A day of cooking for two weeks of dinners

Welcome to March, everyone! I'm so glad that January and February are now behind us for this year. 

March is such a fun month in my family. It's my daughters' birth month. We always do something fun to celebrate. In addition to other gifts for my daughters, I'll be taking over their cooking nights for the whole month. So today I spent the morning and early afternoon cooking and prepping for the next two weeks of dinners. 

I started by choosing the protein sources for several days of dinners, about 3 pounds of boneless chicken and 3 pounds of boneless beef, plus some frozen eggs one night, a couple of cans of tuna for another night,  hot dogs, a pound of ground beef, and cheese plus pepperoni for two nights of pizza. I simmered the chicken in water for an hour until cooked, then divided the chicken into 3 meals. I also braised the beef with spices and a little water, dividing it between 3 meals once cooked. 

I had a green and a red pepper to use and 3 large onions. I sautéed those and divided between the meals planned for them. I made a batch of scratch cream of mushroom soup for the tuna casserole. Following the soup, I used the same pot to make the gravy for chicken, stuffing, and gravy. 

I used the chicken cooking liquid in the bread dressing, the gravy, topping off the containers of chicken/peppers/tomatoes and the chicken for bbq chicken over rice, and as part of liquid for the scratch cream of mushroom soup. I have about a pint of chicken stock leftover, now in the freezer. And I made a quadruple batch of rice, which I divided into 4 portions, freezing 3 and will use the 4th tomorrow evening. 

Seeing what I had to work with, I made up a dinner menu for the next two weeks.

• beef in BBQ sauce (I'll serve over buns along with oven-roasted potato wedges)
• Tex-Mex beef and peppers, served with rice
• beef and vegetable soup with dinner rolls
• chicken, bread dressing, and gravy
• chicken, peppers, onions, canned tomatoes, and herbs, served over rice
• chicken in BBQ sauce over rice
• tuna noodle casserole
• two nights of pepperoni pizza
• egg, pepper, onion, cheese frittata
• 1 hot dog cook-out
• 1 burger barbecue

In addition to these meals, one night we'll be eating at my brother's, and another night we'll have a birthday lunch or dinner (menu to be determined). Almost all of what I cooked today is in the freezer, marked with the date when to use each. 

The cooking and clean-up was extremely efficient. I cooked multiple nights of various ingredients in one go, reused pots, pans, cutting board and knife before washing. And I let the mess get big then did a huge clean-up at the very end. I spent about 5 hours planning, cooking and cleaning up. The house was quiet today, so I had the kitchen completely to myself for my work. Today's work was well worth the effort.

Tomorrow I'll do some baking for the next couple of weeks, to include a batch of cookies, some hot dog buns, some burger/sandwich buns, and a batch of dinner rolls.

I'll still need to prepare vegetable side dishes/salads/fruit each night and put the finishing touches on the meals that I partially prepared today. But I've got a good start and a plan for each night for two weeks.