Setting Up

I was pretty anxious to get started when we returned home from the grocery store at 7:30 pm on Friday night. (Are we party animals or what?) However, I knew that I would end up biting off more than I really wanted to chew (see my first post and reference to the "wild hair") so I settled for peeling garlic. This actually ended up being a really good idea because my recipes called for a LOT of garlic. Apparently, I am Korean or something. I like garlic. I am seriously considering purchasing a garlic peeler or pre-peeled garlic next time. I kept hearing Phoebe from Friends telling Monica to "Get your garlic peelers off me!" I finished peeling more than two bulbs of garlic and went to bed!

I tend to get up early so I can get things done before my daughter wakes up, and Saturday was no exception. I woke up at 6 am and got started. I was actually pretty excited (call me a nerd if you want to), so I really didn't mind. My awesome hubby got up at 7 am to lend his hand too.

The first thing I did was label all my bags with a Sharpie. I wrote the name of the recipe, the date and any relevant cooking/serving instructions.

Then, I laid out the kitchen. Thank goodness for a big kitchen! I grouped the ingredients per recipe. I created an order of assembly and figured I would move ingredients that were used in multiple recipes as I went. Olive oil started at recipe #2, when I was done with that, I moved it to recipe #5, and so on. I did NOT lay out the meat. I wanted to get everything prepped, and then do the meat last. Then, it would be out of the fridge for a shorter amount of time, and I didn't have to deal with all the cross contamination issues.

My apologies for the broken-up process, but now it's almost my bedtime (I have to be up at 4:30 am), but I will be back with the chop-and-bag process tomorrow!