Cooking Marathons

[rooftop1000]

I have seen lots of people mention they do lots of cooking on Sundays for the rest of the week...

But today I needed to make some eggplant parm for a party Sunday, and smoke some beef ribs. While I was at the store to get the eggplant I got some chuck to make a stew, and when I came home I decided to make foccacia pizza with the sausage I also picked up

What the hell am I doing?

The eggplant is breaded fried and assembled, the dough is on its second rise, the ribs are in the smoker and the chuck is in a pot. And all I had to eat so far was an egg on a pice of folded over white bread...couldnt put just 1 egg back in the fridge

Do you ever just get the need to feed or something

must go get a job......

tracey

[Smithy]

Ha, this sounds familiar. I have very little time to cook during the week. I love to cook. Saturday is usually taken with other projects, but one of them is grocery shopping. I have a shopping list, but almost without fail there's some great-looking meat and even better-looking produce. "Oh, look at those gorgeous eggplant!" I cry, and "Wow, we could have a chicken tagine at those prices!" and "Hey, the Copper River salmon is in!" Soon the refrigerator and counter are loaded with those things I couldn't resist.

Then comes Sunday. It's roasted and creamed eggplant, beef stroganoff, bread salad, a chicken roasting that will be turned into broth later...and so on, because I have the time to cook and can prep stuff for the week. It's fun when it works. When it doesn't work - say, we went out on the spur of the moment, or a house project takes longer than we'd expected - then the produce sits there, forlorn, until it's lost its bloom in the 'fridge and has to serve some second-string recipe purpose, and that super-fresh meat has long since gone into the freezer.

It's a disease, I tell ya.

[JEL]

were you smokin weed before you went to the store?????

that used to happen to me all the time, until they invented drug testing.......

srysly though, my mother was notorious for huge sunday dinners that usually included large pieces of meat which became lunch box fare all week long....

or the mystical pot of spaghetti sauce that somehow morphed into sloppy joes by wednesday....

[potsticker]

Once you start cooking, it's hard to stop.

When I was in college, during exams, I would cook instead of study. Then by the end of the night, I'd have all this food sitting on the counter, and my untouched books sitting...somewhere else?

Anyways, my place always wound up being the "study place". Though no studying really got done. Just a lot of eating.

[Doodad]

That is us every weekend. Shameful because a glitch in the plans sometimes means food waste of things we forgot. I have some new toys, so this weekend will be the same tale. I love it.

[Chris Amirault]

Every weekend here as well, though the real marathons are Sat/Sun affairs. Lots of things need to sit in the fridge overnight to be defatted, to marinate, or to brine.

ETA: That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

Edited September 28, 2007 by chrisamirault (log)

[llc45]

For families that both work and are driving kids to sports/after school activities, this is the only way to go. I also found that we eat a lot healthier this way and never have to rely on takeout because there is not enough time to cook.

With very few exceptions, Sunday is our stay home day. I make out my shopping list Saturday night or early Sun morning. Hubby goes shopping while I start getting everything else together. Not only do we have good food for the week, salads/veggies prepped, etc., total cleanup time (vs. cooking one meal every night) is less because you use the knives, cutting board, pots multiple times before washing.

I cut all my vegetables on one cutting board and then wash once rather than washing every day if cooked the traditional way. I blanch vegetables one at a time in the same pot then put rinse put in new water and am ready to make pasta, rice, or whatever.

For some dishes (chili, meatloaf...), I double or triple the recipe and freeze.

OK, I have just read this over and feel like I need to enter a 12-step program.

[Smithy]

Every weekend here as well, though the real marathons are Sat/Sun affairs. Lots of things need to sit in the fridge overnight to be defatted, to marinate, or to brine.

ETA: That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

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I'm here to attest that things can marinate in the refrigerator for days without ill effect. Sometimes they're even left there on purpose.

[Dianabanana]

Do you ever just get the need to feed or something

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Yes, that's it exactly--the need to feed. I'd love to have eight kids to feed, if I could get someone else to do all the other work! There are only two of us but I often get going and just cook as long as my legs will hold me up. I'm sure this is a manifestation of some deep-rooted psychological problem but it's pretty benign as such things go, I guess. What I really hate is when we invite people over and they see all the food and go "Wow, you must have been cooking for days!" It's kind of embarrassing.

