Today was day 1 of my massive freezer cooking session. I’m making 2 months worth of freezer meals for Dad and Daughter Person while I’m traveling for work for 5 weeks.
On the menu:

• Bean Burritos (for Dad) (Everything Freezer Meals Cookbook – with the refried beans recipe from Fix, Freeze, Feast instead of from a can)
• Pumpkin Muffins (for breakfasts) (Fix, Freeze, Feast)
• Asian style flank steak
• Basil grilled tuna kabobs (More Don’t Panic – Dinner’s in the Freezer)
• Blackjack Steak (Fix, Freeze, Feast)
• Breakfast Burritos (Fix, Freeze, Feast) <-Dad is susceptible to gout, so we left out the ham
• Butternut Squash Lasagna (More Don’t Panic – Dinner’s in the Freezer)
• Calypso Salmon (More Don’t Panic – Dinner’s in the Freezer)
• Caribbean Pork Tenderloin (Fix, Freeze, Feast)
• Cherry skillet Chicken (Fix, Freeze, Feast)
• Chicken with Tarragon Vinegar sauce (not for freezing, just for this week)
• Garlic Mashed potatoes (Fix, Freeze, Feast)
• Garlic studded pork loin (Fix, Freeze, Feast)
• Ginger Beef (Fix, Freeze, Feast)
• Rice Pilaf (Fix, Freeze, Feast)
• Rose City Teriyaki (Fix, Freeze, Feast)
• Sesame Salmon (More Don’t Panic – Dinner’s in the Freezer)
• Sesame-Soy Sirloin (Fix, Freeze, Feast)
• Shrimp Curry (Fix, Freeze, Feast)
• Sweet Asian Chicken (Fix, Freeze, Feast)
• Tex-Mex Chicken Fingers (Fix, Freeze, Feast)
• Thai Red Curry with Vegetables (Fix, Freeze, Feast)
• Tomato-Basil Soup (Fix, Freeze, Feast)
• Vegetable Lasagna (Fix, Freeze, Feast)

Today’s task was to get all of the ingredients.  I made a trip to Costco ($512 even), Wal-Mart ($143.32) and Whole Foods ($173.43) – there was quite a bit of wine purchased at Whole Foods and Costco (about $150 between the two of them), as well as some stocking up because they had coupons (like garbage bags and tooth paste) – so the totals were not all the food.  I’d like to figure out the cost of each serving if I get the chance, so stay tuned for that information.

You can see below the back of my RAV4 after my trip to Costco:

And the fridge after it was stuffed. This is a 26 ft^3 fridge, so it’s no small fridge. Every drawer is stuffed with costco purchases.

This is the refried beans that will become part of the bean burritos (dried pinto beans are much cheaper than the canned variety and we didn’t fry them, so we removed a lot of fat from them; although given the work, we might opt for the canned next time)

We also made pumpkin muffins for Daughter Person’s breakfast. She likes muffins, so we thought this would be good. I had to get out the hand mixer, which I’ve used once in the last four years (today) because the batter for the pumpkin muffins needed to use the *big* mixing bowl. Gave us 3 1/2 dozen muffins though.

Finally, we made butternut squash lasagna – one large 9×13 dish (hard to make lasagna noodles smaller than they are).

During all of this, I made the chicken with tarragon vinegar sauce for dinner (and leftovers tomorrow and the next night).

Tomorrow, I need to take the burritos and put them in freezer bags, print the labels for everything we did today, and start on the next set of prep work. I hate halving chicken breasts, so Dad is going to do that part for me when he gets home tomorrow night. I’m going to put together the fish dishes, and probably the side dishes. Lots and lots of potatoes to peel and onions to chop tomorrow!