Making the most of Monday.

Even though I do the same thing every day of the week, Monday just seems harder. I think it's the reality of my husband going back to work in the real world and leaving me alone and defenseless against our little people.

Aside from simply keeping the kids alive (not happy, entertained or clothed-just alive), meal planning, grocery shopping, food prep, cooking, and keeping the kitchen clean is my biggest task. There are 5 of us (for now) and we all eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner at home everyday. I'm pretty picky about the food I serve to my family, I don't settle for heat-and-eat-food-flavored-products, so it takes even more time to cook from scratch.


I had the idea about a month ago to make the most of Monday, since it feels like the longest day of the week I might as well get as much work done as possible. I decided I was going to cook our entire week's meals in one day. These are the kind of super ambitious ideas that make my husband nervous, but we have been married for 9.5 years, so he has learned to simply smile and nod.


I wake up at 4:30 on Monday mornings, and immediately start right in. Here is my game plan (I'll use last week's food as an example).

Step 1: Cram the crock pots.
I have 3 crockpots, and I use them all.  I had chicken fajitas in one, beef & broccoli in another, and a whole chicken with veggies in the last. Since I get started so early, the food in the crock pots are done around 11am.

Step 2: Simmer on the stove top.
After I had the crockpots going, I started a large pot of homestyle green beans, boiled a dozen eggs, and browned 2 pounds of hamburger.

Step 3: Overload the oven.
While food is simmering on the stove top, I put 2 pans of bacon and a dozen blueberry muffins in the oven.

Step 4: Bag baked goods.
While I am waiting for food to cool on the stove and the oven timer to beep, I start making pizza dough, homemade noodles, and cookie dough. As soon as you have them mixed they can be bagged and put away.

Step 5: Fill the fridge.
When the food is cooked and cooled I divide and package it for the fridge. The biggest mistake I made during the first week was using all of my glass cookware to store food. I got smart the next week and went to the dollar tree and loaded up on disposable foil pans. Now I place all the food that will be reheated in the disposable pans, covered with aluminum foil and write with a sharpie right on top.
The fajitas took one pan, beef & broccoli took one pan, green beans took one pan.
I divided the whole chicken that I had cooked, used some of the meat to make chicken salad for lunch sandwiches, and the other portion of meat (plus the broth) for chicken & noodles.
I peeled and deviled the boiled eggs, bagged the bacon to be reheated as needed with toast or eggs for  quick breakfasts, or added to grilled cheese sandwiches for lunches.
The pizza dough got packaged and ready to be topped and tossed in the oven.
I put the browned hamburger into a ziploc bag to be used with quick hamburger helper type meals (love these!), added to spaghetti sauce, or made into taco meat.
I washed, chopped, and packaged all of our fresh fruit and vegetables so they could be grabbed straight from the fridge and paired with lunch, eaten as snacks, or steamed for dinner.


While I didn't make ALL of the food we were going to need for the week, it was a huge jumpstart. I didn't feel frustrated at 5 o'clock even once. Along with saving time at the most frazzled portion of the day, it cut down on after-dinner dishes. Now if I could just get motivated to wash the laundry...



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