Casserole attack

It is definitely a Monday. It’s a tired, dreary, rainy day. The silver lining is it's Valentines Day. Paul brought me lunch to celebrate it being love day. I got a rose and a turkey sandwich. Bootcamp is cancelled tonight due to rain, and Paul and I get to start our evening of relaxing and being in love even earlier!


BUT first, it was a great weekend! Let me tell you about it.

 We love ferry rides!

 Grandma loves to see Wedding Pictures.

She is constantly amazed by how clear the photos are...it's adorable.

 We stopped at Timmies at least twice a day while in Port. I LOVE timmies.

 Waiting for our return ferry. Cuddly..and silly.

I couldn't quite manage to get Paul in mid air - Oops.

 

Paul and I spent the weekend in Port Alberni on the Island. We had a throghouly enjoyable ferry ride and a great drive through the grove and over the hump. We spent some much needed quality time with John and Crystal (one of my bridesmaids and her boyfriend) Friday night and Saturday we enjoyed a great lunch with youth group friends. We also went out for dinner with my Grandma and my aunt…mmm pine café. I love it. After that Paul and I joined my aunt and uncle at their place for some great conversation. We got there at 7:30 and didn’t leave until 1! They are so enjoyable to talk to; insightful, wise and fun!

Sunday we joined Lisa, Tony and Gwyn for breakfast (which was so great!) and then caught the 12:30 ferry back. Paul headed straight to church to lead kids church and I did all the grocery shopping. We joined my family for a family dinner and enjoyed being with my parents and sister and her family.

We came home right after dinner and between 8:30pm and 1am I made 9 casseroles, and 5 sets of leftovers. Woo! That’s 40 minute a meal! I love it! In the next 3 weeks I will be away a lot during the time that I normally make dinner so I thought I would make a bunch of meals that can be taken out the night before eating them and then Paul can throw them in the oven and they can be ready for when I get home. It’s perfect. I went online and found 9 recipes that used somewhat similar ingredients or ingredients I readily have available or are cheap…I made a list of all the prep work to do before assembly and master list of every single item needed for all the meals.


Step 1. Dice vegetables (onions, peppers and tomatoes), cube chicken, shred cheese, etc. Paul helped me with this while we watched 30 Rock.

Step 2. Cook meat (8 chicken breasts, 1 pound of ground beef, etc), boil pasta, cook rice, etc.

Step 3. Read through master ingredient list and put everything on the kitchen table for easy access as needed.

Step 4. With Candace’s help start with recipe one and put all the recipes together. With each recipe mix the ingredients in a large mixing bowl and when done adding ingredients put mixture in large freezer ziplock bag. Put that bag inside another bag with the ingredient/recipe list and any cheese topping needed for during cooking)

This was far more work than I expected, and without Candace doing the dishes as I went a long it would have taken me twice as long! It’s still totally worth it as now we have A LOT of food. Also when doing prep I made way more spaghetti sauce, noodles, rice and chicken than needed, so on top of our planned casseroles we ended up with quite a bit of extra food for the fridge. Our fridge is full and this makes me happy.