makeover monday

Lately, I've been giving my way of cooking a makeover.

Why???

I love cooking, but most of the time I'm tired by the time dinnertime rolls around that I dread it! So, I have been making a few changes to help make it a little easier on me.

Can you relate?

I thought I'd share some of the things I'm doing with you...

I've been doubling some of my recipes, so that it make 2 meals, instead of one. We eat one that night and then I freeze one for a later date.

I've been preparing some of our meat dishes ahead of time. For example, I like to make lemon garlic chicken. When I get home from the grocery store, I cut my chicken breasts into strips and then pour my marinade mixture over it. It only takes a couple of minutes to do this and then I put it in the freezer to use at another time. On the day that we are having it, all I have to do is pull it out of the freezer and wait for it to defrost and then cook it on the BBQ. Somehow doing a little prep work before I place the meat in the freezer is such a reward, especially when it makes my evenings a bit easier.

We usually have a green salad every night with dinner, so I make a enough for 2 dinner meals and I usually prepare it either before or after lunch. It's nice, because it is just one less thing I have to do at dinner time.

Lastly, once a month I've been trying to spend a couple of hours cooking some items we use often. I usually make muffins, bagels, bean & cheese burritos and pizza dough. Again, it helps make my life a little bit easier. It's nice to pull out a burrito from the freezer and microwave it for lunch. The pizza dough, freezes nicely and is one less thing I have to do on pizza night.

I got my freezer in October and love the extra room it allows me to stock up and freeze things we use often. My bagels and muffins, I store on the shelves on the door. You can see all the tupperware and those are some of my extra meals, so that when I need a night off from cooking, I just pull something out. It also saves us a lot of money, because on those tiresome days we don't have to go out to eat.