Once A Month Cooking – An Experiment – Part 2

I did it! I successfully completed my first attempt with once a month cooking. Whew!

Here’s what I found:

The onceamonthmom.com website strongly suggests doing all your prep work the night before. I didn’t take that advice – I should have. Although I cooked everything overnight that needed to be, I didn’t chop anything. That took me the longest and slowed me down.

They also suggest getting rid of hubby and kids for the day. This was not an option, and I had all 5 of them underfoot. It wasn’t the annoyance you would imagine – my kids are no longer babies so they stayed out of the way, for the most part. My man even helped with some of the prep work and cleaning. And it was nice to have taste testers handy!

Onceamonthmom.com suggests cooking with a partner. I did this on my own, and followed the “half” amounts since I was cooking for just my family. I felt like some of the amounts were not quite enough for us. Next time, I will do the double batch amounts. If I have extras, I will just pass some meals onto my parents or grandma to give them a break from cooking for a night.

At the end of the day, I pretty much literally collapsed from exhaustion. But it felt great to know my freezer is fully stocked with meals for my family. I’m looking forward to the break it will give me on busy school nights!

Once A Month Cooking – An Experiment – Part 1

I first heard about “once a month cooking” when I was about 14. I was in line with my Mom at the grocery store. In front of us were two ladies with a crazy load of groceries. I thought they must be throwing a big party. My mom began chatting with them, and in conversation, they told her they were doing once a month cooking. What a concept! (If you’ve never heard of it before, the idea is that you take one day a month, and cook a huge batch of a variety of meals. You freeze everything, so that it can be thawed and reheated later.) I have been interested in it ever since then.

Fast forward to today. Despite my interest, I have never tried once a month cooking. I’ve considered signing up for classes, have searched for good freezable recipes, but never managed to get it organized. Then finally! I found an amazing website as a resource. It’s onceamonthmom.com. This website includes the menu for the month, AND the recipes, grocery lists, labels, everything. For a small fee, you can sign up for membership. They do offer free access to their archives. For the first attempt, I went back to the archives and found a menu that appealed to me. If all goes well, I will definitely purchase a membership.

Here’s what I’ll be cooking:

– Breakfast Taquitos
– Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal
– Broccoli-Cheese Stuffed Potatoes
– Broccoli-Cauliflower Bake
– Buffalo Chicken French Bread Pizza
– Shepherd’s Pie
– Buffalo Chicken Wings
– Beef Pot Roast
– Spiced Honey Lemon Chicken
– Chili
– Rosemary Chicken
– Oven Country Steak
– Yogurt Parfaits

Wish me luck!!