The Big Cook

This weekend, well including most of Friday afternoon too, was spend doing or recovering from The Big Cook. Their website describes the concept better than I could. Two teams of 4 friends decended on our church kitchen with $2400 worth of groceries and each brought home 28 meals for our freezer. We could have reduced these cost considerably if we hadn't needed to shop last minute. These are main dish meals, ready to thaw and cook, with only simple side dishes needed to be made the day you serve them. One friend who's expecting is planning to use these dishes the month after the baby arrives. I'm planning to use 2 a week on our busiest days - I'll be able to spend my limited time on those days welcoming the kids home from school instead of freaking out when they interupt my precious cooking time.

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We worked from 9am to 7pm, which was considerably longer than the Big Cook's creators suggested, but we did no food prep prior to our Saturday big cook. We had a supplier lined up who was going to provide chicken/beef/pork cubes, stirfry strips, boneless skinless pieces, etc... as well as diced onion, sliced carrots, etc... but this fell through at the last minute which left us scrambling a bit to say the least. So all the Big Cook's authors pre- cooking day suggestions were impossible for us to complete. The biggest problem we encountered was with no name zipper bags that wouldn't seal. Next time we'll be sure to go with the name brand!

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All in all though it was a great day with a wonderful end result - 28 meals in my freezer. I even had energy left over when I got home. Although in hindsight I realize I might have been running on adreneline since I slept for 2.5 hours this afternoon!

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