Home schooling - Surviving through Not Cooking

One of the challenging parts of homeschooling is not the schooling itself. It is the "home" part. The part where we cook, clean, maintain, organize, and sort our lives. Balancing home and schooling is the tricky part. Relatively speaking, the school part is not that difficult!

When I was homeschooling, one of the ways that I managed was by cooking as little as possible. Do not get me wrong, I like cooking, and my family has always liked the meals I provide. We ate every meal together as a family, at the dining table every night. Still, my intention was to make meals as little as possible.

Freezer cooking, food preparation in large quantities less frequently, grew to become a standard. Even though Irncouldn't cook as little as once a month, as several books suggest, I did do large-batch cooking every few weeks. It really helped me feed my wonderful family while cooking less often.

They were simple and straight-forward, nothing extravagant, plus they provided excellent instruction on ways to take my usual home-cooking and adjust it for freezer cooking. If you get the books, you could pretty much plan your entire holiday meal ahead of time, and have a much more calm family celebration!

My other strategy for cooking less has grown into a standard household joke around here. I relied on Costco. Costco lasagna, salad mixes... See, I am not too ashamed to confess it! I am truly being brutally truthful here! My best meals have come from Costco! Especially as the kids got older, and their activities took us away from home more frequently, I began to rely heavily on their meals. Sadly, I can't do that as much anymore. You are not going to believe this, but when you do not have children at home, it is possible for the Costco-sized chicken to get a freezer burn before you can use it up. I am not kidding.

My children are cooking by themselves in college now. They often shop at Costco. They put meals in the freezer at the beginning of the week. They can cook for themselves and get stellar grades, because they have learned to cook as little as possible too!

My apologies to all my friends who grind their own wheat and cook organic on a regular basis. I hope you will still love me!