So to that end, the latest cooking escapade is...
Investment cooking. I'll try to make at least one recipe a week an interesting, international one, but no promises.
So here's the goals:
Each week (once I've hit maintenance mode) I'll take 2 recipes and triple them. The idea is that you make 3 times as much, then freeze 2/3 of what you make. You eat the other third that week and take 4 meals from previous weeks out of the freezer to thaw for eating that week. In total, that's 6 meals for the cooking cost of two each week! The seventh meal will have to be one from scratch.
Obviously some meals make more than a single meal's worth of food (Red Beans & Rice, I'm looking at you), so "triple" is a loose term. Basically, just make enough so you can have 3 full meals' worth of food.
So the loose plan for now is this (I say "loose" to allow for learning and habit forming):
For maintenance weeks, cook/buy the following:
| Meal | Cook | Buy fresh |
| Dinners | 2 tripled recipes - entrees Alternate between beef, pork, chicken, veggie 1 tripled recipe - sides |
Veggies Bread |
| Breakfasts | Granola/breakfast bars | |
| Lunches | Deli meats Bread Veggies (lettuce, etc) |
|
| Snacks | Dehydrate fruits | Veggies (cut) Popcorn |
Some of those won't need to be done every week (like buying popcorn), so that's just a guideline.
Obviously it's going to take some effort to get to that point, so here's the plan of attack to get to a point of maintenance for dinner entrees:
Week 1:
Sunday - triple 2 recipes, put away 4 servings and keep out 2.
Weekdays - eat 2 precooked meals, cook 5 meals fresh
Week 2:
Sunday - triple 2 recipes, put away 4 servings and keep out 2.
Weekdays - eat 4 precooked meals, cook 3 meals fresh
Week 3:
Sunday - triple 2 recipes, put away 4 servings and keep out 2.
Weekdays - eat 6 precooked meals, cook 1 meal fresh
These plans assume that I don't have leftovers too - that would change how many meals I'd need to cook fresh as well. The sides and breakfasts will work their ways in there with the proper planning. Since I have about 48 hours to go before classes start up again, I'm going to try and get organized for this semester before Monday. Cooking this Sunday is going to be a stretch since I'm flying back to CO from NH that day, and will need to get groceries and get my crock pot working and all that. Actually, this first week the only means I have of cooking food is a crock pot - all the rest of my kitchen goodies will be on the truck in a week (fingers crossed).
I've also started a board on Pinterest for meals that could work for this. Feel free to repin and contribute ideas!
http://pinterest.com/pedalfastergo/investment-cooking/
Hopefully I'll keep up with this, at the very least to use it as a planning board. Keep me honest! :-)
