Post-Birth Food Stockpile

I've been making lots of food lately for our post-baby stockpile. I've heard lots of my friends say how terribly they ate during those first few weeks after the baby comes when they're so bleary-eyed from lack of sleep that anything more than reheating is just too much to handle.

Rather than have Dave go out and buy fast food for every meal, with heat-and-eat stuff on hand we'll both save money and eat relatively healthy. Dave generally depends on me to either cook or tell him what to do to make a meal so I've been putting directions on everything (other than the stuff that you literally just heat in the microwave) so he doesn't have to ask. I'm sure I won't be all that coherent during those first few weeks of Eddie's life. Those directions will also be helpful to my brother and my parents when they are here.

So far I've made:

• a triple batch of beef stroganoff
• a triple batch of huckleberry muffins (one batch made a loaf that I presliced before popping into the freezer so we can grab one slice at a time)
• five loaves of banana bread (using discounted bananas)
• seven loaves of zucchini bread (but I only kept 4 for us). The flour I used for this bread was that fancy whole-grain all purpose flour from Costco; Dave's brother bought it and decided he couldn't use it so he gave it to us. So now in addition to our regular 50 pound supply we had another 15 pounds or so. Free zucchini and free flour--not bad!
• a double batch of waffles (I only cooked them part way so they will finish in the toaster)
• Eight 3-serving Mexican casseroles (I put them into those disposable tin containers from the dollar store):
• a whole bunch of twice baked potatoes (with cheese, cottage cheese, ham, and broccoli):
• three big no-cook noodle lasagnas that I cooked only part way before freezing (also in disposable tins):
• a bunch of quinoa-and-corn stuffed red bell peppers with spicy tomato sauce. I froze the sauce in ice cube trays and then put them into a baggie.
• 18 pints (only 15 are in this picture) of canned pizza sauce (so it doesn't have to go in the freezer):
• 10 jars of pizza dough ingredients to go with the sauce. Each batch of dough makes enough for two pizzas, which requires about 2 pints of sauce. All we have to do is add the oil and water, mix, let rise, and form into a pizza. I buy those big bags of shredded mozzarella and Mexican mix cheeses from Costco and divvy them up into quart sized freezer baggies for the deep freeze so making a quick pizza is always an option.
• baggies of pre-cooked, diced chicken. I roasted 6 whole chickens about 2 months ago in my roaster ovens. Once they cooled I pulled all the meat from the bones, diced it, and put it into freezer bags. Now I add it to quesodillas to up the protein content. (The midwives were concerned I wasn't getting enough protein.) Since it is diced, I can loosen a small amount in the bag while it is still frozen then defrost the portion I want. That way I don't have to commit to defrosting and using up the whole bag within 3 days. Hopefully I won't eat it all before the baby comes! It is getting too hot to roast chickens these days.
• triple batch of Cook Su base so all we have to do is add cooked noodles

We always have lots of stuff on hand to go on the massive amounts of pasta we buy from Costco:

• jars of sauce, frozen ground beef, canned olives and mushrooms (takes about 15 minutes to brown up the beef and heat the sauce)
  
• jars of frozen basil pesto (takes about 2 minutes to defrost in the microwave)
  
• frozen Polish sausages, canned tomatoes, and bags of beet greens from the garden to get sauteed together(takes about 10 minutes to make this sauce)
  

Knowing that I love variety in flavor, I'm also hoping to make some Indian food that we can pair up with rice (very easy since we use a rice cooker). Curries and saucy dishes freeze really well so I'll make some tikka masala, butter chicken, and maybe a vegetable dish. But we'll have to see how much room is left in the freezer and how my energy holds up...