Real Food in Little Rock: Batch Cooking {Mini-Version}

My pal HB convinced me to tackle another cooking day. It's been a long time since we've cooked together (over a year!) so we decided to start small. {Two years ago we had a major marathon cooking day.} We started messing up the kitchen at 9:45am and were finished with lunch by noon. My baby naps from 9-11am so we were trying to get 'r done while he was sleeping.

We made two recipes. Finished product was 5 chicken pot pies (CPP) and 30 beef and bean burritos. It's the first time we made crusts on cooking day. Both families are eating CPP tonight. I froze one in a 9x13 dish and HB took two CPPs home in freezer bags and one crust to freeze.

In advance, for the first time, we each made 8 cups of cream of mushroom soup . Making the soup in advance made the work easier today. We just had to mix the ingredients and divide portions. I quickly sautéed more onions since HB hadn't used onions in her soup. We didn't cook the celery or carrots; chicken was cooked and chopped in advance. Recipe here.

For the burritos I crammed 2 giant semi-frozen roasts (6-7 pounds?) in my crock pot last night at 9pm, along with a jar of salsa and a huge onion, diced. The roasts weren't quite falling apart at 6:30am as I'd expected them to be but they were fine by the time we started assembling the burritos.

This morning I roasted (at 450*) a gallon freezer bag of peppers that were frozen from last summer. In two batches, I caramelized about 2 pounds of onions.

HB prepared in advance one pound of pinto beans (with a ham bone!) and 1cup brown rice (cooked in in broth and rotel) to add to the burritos. She mixed everything in a bowl minus the shredded cheese to make for quicker burrito assembly. Ingredient recap: beef, beans, rice, peppers, onions and cheese. We tasted and it needed a bit more kick. So to taste, we added chili powder, cumin, garlic powder, salt and pepper. Here's how to roll and package.