Beauty does more than quilt

Obviously, or I would have more time to think about blogging, right?

The past couple months have been very busy and the last 19 days were way toooo busy with many, many 12-hour days and a few 20-hour days mixed in. I was kind of zombie-like, maybe robot-like -- either way I was a hungry zombie or robot.

Due to the work schedule, I didn't get many dinners made. That was a result of no time to plan, no time to shop, no time to chop and cook. Fortunately DH is easy on that score, mostly self-sufficient and really appreciative when I cook for him. But at this time, he was on his own and even brought me food several times. Otherwise it was sandwiches, cans, commercial frozen boxes, and leftovers.

I don't want that to happen again, so this week's obsession has been reading about meal prep and freezer to slow-cooker recipes for whole meals. The slow-cooker is a wonderful appliance to have around, but you do have to have the ingredients and a few minutes to prepare, chop, measure, etc. for them to be of any use. I realized if I had all that stuff done ahead and frozen, then I could take a meal out of the freezer and use the slow cooker to have a completely effortless meal at times like these.

I tend to cook by technique more than recipe, using recipes as a guideline rather than rule book, so I'm having to change my ways a bit to accomplish this -- that's the planning part. I'm having to pull out recipes and think about how they will work in the slow cooker before I make my shopping list and spend a few hours with all the prep and assembling of freezer to slow-cooker meals. I'll let you know how it goes.

One last thought, though, I don't know when I'll have a day that I feel I have enough time to get all the necessary groceries, come home and do the work. So, in the meantime, I realize that anytime I am preparing a meal that might also work in the slow cooker, I should just prepare double the ingredients and put the extra directly into a freezer bag. That'll be a meal ready to go with no extra planning steps, no extra mess or thought, just a few extra chops on the cutting board. Woo hoo!