I *did* have something to say!

But I didn't remember...then. Today is Sunday, so I'm remembering in spades tonight.

About a month ago, I got off my ass and started planning and making multiple meals on Sundays. As of today, we have two meals of pork loins, three Indian chicken meals, five shepherd's pies, two beans-and-tortilla casseroles, and two Salisbury steak meals in the freezer. Basically, the first two weekends I made two different entrees, and we ate one for dinner on Sunday. Next weekend I'll be doing something involving turkey breasts.

Since I work late several night cooking is difficult, and I'm not even counting Tuesdays, when I work till 9, either! That's a "Deal with Dinner On Your Own" night for everyone. Butaving these meals put away means that on Mondays and Thursdays (working till 7 and 6 respectively), I can stop at the store on the way home for a bag o' salad or make rice or something while the pre-made meal is cooking, and we can actually Eat A Real Meal.

I'm not sure how this is all going to work when Sparky goes back to school, but for the summer, it's been really nice. The nights I come home at a reasonable hour I can throw together some spaghetti, or we can grill burgers or something along those lines, or have leftovers.

The only difficulty is my inability to manage numbers. I have a shopping list for each recipe-times-three typed up, but somehow in prepping for this week's shopping, I tripled the triple on some of the ingredients. It's not such a bad thing: I have a baggie of frozen mushroom sauce for the next time I make chicken in the skillet. But talk about feeling like an idiot as I mixed everything and realized I had Salisbury steak sauce for nine meals, but only meat enough for three. Oops. Math is not my friend.

What's been really nice about doing this is that Sparky has been willing to help as needed--so has Beast, but he's usually busy or has been engrossed in a race--and he's quick to jump in on doing the dishes afterwards. I do have a tendency to get every bowl and measuring utensil dirty over the course of the afternoon, not to mention pans and spoons. And the stove and counters.... ;-) It's good conversation time, and the fact that Sparky is noticing, usually without me hinting at him, is wonderful.

Unfortunately, today, we were all so hungry that there are no leftovers, so I'm thinking pizza delivery is an option. The high tomorrow is supposed to be in the upper 90s, so heating up the oven (or stove) sounds horrible!