The Dinner Prep EXTREME Event

I don’t know what weeknights are like in your home, but ours are on the busy side.  So a few weeks ago I gathered up five adventurous girlfriends to stock our freezers with easy go-to dinners.  Now, this was no casual stroll down the grocery isle.  This was 220 lbs of meat.   42 lbs of onions.  Costco-sized jars of garlic, Worchester sauce, ketchup.  24 lbs of shredded cheddar cheese, 8 lbs of pasta…..overwhelming but hilarious at the same time.  What were we thinking????!!!***

Stay with me here, this is how it works:

The idea started with a book I came across called The Big Cook.  Three smart and energetic moms from Alberta (shout out to ya gals!) with 11 children between them decided to take charge of their dinner prep.  They were frustrated; tired of chopping onions every day, forgetting to thaw meat and rushing through the after-school bewitching time with harried demands of homework, soccer, phones ringing, and hungry children.  So they devised nutritional and family-friendly recipes that could be prepped in advance and put in the freezer.  Only the cooking needs to be done when you want it.  And the cooking could be many methods that work for you – slow cooker, delayed oven, grilling, or a quick skillet simmer.  With the main dish done, they just need to chop a quick salad, or cook noodles….you get the picture.  Ah, dinner time bliss!  Brilliant!  Their book outlines their families’ faves and multiplies out each recipe for the number of meals you want to make – and even better, the math is done for you!

Our gang used a couple of their recipes – the Mighty Meatballs are a huge (and I mean huge) hit on all counts.  But we also used some of our own recipes that could be adapted for the freezer.

It was an ambitious agenda, but here is what we made in 10 hours:

12 Beef Taco Casseroles (9×13” pans)

12 Baked Mac’n’Cheese (8” pans)

21 bags (3 cups each) of 7-Vegetable Ratatouille

36 lbs of Mighty Meatballs

18 Turkey and Spinach Meatloafs (2 lbs each)

140 lbs of “Unbelievable” marinated chicken breasts

12 4-lb Cross-rib Roasts with Beef & Onion Gravy

24 lbs Mashed Potatoes

24 kits of Sweet’n’Sour Chicken Stir-Fry (2 lbs meat plus veggies cut up already in sauce)

OMIGOSH you’re thinking!

We were too!  It was a long day but we did stop for a lovely lunch and bottle of wine, and played lots of tunes and of course oodles of laughs and story swaps while we worked together.  Each family took home about 35 MEALS, each meal serving min. 4 people.  Several of the recipes make enough for leftovers too!

The cost per meal worked out to well under $10 – in fact, most meals were $7.50 or so PER MEAL!….  Easy on your grocery budget and significantly less than the trendy supper-prep stores that are popping up.

We sourced our beef from Costco because they carry only Canadian beef and could give us volume pricing.  The Cross-rib roasts are great as either a pot roast, or you can do what my 10-year old son and hubby love to do: shred it to bits (it’s soooooo tender) and slather it in a delish BBQ sauce and put it on a bun!  All that needs to be added is a bag of coleslaw and you are a ranchin’ queen! (or King for all you cookin’ dads out there).

The meatballs we cooked on huge jellyroll pans in the oven, and left them in freezer bags without sauce so we could use them however we like.

Check out the photos to see the crazy volume of food that overtook our house that day!

So what are YOU doing to make your life easier?  Share your ideas and let’s talk because the best ideas come from conversation, and yours could help someone who really needs a boost. J  Oh, and if you’re crazy enough to tackle a day like we did, go for it!  I’ve got some planning tips coming up next time to help you along.

Jean can normally be found in her untidy but happy home with her two amazing children, patient and supportive hubby, guinea pig who hides from it all, and three ovens.  She spends her days (and nights) baking up a storm (www.jeanscakes.ca), teaching music, volunteering, chauffering children to activities, knitting soft and cozy things, flitting around the city with her girlfriends, and almost always taking on too much because life is just too short to sit still!