it really slow going and they wanted to "help" the entire time! LOL Here's what I've been thinking about what I could do next time: start at  like at 8:30am... then arrange for Nathan and the girls to go over to a neighbors from like 9-12:30pm... then Nathan would get on the bus and we'd have the girls for a few hours in the afternoon... then when August and Seth got back at 3pm, have them take the girls to the park (since it will be nicer by that point) and then *hopefully* we'll be finished up by 4ish when Ben and Nathan get home from school (or send them to the park with the older boys too) .....   

 

I have absolutely LOVED having a freezer stocked and not having to worry about menus until like Easter!  Another blessing is that I can help others out at any given notice.  Take today for instance... I got a call first thing this morning (in fact, I wasn't even out of bed yet! LOL) asking if I'd take a meal into a sister that just had a baby... I didn't have to hesitate one bit because I knew I had the food and it would be ready for delivery!

And here is what my freezer looked like after it was stocked!

My awesome friend, Lotus Rummler, who came to help with the marathon cooking!!

  I have certainly learned a LOT!! and I'm actually excited about continuing this on and getting better and faster at it - I know that learning this new skill and implementing it into my life has and will continue to bless us!!