To Feed a Small Army

Well, it's official. I have cooked so much food I no longer want to eat. Ever.

I cooked from 7am until 7pm yesterday... Without stopping. Ok, maybe to have a pinto bean burrito and occasionally look up from the stove to watch August Rush (another great movie and requires an entire post).

Pete goes into Elk Camp today. This first week will be set up - only our friends and us will be there (fun!), but starting next Friday the hunters will be there each week through the 2nd week of November.

Did I know that it would take a long time to prepare the food? Yes. Do I have a degree in planning this sort of thing with great ability? Actually, yes I do -it's called Leisure Service Management. Did I still procrastinate and wait until the day before Pete leaves to cook food for hungry men? Yes, of course I did, I am a Cottongim whether I like it or not!

What we did Wednesday night:

Went to Costco and bought 2 overflowing cart fulls of food -- argued a bit when I "clipped the car keys" to the cart and of course we didn't end up with the same cart after we checked out and I had to comb the cart caddies and ALL THE CARTS AT COSTCO in the parking lot at 9pm for my keys.... That was a really special moment for me.

Thursday Brooke:

Made 2 additional runs to the grocery store for things we missed
Cooked, sliced and diced 5 large stockpots of homemade chili
Cooked, sliced and diced 5 large stockpots of homemade beef stroganoff
Cooked, sliced and diced 5 weeks worth of homemade meatloaf
Baked 2 additional loaves of banana bread
Baked 4 loaves of zucchini bread
Divided the jumbo bags of oatmeal, Krusteaz, cornbread mix into individual bags for each week, labeled them.
Divided out the toilet paper for each week, as well as the candy, granola, snacks, etc.
Cracked 30 eggs into a nalgene to carry into camp.
Asked the guy at the deli for 10 - individually wrapped 1 lb bunches of bacon (and dealt with his looks of disgust).
Stuffed all the chili, stroganoff and meatloaves into freezer bags to freeze (can you say mess!)
Took over the basement and had piles of food organized / labeled for each week in boxes.
Tracked down 2 new sections of stove pipe for our camp stoves
Took Oliver to the vet to get his "drain tube" taken out of his massive lump on his throat.
Showered, tried to look presentable and went to dinner with Pete and his clients.
PASSED out at 10:00pm.

Sorry, there are no pictures of my soiled kitchen to show you...