I'm going to see if anyone up at the new job wants to get together to cook a big meal once a week. Sounds like a very interesting idea..
About once a quarter, a bunch of teachers from my wife's school get together and do a 'freezer dinner assembly line'. We shamelessly stole the concept from one of those stores where you pay to make your own dinner, take it home and freeze it. We meet at someone's house, with an ample supply of wine and beer, and each person brings the recipe, ingredients and packaging materials to make X entrees, where X equals the number of people attending. If eight people are attending, and you picked chicken surprise to make, you make eight dishes of chicken surprise, pack them into aluminum foil pans, wrap them for the freezer, attach the recipe and cooking instructions and the other people take them home. So each person walks away with eight different dinner entrees for the freezer. We have had some really good meals from this, and people like to pick out good things to make and exchange. We have standardized on making entrees in a 9x13 inch pan size, which is good for one meal for a family, or two to three meals for couples like my wife and I. Throw in a salad, a vegetable or starch as necessary, and you are good to go. Most of my wife's teacher colleagues are younger with kids still at home, so it is great to pull one of the entrees from the freezer in the morning and be able to pop it into the oven for 45 minutes when you get home and have dinner ready.
