The great cook off....

As I was chatting with a girlfriend over coffee today I lamented as to how I was going to cope this week when hubby has his operation.

I just couldn't think how I was going to have meals on the table when I didn't even know where I would be each evening.  My son can cook but it isn't fair for him to come home from Uni and have to cook for us for whatever time I get home from the hospital each day.  It just seemed a logistical nightmare.

I had a 1kg pack of mince thawed to make a bolognese with and knew I would freeze half of it.  So there were 2 meals.

Well, says my friend, what other meat do you have in the freezer?

And so the big cook off began.

2 packs of chicken thighlets and a pack of stewing beef were whipped out of the freezer and dumped in a sink full of lukewarm water.  NO I was not gonna kills us with bacteria - not THAT dumb.  Just wanted them to soften so I could break up the meats.

I put the bolognese on to cook and left it on low.  Started on the stew and had that bubbling pretty soon.

Next I remembered that I had most of a store bought roasted chicken left from a lazy dinner yesterday.  So all that nice meat became the filling for 7 chicken pot pies.  Had pastry in the freezer from the last time.

Finally the chicken became french onion chicken casserole. Normally I make this with a packet of french onion soup - but as luck ( MY luck) would have it I had run out.  So I made it up.  Chopped lots of onions, added 2 chicken stock cubes, threw in some frozen leftover Xmas ham and carrots and voila..... french onion chicken casserole a la Marlia!.  There WAS a little more to it than that but you get the gist.

I had everything cooking at the same time by 3.30pm.  My plan had been only to make a cake and bolognese today. 

Interestingly, cooking while chatting with a friend made the time just fly.

Next I decided we needed snack food.  So out came the mixing bowls and my famous cinammon apple muffins were under way.  There are dozens of apples on the ground under the tree and there is no better way to use them up.

50 muffins later I am done.  Everything is cooked.  Everything is cooling. I only wish I had taken a picture of the sink!.

We now have meals for the week and muffins for dessert or snacks.

Once everything cooled the tupperware got a workout.

I can get 7 meals out of this lot with either a salad or some pasta or rice on the side.

Heated Muffins with ice cream or custard for dessert and we are set.


I am absolutely exhausted but happier than I have been all week.  I remembered a vignette from my childhood when Sunday was baking day and the house reeked of the smells of greek sweets.  Most of our sweets are either drowned in sugar syrup or dusted with sugar. Either way they keep for months.  Something to do with the lack of refrigeraton in mediterranean classical greece.  We still make our sweets the same way thousands of years later.

But my mark on the world is my apple muffins.

Wish you had smellavision....Mr Wonka let us down on that score!


Now it is 7pm Sunday night.  Work tomorrow and Tuesday and then the big day dawns.  Admission on Wednesday and the operation on Thursday.  But I'm ready!  No idea how Jeff is feeling but this domestic blitz has left me feeling a bit more in control and therefore a bit more composed.  Now I can support him better.

Oh and for those who counted - there WERE 50 muffins...just that some accidentally broke and fell into my and No. 1 son Jeremy's mouths...honest! They really did!

....and if you believed that you'll believe anything...hehehehehe