Monday Kitchen Extravaganza

I've been trying to adopt--not a schedule, exactly--but sort of a rhythm to my days and weeks. I had this down pretty well, once upon a time, but things have really been in flux since we moved (three months ago). We've been spending a lot of mornings, and some late afternoons out of the house, which has been great for beating the heat and not getting on each other's nerves, but it hasn't been so great for getting things done--especially kitchen things.

I'm thinking about making Mondays my kitchen day. I want to get us set up for the week. We're big fans of on Weston A. Price, so we do a lot of soaking and fermenting. A lot of our food takes several days to prepare. Although, I usually end up cheating because I don't plan ahead. I hope that if I take Monday to get things rolling, I can feel more on top of food all week. Today, which was the first day I even thought to do this, I managed to:

--Soak pinto beans in water and whey, bag them into two-cup portions, and put them in the freezer. They'll now cook up in 30 minutes and they've already been soaked.

--Start chickpeas soaking to be bagged and frozen tomorrow.

--Make one gallon of yogurt.

--Make vanilla ice cream from the cream we skimmed ourselves off the grass-fed raw milk we get from our awesome Amish farmer. I started some chocolate to make tomorrow once the ice cream freezer has a chance to get cold enough again.

--Soak almonds in saltwater all day to dry out overnight in the oven.

--Skin chickpeas for making hummus this evening (I know it's really anal to skin the chickpeas, but the hummus comes out so much better that way--even the kids helped!)

--Make oatmeal cookies. Okay, that's not a WAP thing at all. We just needed a teatime treat and it sounded good.

I was able to do all of this mostly because I didn't have to make dinner. We had weekend leftovers. I do hope that making sourdough bread can be a typical Monday activity. I might also be able to get in a soup or two to go in the freezer for quick dinners this winter. I won't always have nuts or beans to soak, so I'll have more space for other cooking.

Now that Margaret is finally sleeping, I better clean up from all this cooking . . .