Making Multiple Meals 

I love providing meals as blessings to others in need. I have not always been a good cook, but I feel over the years, through trial and error, the Lord has blessed me with the ability to turn out some tasty dishes. I want to pass on the fruit of this gift to others, especially those who need cheering or are unable to cook a meal for themselves. I have been that mother who was struggling after childbirth and was too harried to cook. I have been that person who just moved and was so busy unpacking and wished someone would show up with a hot meal. I know full well the blessing of a meal can be!

My issue is that though I have good intentions, I oftentimes desire to cook a meal, but I am so busy or tired from my own family responsibilities that I struggle to make my good intentions a reality. I am a 43 year old homeschooling mother of 6 children, from ages 13 down to an infant. The question is how do I provide for others amidst the schoolwork, daily life, and cooking meals for my family? I have many responsibilities and am not in the physical shape I should be in, so therefore cooking for others can be a real challenge. It plain tires me out and sometimes there doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day. There are several options I have found to solving this dilemma that I would like to share for those with busy lives or ailing health that still want to serve others in this capacity.

First the easiest is this: I cook the family in need a meal, and we eat out or have a simple meal. Often if I am cooking for someone else, that becomes our take out pizza night. I like to tell my children we are blessing someone, so we are going to treat ourselves to a special treat. This way I am taking the energy I would normally use cooking for my family and spend it on others. However sometimes we have already eaten out too much that month so our budget or health doesn't allow that option. In that case, I prepare a simple meal for us like oatmeal and eggs, sandwiches, or my husband will take over cooking duties and grill something or make pancakes (his specialties).

The next option, which works least often for me because I am just not a plan ahead person, is to have one frozen main dish in the freezer that I can bless a family with. In this method, pretty much all I have to do is thaw or thaw and bake. Then I can easily and quickly throw together a few side dishes and a dessert and not have to expend the time and energy for an entire meal. This also works great for last minute meal opportunities of new babies, sudden illnesses or any unexpected opportunity to bless others in a time of need.

The last option I discovered by accident when I wanted to provide more than one meal to a friend who is adopting. I wanted to bless this dear family who will be involved in an international adoption of an older child . They will be exhausted from time changes and the stress of a new person to add to their routine, and a child who is making many major adjustments. They live over an hour away from us and we happened to be visiting a month before they will bring their son home. The plan is to keep these meals in their freezer for the next month and bring things out as needed once they are back home. And many times adoption is not something many people consider taking a meal for, so I wanted to make sure they had more than one, because they may not be getting meals from other sources. The challenge was how to do this and still provide for my family???? This type of meal needed several days of mini-cooking sessions blended in with my own family's needs.

Day one had me making a spaghetti pie for my own family. I make my own sauce and I accidentally made a little too much. I realized this was a great opportunity to add a little more tomato sauce and viola, I had my first meal with only about 5% extra energy expended. I made our spaghetti pie, put the rest of the sauce in a bag and froze it. I gave directions to serve as usual over pasta or turn it into spaghetti pie with the recipe included which will be just a little extra work for them if they desire.

Day two was the day I usually cook a big meal for our family. I purposely chose a recipe that I could easily double without too much effort, so that I could cook for us and put meal two in the freezer for them. I chose a chicken pot pie casserole. All I did was double the chicken, vegetables and sauce (or you could use canned soup) for this meal. I made ours as usual, but theirs I put in a freezer bag with instructions for them to make the crust later. The crust is simple, takes 5 minutes to make, and only calls for 3 ingredients, so all they will have to do is thaw, put in a casserole dish, mix up the crust ingredients and bake. One reason I chose this is that with making several meals, I wanted most of them to be in freezer bags so they didn't take up too much room for the next month in their freezer.

Day three was our day of rest so during the day I cooked nothing and we ate leftovers. I did thaw some meat for a meatloaf though. After the sun went down, I threw together and baked a meatloaf which took only about 15 minutes of hands on work from me. Thankfully my husband actually cooked this one since this was one of the dishes he learned to prepare so that he could help cook after we had our last child.

Day four I cooked two dishes and made one mix. The first was chicken broccoli Alfredo. This is a simple dish of cooked chicken and a sauce. I made it, put it in a bag and labeled. The next thing I made was homemade macaroni and cheese that will go with the meatloaf that I made the night before. This is the one and only dish that is in a bigger container which is a 9 x 13 disposable pan. The last and final thing I did was prepare a breakfast item --baked oatmeal mix. This is one of our family's favorites, but I am not a morning cooking person. This recipe is easy but calls for a lot of ingredients. I have simplified it by putting all the dry ingredients in a zip lock bag the night before and simply adding 4 wet ingredients the next day and baking. I thought this would be a fun and easy breakfast for them some morning when they need a little extra something besides cold cereal. This was probably my biggest day of cooking, but it wasn't too bad and it was the night my husband was making hamburgers on the grill, so I could devote my full attention to just cooking for others.

Now lest you think this entire time went smoothly, our daily life still continued, schoolwork, chores, errands, a few bumps and bruises that needed hugs, and even our cat being viciously attacked by a wandering dog. However, because I worked in small areas of time, incorporating and dividing it up, it never seemed like a huge burden. We plan to visit my friend today because she is having a BBQ and we will drive down and happily present her with 5 meals for her upcoming time of need! Cooking for others can be done with limited time and energy. The keys are to plan ahead as much as you can, and have ideas for simple, delicious recipes written down somewhere so you don't have to think too much. Keep staples, including freezer bags and disposable pans on hand in your pantry. Eat out when you are doing extra work. Work in small intervals of time over several days if you can, and when you cook for your family double the recipe so you have less dishes to wash at the end. Making meals, even several meals at a time, can be done even in the busiest families.