Big Batches

I woke up this morning to a semi-clean kitchen, a pot of beans simmering in the slow-cooker, so many baked potatoes that I don't even have a container big enough to hold them all, cooked noodles in the fridge, and a pot of hot, delicious coffee.

Pre-planning is how I keep my sanity.  I'm not great at the "planning" part of it, but everything usually comes together if I just make a lot of stuff ahead of time.  Last Sunday, I made a lot of desserts (the plan was to make enough for the month).  I only used one bowl and one spoon.  I didn't even bother cleaning them between mixes, because it didn't matter if I got a little brownie mix in my German Choc. cupcake mix. I heated up the oven once and altho I had to leave it on for over an hour, it was still more efficient than if I made the batches separately. 

Last night for dinner, all I had to do was warm up some pasta and sauce and throw frozen rolls in the oven.  It took all of 15 minutes.   I took 3 minutes to make coffee last night so that it would be ready before I was this morning.  I started soaking beans yesterday and today, I have a potful of beans that are ready to refry by lunch.  If I didn't spend the 4 hours on Sundays doing all the prep, by Tuesday, I would have the "there's nothing to eat" mentality.  Raw potatoes and dried beans aren't a great dinner choice but as long as you have some baked potatoes and some pintos, you have a party waiting to happen!!