A Sunday Afternoon of Cooking

I recently caught an episode of Rachel Ray's Week in a Day show and was intrigued by how it would be to spend a day cooking for the entire work week. Val and I got together Sunday morning with the grocery list in hand shopped for all that we would need. We went back to her house, rolled up our sleeves and got organized.

We started by poaching some chicken breasts to be used in two different recipes.

We made a chicken noodle soup using the broth from poaching the chicken and loaded it with leeks, onions, celery, fennel, carrots and lots of diced chicken breast meat. The egg noodles were cooked and stored separately. We will simply need to briefly reheat some noodles and ladle the hot soup over the noodles.

We then moved on to make a Lazy Lasagne with Lamb Ragu, Spinach and Ricotta. We will simply need to pop this in the oven on the day we want to have it.

Next on the agenda was Buffalo BBQ Pulled Chicken which used the rest of the chicken breast meat we poached along with some cooked veggies and a sauce very much like a Buffalo chicken wing sauce. This will simply need to be re-heated, poured in a casserole and topped with a blue cheese cornbread topper before going in the oven when we are ready to eat it.

The fourth meal was an Eggplant and Squash Curry, which was a bunch of different vegetables all cooked with spices and ready to simply be reheated for service.

The last item of the day was a Spicy Zucchini, Pepper and Potato Soup which is completely cooked and will just need to be reheated before serving.

We were in the kitchen for a good 5+ hours and that was with the two of us. This was fun to do with someone, knowing that the rest of the week would be a breeze. It would be totally overwhelming to do alone.

We will consider doing this again after we have eaten the fruits of our labor and seeing how much of it we liked.