The stockpiling begins

Up until today, the extent of my frozen "assets" (aka easy, frozen meals that anyone in the family can throw in the oven for dinner, especially after the baby's arrival) consisted of 1 loaf of zucchini bread. That would've really tided us over, eh?

Well, today, we sought to begin to increase those assets. We took 8 pounds of that beef I bought the other day and are in the middle of turning it into 3 meatloaves and oodles of meatballs. The meatloaves are cooking right now and the meatballs will be formed and cooked as the oven becomes available.

We had three cooks in the kitchen. In the woefully inadequate kitchen. It's not small. Don't get me wrong. But there is so little counter space that I have to use the stove top as counter space and that drives Don crazy. Something about flammables on the stove top. I don't know...he's so overly cautious. There is actually a good 6 feet of counter space across the kitchen, but since it is about 10 feet away from the sink and oven and everything else, it's not very usable. Plus, it's covered in junk that hasn't found a home yet. So, hopefully, sooner rather than later, you'll be seeing a post on our kitchen remodel. I've been working on the details for a while now and after the garage is done, and we have some bookshelves for our books, that is next on the list. It will include a beautiful island with 7 extra feet of counter space! But, that is another post, obviously!

So, 3 cooks in the kitchen. At one point, Caleb was cracking and beating eggs in one spot, Meagan was stirring in ingredients in another, and I had a cutting board balanced over the sink chopping vegetables. It was quite a sight. In addition to the meatball/meatloaf extravaganza, we were also throwing together a crock-pot dinner for tonight. (stew meat, potatoes, onions, carrots and rice with a tomato juice sauce)

I still have plans to make 2 lasagnas, 3 meals worth of chicken tortilla soup, 2 meals of chicken noodle soup, a couple of "Spaghetti Pies", and a breakfast casserole. Hang in there, Abby, just a little while longer! This is one time your mama has procrastinated and needs a bit more time!