Today I was talking to an ex-coworker about life, the Great Depression, and cooking. (Hi, Lisa!) She has read a bit about “make ahead cooking” and wanted to know my take on it. I was busy with the “Big Game Weekend” shoppers and couldn’t really get into it. So for her and everyone else, here are my suggestions…

1. Okay, if you really have the motivation and the time, cook for a week or a month. Cook ten pounds of chicken legs and five pounds of ground beef, cool, package, label and freeze. If not, at least cook a couple meals at once. For example, if you are cooking chicken thighs for tonight’s dinner, add a couple more to the baking dish or crockpot or pressure cooker, and set those aside for tomorrow night’s dinner or cool, package and freeze for later use.
2. If you have leftovers from dinner, do not just throw them in your fridge and wait for them to spoil. Invest in some plastic or glass containers. They don’t have to be expensive. You can buy them at discount box stores, dollar stores or even reuse margarine/yogurt/lunch meat containers. Look online for coupons, too. Immediately package and label the leftovers, cool and freeze. They make great lunches and quick “everyone choose their own” dinners. Co-workers will be envious of your beef stroganoff or chicken and rice when they are eating warmed up take out or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
3. When cooking something that freezes well, i.e. soup, stew, casserole, make double the amount you will need. Place the extra in big freezer containers. You now have an entire meal prepared for the future.
4. Whenever you turn on you oven you should be cooking more than one thing. If you’re baking chicken for dinner (and extra for later) throw in some muffins for tomorrow’s breakfast, some biscuits to go with tonight’s meal and some cookies for dessert tonight and lunch bags tomorrow.
5. Plans meals around what you have, not impulse urges to eat certain foods. If you have staples such as noodles, rice, pasta, flour and potatoes, you will only need meat and vegetables to make a wide variety of meals. If you already have your meat cooked, you’re more than on your way to a quick meal.
6. When making dough for pie crust, bread, biscuits, or pizza crust, make double or triple (or more), package and freeze. It doesn’t take much more time to make the surplus, but will save you time later.
7. The most important thing is to keep track of what you have. Keep a list on your fridge or freezer or on a message board of what you have prepared in advance and the date you froze it. It’s not time or cost efficient if you cook food ahead and then bury in the freezer until it succumbs to freezer burn.

This is not an exhaustive list, just some of the basics to get you started. Once you begin to cook with future meals in mind you’ll realize how much time you wasted in the past.

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