I prefer to cook in mini-sessions built around one type of food. I usually choose based on what is already in my cooked meal inventory, what uncooked meat is in the freezer that I need to use, or what is on sale at the store that week.

1. Plan. I spend more time planning that I actually do cooking. 2. Take stock of what you have on hand and then make your grocery list. 3. Organize your pre-prep (chopping onions only once, shredding all the cheese at once, etc.) 4. Cook 5. Package.

Once I've decided on a meat, I go to my recipe files and computer program to select four to five recipes using that meat. I'll use ground beef as an example. I will select my recipes to be somewhat different from one another. You do *not* want a freezer full of taco/Mexican flavored dishes all at the same time­or at least I don't. You'll get tired of the monotony really soon!!! Anyway, I might pick two that call for browned ground beef, one made into meatballs and one made into a meatloaf. It is also a good idea not to have all the recipes call for baking space in your mini-session or to have them all take stove-top space (unless you are only doing four recipes­one per burner). If you don't already have a bit of a freezer stockpile, I wouldn't recommend trying all new recipes. Do two tried and true and two new, but you could end up with a bunch of food that you don't really like. Be sure to note on your recipes any changes that you made (so you can repeat a success) and make notes on the day you serve as to how you did it and how well it was liked. This will help in the future as you begin to collect more and more freezer recipes.

I'll make a grocery list of the ingredients and check that against my current stock.

I then make a list that would look something like this:

2 lb. Browned 1 * lb. For meat loaf 1 lb. For meatballs 2 * cups chopped onion 3 c. Shredded Cheddar Etc. For all the items that require any more prep than opening a can

Clear off the kitchen counters. Assemble all the spices and canned goods that you'll need. Tape your recipes up on the cabinet doors along with the preparation list. Do all the chopping, shredding, bread crumb making, etc. And get that out of the way. You can even do ahead if you want.

Then proceed to make your four recipes. If most of them make six servings, that's a total of twenty-four single servings or 12 servings for two. I will admit that most of my portions are probably 1 * to 2 in reality, but I can stand to eat leftovers once­just not all week!!! This usually only takes about two hours unless you have to bake for 1 * hours or so. Even at that, you can use the baking time to do clean-up and start to package all the other things.

As you finish your recipes place in the refrigerator to cool or begin to package (this will depend a little on how much attention the still cooking dishes demand). I use a variety of types of packaging, but the most common are the mini loaf pans (both foil and metal­baker's secret that I found on practically a give away sale after the holidays one year) and the square rigid freezer containers (plastic) that they sell at Big Lots, Meijer, Wal-Mart, just about everywhere. The come in pint, 1 * pint and quart sizes. I use mostly the pint size. Layered casseroles go in the loaf pans as do meats on top of potato mixture, stuffing mixtures, or rice mixtures. Soupy types of things and fully mixed casseroles go into the plastic containers (spaghetti sauce, chicken tetrazzini, Italian beef, etc.).

I place the mini loaf pans in the freezer uncovered and freeze. They aren't packaged and labeled until the next day. I label the rigid containers by placing freezer tape diagonally across and writing on with a permanent marker (don't use a water based marker!!). When the loaf pans are frozen, I freeze the pan and all (cause I really have a lot of the pans) wrapped in freezer paper done in a standard butcher wrap style. There's a diagram on the roll of freezer paper of how to do this. Label and return to the freezer.

If you don't have enough loaf pans, you can remove the frozen dish from the pan (not the foil ones, just the permanent ones). Just run a table knife around the edge and twist the pan a little. It will probably just pop out. If it doesn't, set it on a warm (lowest possible temp.) burner for about a minute. It *will* come out then. Then wrap and return to freezer.

I keep a notebook of all the recipes of things that I have in the freezer with the recipes protected by plastic sleeves. I use this to refer to when reheating as to whether to add cheese the last ten minutes of baking or a crumb topping.

Final prep. Well, the best thing to do is to always take out the dish you want the night before and thaw in the refrigerator. I seldom

continued in part 2