Preparing for vacation

For the last few years Brandon and I have taken a trip to Mexico each March.  It is a huge blessing for us (see post later today for trip highlights).  The prep leading up to the trip is soon forgotten once we leave, but the time before we go is so chaotic.  Leaving the kids for the week is hard.  They have busy little lives and remembering to record everything for Brandon's parents is quite a job.  One of the other tasks I have is prepping the food for the week.  This year I took a few pictures of the progress.  I try to prep meals and desserts so that Tom and Judy have very little work to do while they are here.  

I prepped all the food in one long day!  It was actually so much fun.  I love to cook.  I also try to prep it a couple of weeks early so it doesn't feel rushed at the end.  

First up were the desserts.  I usually prep the oatmeal cookies but don't bake them.  I roll in balls and then freeze and once frozen put in bags by the dozen.  This allows them to be cooked quickly and still have the fresh out of the oven taste. 

Next was three banana breads and a batch of brownies.  I am pretty sure we ate one banana bread that day... just to make sure it was edible of course! 

Then came a batch of Taco Soup and a batch of Chili.  The chili was frozen into serving size containers for M's lunches.  

Then I quickly prepped Butter Chicken and Coconut Curry Chicken.  The kids love each of these meals.  I use Rotisserie chicken so the prep is very fast. 

I ended the meal prep with a batch of meat that had sauce added and prepped for spaghetti, a batch of seasoned meat for a hamburger stir fry, and ground beef that I prepped for a lasagna.  They ended up having too many meals prepped which was a nice treat to come home to.  Sadly, prepping the lasagna ahead of time didn't work out the way I planned so that will be removed from the list for next time. 

The kitchen smelled great.  This is what it looked like when everything was prepped and cooking on the counters.  Thankfully the kids had an after school activity that day and I was able to prep all of this and make a meal for that night and get everything cleaned up by the time I picked them up at 5:00.  As an added bonus it was lightly snowing all day and I was listening to Christmas tunes.