T-minus 3 days until Freezer Cooking Adventure #1

I can't wait, y'all. I just can't freaking wait. Saturday morning just can't come soon enough. We're gonna get our freezer cooking on! As you may have read last weekend, I've joined forces with three other women to begin freezer cooking every so often. We haven't landed on a schedule for repeat cooking days yet - going to see how the inaugural one goes first. We have high hopes that this will become a regular adventure, though, and hopefully grow into a larger swap meet for freezer meals.

For the first cooking day, we're starting small. Each person is responsible for two recipes. I say "responsible for" rather than "each person is preparing" because we have one person in the group who apparently cannot be trusted in her own kitchen. Plus she wants to make hamburgers but will not touch raw meat...anyone else see the problem here? So we all agreed that since she is so graciously volunteering her huge kitchen, providing the cooking day snacks, and paying for all her own ingredients, we'll share the duties of preparing her meals for her and let her swap with us as normal. I'm trying to put her on dishes duty as well. Not because I think she needs to contribute more; I just don't like doing dishes. She also apparently has no kitchen tools (because she can't be trusted in her own kitchen), so we're all taking all hardware we need as well as ingredients. Must remember to pack all that crap up Friday night.

This little group should prove to be very interesting, to say the least. This whole escapade is the brainchild of my high school nemesis friend Christina, aka the Dark Queen/Zombie Queen/Mother of All Things Dark & Creepy (and puppies!). Of the other women in our group - one of whom I met last Saturday morning and the other whom I'll meet for the first time this Saturday - one is a devout Christian, studying theology and working at a Christian Church; one is all hot pink, sparkly, recently saved and all about church; and one is a snarky, foul-mouthed, workaholic, Methodist girl. (Can you guess which one is me?) I can't wait to see this entire dynamic at work. And I should probably check in with Chris to make sure the other two ladies aren't going to be offended by my mouth. I held it in check last weekend during the planning session, but during a whole day of cooking? No way. An F-bomb is guaranteed to slip at some point. And at least one That's What She Said. Guaran-frickin-teed.

Going to do my grocery shopping Thursday night for Saturday's festivities, and I'm planning to stock up on chicken as well since our local Schnucks is running a hella-deal on leg quarters (59 cents/lb in 10lb bags - woot!). This whole scanning circulars and watching grocery sale trends to maximize savings for bulk buying thing is going to take some practice. But hopefully it will positively impact our grocery bill and my weeknight dinner stress in the long run! We shall see. And I'm excited you are all going to be part of the journey! Here's a sneak peek at the planning sheets I've been using:

Oh, and for those keeping tabs on Materpalooza 2013, check out what I get to process tonight for sauce. For you Tupperware nerds, yes, that is a Thatsa Bowl chock full of little Romas. For those of you who are not YET Tupperware devotees, the Thatsa Bowl has a 32-cup capacity. That's a lot of maters. About two gallons of sauce. Which means lots and lots of trimming, seeding, and pureeing tonight! Hooray!