Cooking Club

I really love to cook. And this wasn't the case a few short months ago. For some reason, I had lost my joy for cooking, and it became a chore that I really didn't like to do. So much work, and with having two children, one 3 1/2 and the other 12 months, I felt like I didn't have any time. But now, I have a rekindled love for cooking. I've tried so many new recipes the past few months, and I always make a double batch of most meals. It's just so much easier to do (make a double batch), and then you already have a ready-made meal waiting for you in the freezer. Right now, I have about a dozen turkey and bean chimichangas, 4 gourmet enchilada dishes, 6 cups of homemade chipotle roasted tomato sauce, 5 batches of sweet chicken tostada filling, and a potato-crusted chicken casserole. Tonight, I cooked up 4 pounds of dried beans, which is the equivalent to 12 15 ounce cans of beans. I'll be contributing these beans to a recipe that our Cooking Club has selected, Pasta Fagioli Casserole. Yes, tomorrow is the beginning of our Cooking Club. Myself and 4 other moms from my mom's group, PATH (Parents At Home), are getting together for fun and fixing. We'll each be preparing a dish 5 times so that each can take home to freeze and enjoy later. I am fixing Chicken Florentine Casserole x5, and the others are fixing Pasta Fagioli Casserole (like I already wrote)x5, Mango-Cranberry Chicken x5, Turkey Meatloaf with Rosemary-Cranberry Sauce Glaze x5, and Pork Loin Ragout x5. This has been 5 weeks in the making, due to our busy mommy schedules, and now it's time. Tomorrow I have to go out and buy all the produce for the meals. And then when we all get together, we'll divide our grocery bills into 5 so that we'll pay each other back. And then it's time for prepping. We'll be prepping the meals up to the point that we cook them so that we won't have to wait for meals to cool before we package them up. We could be at Lisa's house all night if we cooked everything! So, we'll be sealing up everything into freezer bags, labeling them, and be on our merry ways with 5 meals each for our families. This is going to be so much fun! And I hope that this club will continue. It'll be like our very own Let's Dish. Oh, how I love Let's Dish. And hopefully we can expand and fix two meals each instead of just one. But one is good to start with. We're still working out all the kinks.