A Kitchen Adventure... Challenge... Torture?? Update

I survived my first big freezer cooking day! Though I didn't finish everything on my list, I got alot done! I still need to make zero point soup and cook up more chicken to chop and have on hand. Here's the final list:

Whole Wheat Waffles (three batches)

Chicken Noodle Soup

Zero Point Soup

One Dish Chicken Bake*

Taco meat

Fajita Chicken

Hidden Valley Noodles w/ Chicken* (From an ebook)

Honey Hoisin Chicken *

Brown Sugar, soy and Worcestershire pork chops *

Overall, I enjoyed it. Time will tell if it was worth it, but I didn't feel like it was just an absolutely exhausting day. I worked from 10:45ish to 3:45, so five hours. I have 7 dinners in my freezer and a month's (or more) worth of waffles. I plan on doing the other soup today, and the chicken sometime before I go back to work. That should be quite a help in the kitchen for January, but I will let you know how it goes. Now on to the break-down of the day and the lessons I learned!

Step 1: I cleaned out my freezer. We just had some stuff that had been in there way too long and was sooo freezer-burnt. In the door I still had some frozen veggies and meat. Those two bags you see are steak! Yummo! Here is what it looked like to start my day:

Then I moved my bff (my macbook) into the kitchen and put in Julie & Julia (thanks mom!). Having a cooking movie going while you cook really does motivate you! The movie played through twice during my cooking adventure. I think this is why I didnt mind doing the day at all, just me and a movie alone in the kitchen. It was actually kinda relaxing.
I set up my cooling racks and got the waffle mix going. I knew this would be the most high maintance part of the day- the waffles. Every 8 minutes I got the waffles out of the waffle maker and put in 2 more. Total cooked-24.
The waffle station: cheap waffle maker from alid's that i love, big bowl full of mix, timer.
I boiled alot of chicken yesterday! So I had this big platter with paper towels on it to place the chicken until I was ready to chop it. I also use the vacuum sealer to bag anything I can. Tip** Be sure to check how much vacuum seal bag roll you have left before beginning... I ran out.
A shot of the stove. I had fajita chicken going in the back and boiling chicken in the front.
The end result. It actually doesn't look like much, which means I can fit alot more than I thought in there! Everything is labeled and ready to go.
And the cleaned up kitchen. I cleaned as I went so that I would not be completely overwhelmed at the end... Good choice.

If you are wanting to try this:

• Make sure you have throughly written out a plan... including how many pieces of this meat need to be cooked this way etc. I ended up cooking some chicken that I was planning on not cooking and chopping some I had wanted whole etc. So have a detailed plan.
• I recommend going BIG. I could have easily doubled several of these with no extra work... lesson learned! So if you are going to do taco meat, do enough for three dinners, etc.
• Fix your lunch ahead of time and make it something easy to eat. I forgot to eat, and if I had remembered I dont think I would have felt like stopping and fixing something.
• Keep moving. I didn't feel tired until I stopped moving...
• Wear comfy supportive shoes. I know I sound like an old lady, but I was barefoot all day and last night my feet hurt sooo bad!

So that's my adventure in "freezer cooking". Have you tried anything new lately??