Power Cooking

So on my last trip to Idaho I did some power cooking. Power cooking is where you make a whole ton of stuff all at once and then freeze it. It is exhausting, but then you only do it once every few days. What is happening to me? Call me Chef Crockett, you can - or Chef Disaster, more acurately! My family needed some help with meals because of my sister's extended hospital stays. I hate cooking, but I also saw a need. My mom has come to my rescue so many times. Before I had Tink she came and cooked a dozen meals or so for me and I froze them in my freezer. It was so nice to have on hand afterwards. I knew that she could use the same thing, and that it would mean a lot to her....so I decided to try it. It was so good for me. I learned how to make a lot of new things, and so far, they have told me it was surprisingly edible. So - before I forget the recipes I thought I'd write them down on here.

Here's the Menu of what I cooked (with a TON of help from Hubby - thanks)

1. Shepherd's Pie
2. 2 pans Sour Cream Enchiladas
3. Tator Tot Casserole
4. Tuna Casserole (YUCK - but they liked it)
5. Lasagna
6. Goulash (enough for 2 meals)
7. Italian Seasoned Chicken
8. Stuffing Chicken Casserole

We first made a HUGE pan of browned meat. We used I think 1 pound? (one of those logs they sell in the grocery store) of hamburger for the Shepherd's Pie, 1 for the Goulash, 1 for the Tator Tot Casserole, and 2 for the Sour Cream Enchiladas. We cooked it up with onion, salt and pepper, and Worshtershire Sauce. Thanks hubby - I hate cooking meat.

For the individual recipes:

Shepherd's Pie
- take meat, mix with one can of tomato soup (don't add water), put one can of beans on top of that, cover with prepared mashed potatoes, and put shredded cheese on top.

Sour Cream Enchiladas - a double batch
-take 1 big container of sour cream, mix with 2 cans cream of chicken soup, 2 cans cream of celery soup, and 2 cans of diced green chilis
-take 24 taco size flour toritllas, spread the mixture on the inside of each tortilla, add some meat, and tons of shredded cheese.
-roll them up, put them in the pan, and then smother them with the rest of the mixture
-put tons of shredded cheese on top
makes two pans

Tator Tot Casserole-
-mix some hamburger with 1 can of cream of mushroom soup and 1 bag of frozen vegetables - we used peas and carrots
-cover with tator tots and top with shredded cheese

Goulash
-combine 1 1/2 cans of tomato juice (the extra big ones) with hamburger, cook a bag of noodles, add lots of curry (seasoned to your taste buds), and some salt and pepper. Boil on the stove - add the other half of the tomato juice can left out, because you'll need to add it after it has been refrigerated.

Tuna Casserole -
make macaroni and cheese, mix it with yucky canned tuna, and frozen peas. Barf!

Lasagna -
buy a frozen one. Much cheaper and easier

For the chicken recipes - too bad, I left the recipes at my mother in law's house. They looked good. Another day, I'll have to try them out again.

So - there are the recipes as much as I can remember of them. The sad thing is I don't have very exact amounts or temperatures for cooking these, but enough info. that I think I could figure them out again.

So....there are my cooking adventures. I haven't made many meals since that point, for the last three weeks. At least now it is recorded - take note - I cooked. I came I conquered. I'm taking a break from it for now.