Cook once, eat for 2 weeks, or How to eat at home while leading a normal life

I am always intrigued and inspired/discouraged by those "30 days of freezer meals" posts on Pinterest. For one thing, obviously that sounds awesome, but on the other hand who has time for that? Or the freezer space? My freezer is currently filled with half empty boxes of veggie burgers, ice cream, and about 5 half-bags of bread. (My husband and I don't really eat bread but because I was raised with the idea that you have to have bread with every meal I buy some every time we have folks over. Then because I feel bad serving anyone month-old freezer-bread, I buy more bread every time we have someone over and the cycle continues) All that to say: I really can't see "filing" away gallon bags of tasty home-cooked meals any time soon. Besides, in my experience, many freezer meals rely on canned soup and other halfway-homemade ingredients that are absolutely glorious time savers but ingredients I prefer to avoid if possible in favor of whole foods (brown rice vs. Rice a Roni, for instance). 

Last Sunday, I cooked for 3 hours and cleaned and put away for another 1.5 hours, but after all that I was left with about 2 weeks worth of meals. Totally worth it.

The loot:

• Kale, eggplant, and squash lasagna (gluten free and could easily be vegan with tofu instead of cottage cheese in the filling)
• Pot roast (consumed with lots of red wine while watching The Godfather II.  Doesn't get much better than that...)
• Slow cooker pork barbecue (could have used a little more "backbone" and spice but you can't really go wrong with 10 lbs. of pork butt)
• Brunswick Stew (made with beans instead of potatoes and frozen veggie mix instead of okra, green beans, and corn. And it was delicious)
• Apple Crisp with the rest of our 1/2 bushel of apples left over from apple-picking weekend

I would say successfully executing any type of "cook once, eat a bunch" plan means boning up on the week's sales by visiting some great coupon blogs (my favorites are Homemaking Mom and For the Mommas.) before you hit the stores and just don't worry about trying to cook the same day you shop.  That would be...a lot. Finally, while you're doing the actual cooking, plan in general to start the things that take the longest amount of time to cook first. That way you can be cooking other things while they cook. Love me some efficiency!

For this batch this was my general cooking order:

1. Throw the pork butt into the slow cooker. Cover with barbecue sauce. Turn on low. (That's pretty much the recipe and it turns out fantastic!)

2. Sear the pot roast. Follow the recipe through to the simmering phase. While the pot roast is simmering:

3. Preheat the oven. Cut up the vegetables for the lasagna. Roast the vegetables. Set aside to cool.

4. While the vegetables are cooking, sear the meat and saute the vegetables for the Brunswick Stew.

5. After the vegetables are cool, assemble the vegetable lasagna. Cover tightly with foil and bake.

6. Finish assembling the Brunswick Stew and finish cooking.

7. Assemble and bake the Apple Crisp.

8. Set the lasagna aside to cool before wrapping with plastic wrap and saving in the fridge.

9. When the Brunswick Stew is finished cooking, set aside to cool before refrigerating.

10. When the pot roast is done, consume out of the dutch oven with one hand and wash down with red wine in the other hand. You probably don't have to do that but that's what I did and it was lots of fun.

11. When the pot roast is done cooking, set aside to cool before refrigerating. After refrigerating you'll be able to skim off the excess fat.

12. Enjoy the fruits of your labors alllll week (or weeks!) long!

I'll post the recipes and totally do-able game plan later this week. Have you ever done big-batch cooking? Do you eat the leftovers for lunch or just eat the same thing for dinner several nights in a row?