The Day I Made A Mess In My Kitchen

Everyone keeps posting these "OAMC" posts on Pinterest, but none of my friends have actually attempted to partake in the madness (as far as I know!).  So I thought "well, dammit.  I'm gonna give it a try!"  I headed off to our local Costco and shopped up a storm.  $282 dollars later, and I've got enough stuff for my cook-a-thon and various other bulk-sized goodies that I can't fit in my pantry.  I always forget to think about that.

My plan was to prepare, prepare, prepare.  I did nothing of the sort!  I'd printed out recipes, prep sheets, grocery lists.  They are still sitting on top of my fridge.  I figured that I'd just wing it.  I know what I like to eat and what my cooking capabilities are.  I'm pretty freaking lazy in the kitchen.  Bottled sauces, pre-washed veggies and spice packages fill my cupboards and fridge.

I had 10lbs of ground beef in the frying pan.
I had 4kg of chicken breast in the oven.
I had 4 kg of chicken wings defrosting just enough that I could seperate them.

I sliced onions and mushrooms, and grated cheese!  I chopped celery and opened the zipper on my bag of carrots!  Then I got all crazy and just started throwing things together!  It worked out well.  I managed to use a lot of "food cupboard crap" that I've had for ages but never had a reason to use!

I kicked the dog and cat outside as I couldn't stand the begging, but caved and let the dog back in 15 minutes later as I was making such a mess on the floor, and he's a pretty good vacuum.

All in all (including clean up) I spent 5 hours in the kitchen.  Clean up took almost an hour, and I was trying to clean as I went!  Haha.

This is what I ended with...

That's 17 separate meals, and I still have a full large freezer bag full of cooked chicken breast which I'll use for salads, pizzas, pastas, sandwiches and stuff and another 3lbs of stewing beef that I'll use for some kinda crockpotty meal!  I also made another double-sized lasagna that we had for dinner tonight (not pictured here as it's in my tummy!)

The freezer bags include:
2 bags (2+ dozen wings in each) of hot wings, 1 bbq wing, 1 teriyaki wing.  (We cook these over 2-3 hours at 200.  They taste so much better when they're done slowly in the oven!!!)
Taco meat.  (I add some salsa to the meat mix to give it more taste and a nicer consistency, then I throw it frozen into the crockpot for a few hours.  The hamburger meat is always pre-cooked!)
Spaghetti sauce with meat (for the crockpot, so the meat is browned.  Spaghetti sauce is yummier in the crockpot and I add 1/4 cup heavy cream at the end to give it a nicer color and flavor!)
Beef Stew and Beef Strogonoff bags.  (Both using common old spice packages.  Everything is thrown in the bag so that I know I have a decent meal laying around, even if I haven't gone shopping in a while.)

The contents of the aluminum tins are self-explanitory, but if you'd like specific directions, let me know!  Even though this was time consuming and messy... I'm sooooooooooo doing it again!  It felt so good to know that I have dinners that my boyfriend can throw in the oven for when I'm working late!

Keep your eyes peeled for the 2nd installment! Hehe