Preparing for post-delivery: Stocking up for the winter
December 5, 2014
Food is life.
And unlike my teen years, cooking is now one of my favorite ways to unwind. Normally this is a win win and PiC benefits from the messes in the kitchen.
I don’t want to admit that I can’t keep up with everything but let’s just pretend, as an intellectual exercise and a nod to moderation, that cooking after delivering Little Bean is not super likely. I used to cook most nights, now I’m down to 1-3 nights a week. Add a potentially squalling, but definitely feeding every 2-3 hours newborn to the mix and I think we all know the real end of that equation.
But who wants to rely entirely on take-out or delivery? It’s a nice treat on occasion but I get tired of restaurant food faster than it takes to outspend the grocery budget.
Like squirrels, we’ve been stocking the cupboards with the basics: pasta, rice, quinoa, boxed broths, and KIND and Luna bars for days when I just can’t face a meal or just need an easy boost. Flour, sugar and brown sugar goes on sale a lot around the holidays so I’ll stock up on that for prep as well.
We don’t have much storage or a very big freezer unfortunately, so my plans to prep/precook some food that should be easy to throw together later have to be modest.
I’ll be:
Poaching chicken thighs and freezing them whole,
Poaching whole chickens and shredding it for use in soups, quesadillas, with rice, whatever. I tend to throw together really haphazard soups so we’ll just prep ahead whatever of the standard ingredients freezes well. I know onions do fine, but I’m not sure about carrots, potatos and celery yet. I know for darn sure I’m not going to be up to peeling and cutting up potatos, though.
Attempting premaking pizza from scratch for freezing, toppings and all, and a lasagna recipe (also intended to be frozen). I always want lasagna and rarely make it so that’ll be really nice to have a few premade.
I’ve also written up a detailed list of our local restaurants that are good for either delivery or take out, including all our usual orders so that if it’s that dire, we don’t have to make any real decisions.
We tried Munchery.com for some real food delivery as we have mostly Asian take-out around here and most don’t deliver. They do more American style foods, though in smaller portions, but it’s a reasonable cost per meal with discounts so that’s on our list of go-to food choices.
This should be helpful to out of town visitors who might be here to help with LB too, they won’t have to ask or figure out what’s good that’s also nearby. While I’m at it, I’m including grocery stores as well. That bit’s purely for convenience.
Notes: I always crave cake and most especially cakes from Nothing Bundt Cakes. Failing that, (anyone who really loves me and wants me to be stocked up on cake, take note) we’ve discovered the Super Lemony Lemon Cake Bites from Trader Joe’s and I nearly demolished the whole package in one go. They’re not the absolutely most amazing thing ever, but they are close enough for me. Yes yes, I should be eating my veggies but I also need my cake, y’all.
Great idea! I know a few friends who did this as well. After the baby they relied on meals brought from friends and things they had stocked up on beforehand. Good luck!
Fig @ Figuring Money Out recently posted…Bits & Pieces
Thanks! I really need to get on that food stock up since we’re basically going to be on our own for a lot of the time 🙂
PIllsbury or store brand pizza crust is another great solution. You just need to roll it out and throw on sauce, (which can be frozen in advance), along with cheese. It’s quick and takes very little time to bake. Last go around we made a few chicken pot pies and other hearty meals. It also helps to precut chicken before freezing so you can just pull it out already sliced and then add it to the pan or crockpot. I need to jump on the food preparation band wagon too. It really did help quite a bit last time. You’ll get into the swing of things after the first few weeks, but in weeks one through three or four it does help to have a food plan. If you nurse you might be starving! I know I was.
OFG recently posted…Avoiding the Urge to Spend Money By Counting My Blessings
Mmm pot pies. Yes, I definitely want to have a few of those on hand but I don’t think we’ll have the freezer space for full sized pies.
Pizza dough is pretty easy to premake, I just have to actually do it, and parbake them.
Potatoes don’t freeze well–cooked or uncooked. I’ve seen recipes in reputable places that suggest throwing frozen french fries into soups and stews!
Cook down onions in a crock pot (or on stove)–they take up little room frozen and can be the base for soups, etc.
frugalscholar recently posted…Drycleaning Tags at the Thrift Store: A Small Town Story
Good to know about the potatoes! I thought I’d frozen them in the past with poor results but couldn’t recall. Lentils didn’t freeze well either, so it’s good that my favorite lentil soup really doesn’t take much time or effort.
I actually really struggle to feed myself enough snacks & at lunch. I’m getting better at having salads at lunch but I really never want to take the time to prep food during the day. This is BAD because I can not cope with being hungry. I rapidly get hangry and then can not work out what I should/ could eat. I have plenty I could eat so I really just need to plan and get over my irritation at how cooking creates dirty dishes to clean up.