Getting Ready for a Day of Cooking

I am not an organized person.  However, organization really is key in this sort of event :).

Yesterday I went to the store and bought some of the items I needed.  I am slowly starting to work toward "themes" of my freezer cooking in order to streamline the process.  For example, I do not try to bake bread, make pies, do pasta sauce and lasagne, and do spanish rice.  Each of those dishes uses different ingredients, different processes, different dishes.  That makes for a LOT of work :) 

So instead I might make rice dishes OR pasta dishes OR breads, etc.  Today I plan to make "roll up" dishes such as burritos and lumpia.  I also will make spanish rice, as it takes the same sort of meat as the lumpia. 

Another tip is that I make a list of dishes I want to make, but am perfectly willing to NOT finish the list.  I am very ambitious and have a poor sense of time, so I always think I can do more than I can do.  No worries though :).  If I get even one large batch of something in the freezer, that is probably 4-6 meals I have taken care of for the next week.  Don't over extend yourself, it will make you miserable and take all the fun out of it! :)  Only start the dishes you know you can finish, and be willing to be flexible :)