Chop and Stock 2009

What do you get when you mix 3 hours, 5 friends, 1 baby G, 12 lbs ground beef, 4 lbs chicken, 3 tubs ricotta cheese, 3 tearful onions, 5 jars of spaghetti sauce, love and spice and everything nice?

4 good friends helping this pregnant woman stock up the freezer with 22 meals for her family and a load of fun! (We ended up making 4 chicken pot pies, 2 meatball meals, 3 sloppy joe meals, 3 meals worth of enchilada sauce, 2 meals of beef chili, 2 beef stroganoff meals, 4 trays of manicotti, 1 meat lasagna, and 1 veggie lasagna.)

Thankfully the only mishap we had was with some manicotti getting out of hand…thankfully high heat will destroy any bacteria involved. We learned that chopping 3 onions will have everyone in the kitchen in tears. And the funniest comment came from Lindsey: “Even the beer is made from scratch around here!” I had a great time enjoying the company of my girl friends. The time went by fast with 5 of us cooking and the kitchen heat was actually bearable.

Last time we did this was before Gianna was born. It was extremely helpful then and I anticipate with four children it will be even more helpful this time around. I love all the meals people bring us but eventually those stop and we are left to our own devices. The realities of our extended family unable to come and help after a baby is born requires a little more organization on my part to help the family with a smoother transition. So to answer Zvezdana’s question, “Yes, I’ve always been this organized,” or you might say self-sufficient.

My heartfelt and sincere thanks to Julie, Zvezdana, Lindsey and Lauren for helping me this morning cook up some yummy meals for our freezer, to Adam who took the kids out so we could cook peacefully, and to God who blessed me with these lovely ladies and their friendship and the family we got to cook for! (I’ll post follow up pictures on Monday since I’m off tomorrow. )