Once a Month Cooking

[Chrisada]

I hate cooking, so DH and I decided we want to try once a month cooking together. Doesn't someone here do this? I'm thinking Mrs.K. Any tips in general? We are looking at onceamonthmom.com

[scrub-jay]

I think LadyMoreta does it too maybe? I haven't been able to get my act together to do this. Good luck!

[Chrisada]

Our budget has been blown because of eating out and it's only the 5th! I cannot cook everyday. I cannot. Must.do.something.

[diggitydot]

I'm not overjoyed with cooking, either. I usually make dishes that the fam can eat from for several days. As a matter of fact, we're having kielbasa soup tonight. Again.

[civilspouse]

I try to do some of the stuff from the once a month mom site. I've never done the whole menu plan for the month, but try to pick 4-5 recipies from the site and cook them one day to put in the freezer when our supply is getting low. We don't eat freezer meals every night, but its nice to have the option. Also, on days when I'm cooking something that will freeze well I make a double batch and put the leftovers in the freezer. When I made this change in our cooking habits it took a while to get used to the change in our budgeting for groceries. When I buy everything for the freezer meals the bill is pretty high, but then it evens out on the other weeks.

[ladymoreta]

I do it. We use a book called Once a Month Cooking Family Favorites, but we've only done 2-week cycles from it. It's fantastic, and I like that it's not just a bunch of casseroles. Almost everything goes into ziplock bags, too, so you don't have to buy a bunch of freezer containers. Plan on spending an hour or two chopping/prepping, then around 6-8 hours cooking. We usually plan it for a weekend DH is off so he helps. There's no way I could do it alone taking care of the kids, unless I spread it out over a couple of days. It makes weeknights so much easier, and I love the variety of meals. A 2-week cycle usually ends up lasting us a month because we'll cook other things some nights if we have more time, and we go out to eat probably more than we should.

[SoonerTexan]

Ooo I like the 2 week idea. I usually do what DD does and cook 2-4 large meals and eat a lot of leftovers, but I've been intrigued by this too.

Would you need a deep freezer?

[diggitydot]

I flove our extra freezer. I don't use it as much now that we don't have access to a Sam's Club or Costco, though

[ladymoreta]

We have a small deep freezer, and it helps, but if you've cleared out a couple shelves in your regular freezer, you should have room. Most of the meals are stored in ziplock bags, so if you freeze them flat, they don't take up as much room, and you can stack them.

[MrsSz]

I did it a lot for DH while I lived in DC. Lord knows he forgot to eat when I wasn't around. I do it about once a month to every six weeks because we inevitably end up eating out a few times. I combined once a month mom (she used lots of canned stables that I would rather not use) with skinny taste crock pit recipes. The dump chicken and BBQ chicken were great for the crock pot, especially when I forgot and DH or one of the guys just dumped it in!

[MrsK]

I hate cooking, so DH and I decided we want to try once a month cooking together. Doesn't someone here do this? I'm thinking Mrs.K. Any tips in general? We are looking at onceamonthmom.com

Sorry, I'm just now seeing this. I'd love to do once-a-month cooking or at least have a stash of meals frozen for days when I don't feel up to cooking. Unfortunately, we never got that freezer for the garage that I wanted and our fridge is rather small with a teeny-tiny freezer.

If I were to attempt once-a-month cooking, I'd probably start small because one or two marathon cooking days sounds exhausting if you don't enjoy cooking. For now, if I make something that will freeze well, I double the recipe. So, I'll prepare two or three shepherd's pies, cook one for dinner, and put the rest in the freezer for later. If I had a bigger freezer, I'd start building my stash that way.

I get around dinner by meal planning. I have about 30-40 different meals that I just keep on rotation. I put the recipes together in a binder. At the beginning of the month, I clean out the fridge and plan the first few meals based on what is already in the fridge/freezer. The rest of the meals are tentatively planned from my rotation but I end up switching them around depending on what's on sale at the grocery. (If chicken is on sale that week, I'll skip the meat loaf and make a chicken dish instead.) I usually have to plan dinner for about 4 nights since the kids will happily eat eggs or grilled cheese sandwiches the nights that DrK is working, I usually make enough for leftovers the other nights, and then we eat out or at the temple a few times each month. If I were really on top of things, I'd have lunches and snacks planned too.

Another tip, be sure you mark everything well in the freezer because you will not remember what you've made. Also, keep an eye on your freezer. If the power goes out or the freezer breaks, it would be awful to see all your hard work gone to waste. Good luck!

[TulipsAndSunscreen]

We always make something that can be frozen or stretched through at least Monday over the weekend. It's my rule never to start the week (if I can help it) without dinner for Monday. It's too hectic otherwise. Then I make food on Monday or Tuesday night after DD is in bed for other days of the week. Winter is easier for me to do frozen meals for because in the summer, we have our produce share and dinner is usually a pile of veggies seasoned in whatever way I feel like with some protein on the side (v small, we're down to eating meat 1-2x/week now).

My problem with the once a month cooking sites I've seen is that the food tends to be pretty high in sodium because it leverages canned food but I'll check it out! This could be a really good thing for us!

[ladymoreta]

The cookbook I linked isn't too bad about canned foods, and a lot of that is beans (that you rinse before using), chicken broth (that I buy low sodium, but you could make ahead), and tomatoes (sauce, diced, etc).

[civilspouse]

On the Once a Month Mom site they have different menus, Traditional, Vegetarian, etc. The Whole Foods menu is supposed to be recipies that are sesonal and don't include processed foods. As I said before I don't follow any of the menus, but I like the site as a resource that I can pull 4-5 recipies to cook in one day that I know will freeze well. Somethings I've made from the site we've really liked, others not so much. We keep recipies we print from the internet in a 3-ring binder, we started a new binder for the freezer meals. Sometimes I'll make notes on the recipie and if we didn't like something I just don't put it in the binder. I like that the site has new things every month and they do try to be seasonal so it is helpful when coming up with meal ideas. We also do a lot of breakfast items in the freezer too, scones, muffins, waffles, etc. They all freeze well and are nice to have on hand instead of cereal everyday.