[jgm]

Do you ever just get the need to feed or something

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Yes, that's it exactly--the need to feed. I'd love to have eight kids to feed, if I could get someone else to do all the other work! There are only two of us but I often get going and just cook as long as my legs will hold me up. I'm sure this is a manifestation of some deep-rooted psychological problem but it's pretty benign as such things go, I guess. What I really hate is when we invite people over and they see all the food and go "Wow, you must have been cooking for days!" It's kind of embarrassing.

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I see nothing to be embarrassed about. One of my friends, who has a day job as a social worker, has told me that she's often up past midnight, cooking, to release stress. She also has a part-time job at Williams-Sonoma to make cooking toys more affordable. What's not to love?

[llc45]

Yes, that's it exactly--the need to feed. I'd love to have eight kids to feed

I know - & I have only one! Luckily, she doesn't have a weight problem yet although my husband is slowly losing the battle.

[rooftop1000]

What was I doing? oh yeah,

eggplant parm done

short ribs done

focaccia for the neighbor done

pizza for dinner done

stew meat and sauce refrigerated separately done

defrosting planned leftover pulled pork for Sunday done

ok then

tracey

[NimaCooks]

Once you start cooking, it's hard to stop.

When I was in college, during exams, I would cook instead of study.  Then by the end of the night, I'd have all this food sitting on the counter, and my untouched books sitting...somewhere else?

Anyways, my place always wound up being the "study place".  Though no studying really got done.  Just a lot of eating.

←

Same here. During Finals week, anyone who was up would smell the cookies/lasagne/chili/pineapple upsidedown cake from down the hall at 3 am and just come down and set up shop on the kitchen table. It didn't exactly spell magna cum laude for me, but it was still a lot of fun and totally worth it.

I do most of my cooking on sundays too. I'll usually whip up enough for 4 meals, prepack it and finish it over the next couple days. Then during the week I'll just grill or broil a few chicken breasts, slice them up and toss them into a sandwich, salad, pasta or whatever I'm making that day. Super easy. I swear, the boneless skinless chicken breast is the single cook's best friend.

[Malkavian]

My mom's always cooked like that due to time constraints (family of 5) doing all the prep work saturday and sunday evening, then assembling meals through the week.

I've gotten into a similar habit, but mostly with long-cook time items like smoked meats.

[prasantrin]

I do most of my cooking on Sundays, too. I usually only make one or two things, though, for my lunches/dinners for the week. Mostly for lunches, because I often don't eat much for dinner. Also, because I cook for one, most of whatever I make lasts for many meals (they say something serves 4, but for normal people, it really serves about 8).

I also tend to bake a lot whenever I have a lot of marking to do. I teach writing to about 150 9th grade students (EFL context), so it can get pretty painful at times. I always feel like not marking their compositions is much easier than marking them. (I have just 30 more papers to go, and I just finished making a batch of caramels!)

[Doodad]

Ye cats, here we go again.

We just walked back in from the grocery store. Bought chicken, beef ribs, and pork tenderloin on sale. End of the season tomatos for concasse.

Looks like I will be busy this weekend.

[eskay]

I do the same thing--weekends are when I bake or roast things or make bread. And every few weeks what I have in the house and what I want to make (minus a trip to the store for a few more things I need) kind of comes together in a sort of perfect storm of cooking plans--like tonight I'm going to stuff chicken thighs and roast green beans, tomorrow I'm making pot roast and baking bread (bought some rye flour this week that I want to try using), and wednesday I'm going to take a crack at some squash ravioli. I also want to make some small pies/tarts, which hopefully will be tuesday, as long as I can get most of my homework done...did I mention that my cooking marathons tend to coincide almost exactly with the times when I have a ton of school stuff due?

Also ditto on the "need to feed" thing--there's no way I could eat everything I want to bake/cook and not balloon to 400lbs. So it gets passed off to friends/roommates/family.

[Abra]

I'm with you all on the need to feed, but I think there's something else going on too. For me it's a lot about seeing some beautiful thing in the market that won't or might not be there next week and needing to take it home.

Right now, here in the south west of France, it's quinces, jujubes, the last gorgeous tomatoes and basil. I have a primal need to put that stuff in my basket and give it a good home. So I've been making quince chutney and roasted tomatoes with basil and cranberry beans with sage, the stuff I'm afraid I won't see again until next year.

[eskay]

So add to the above a small batch of pickles and some chocolate ginger muffins and that was my sunday And I somehow managed to burn myself 3 separate times on the same hand