More on Cooking Once a Month!

So... between the comments on the blog, messages on facebook, and emails I've received, I've decided to post more on this whole cooking once a month concept. (And Jer is at work so I'm lonely. :( I do have Usborne trainings to prepare, but procrastination is so fun. :) )

By the way... I have 27 main courses and three desserts frozen in my freezer right now. Because we sometimes eat with family, eat out, and sometimes I feel like/have time to do cooking that should last us about 5-6 weeks!! YEAH!!!

FYI: This is also wonderful because you already have something prepared if someone you know has a baby, gets injured or for some reason needs a meal brought to their home!

Before I start I do have to say it isn't ONLY my dislike of cooking that made meal preparation difficult. It was also the logistics. Fitting time to shop, prepare food and clean up in between school pick up, karate, homework, afternoon naptime (VERY important) was the difficult thing for me. Everything needed to happen at 3 or 4 pm. If dinner isn't ready by 5:30 there are 4 ornery, whining, quarrelling children (and thus one stressed out, mean mother) at our house. So this system is a life-saver.

As far as recipes go... USE YOUR FAMILY'S FAVORITES!! Really, it is that simple. Some things will not freeze well, like raw veggies and cooked potatoes (unless they are REALLY cooked and mashed up like in a creamy soup). That book I suggested in the previous post (www.dinnerisready.com) had a list of things that will/will not freeze. She also has great and easy recipes if you are really worried about that.

Here is how I do it. First, I choose 3 meats and make all of the meat dishes out of those. This helps because you can buy those cuts of meat in bulk and get a better deal. (This last time I chose ground beef, cut up beef (stew meat), and chicken. The dishes I prepared included: lasagna, cheese manicotti, shepherd's pie, chicken noodle soup, corn chowder, chicken tortilla casserole, beef stroganoff, beef stew, Swedish meatballs, porcupine meatballs... and I think that was it for this time. Other times I've prepared a couple of different chicken and rice casserolles, funeral potatoes, sweet and sour chicken, chicken alfredo, barbque ribs, and sloppy joes.) I copy the recipes from the book I found them in, print them off the internet, pull the recipe card or do whatever I have to do to get a copy of each recipe. You don't want to have to switch back and forth between pages in a cookbook on cooking day.

Then I make a grocery list. My list is on a big piece of scrap paper and I have sections for meat, produce, frozen, dairy, packaging material, etc. I go through each recipe and write the items I need on my list. I use tally marks for each cup of shredded cheese or sour cream, each can of soup, etc. VERY IMPORTANT: I've been buying those aluminum baking pans... WONDERFUL!! I can freeze them without using my regular casserolle dishes and cake pans and I can chuck them when I am done. You also need Extra Heavy Aluminum Foil and gallon sized freezer bags. Also, if your store offers them (ours don't), get paper bags. You need as many "garbages" as possible on the cooking day and those would work well.

The book suggests (and I agree) that you don't put your groceries away (except the items that need to be kept cold, obviously) because you are just going to use them the next day or two. It saves time on the cooking day to have everything out already.

The night before I cooked the ground beef and chopped all the veggies. This was the first time I've done that and it was very helpful. Chopping 10+ cups of carrots, 8 cups of celery, and 10 cups of onion is time consuming.

Also, forgot to mention this... you want to choose 1-2 recipes for a crock pot, 2 recipes that you can cook in your oven, 2-3 recipes that you cook on your stove top, and 4 or so recipes that you can just assemble. Because you don't cook the pasta before you freeze it, manicotti and lasagna are assemble recipes. Most casserolles are assemble recipes.

I start by cooking all the chicken... this usually takes 2-3 pots... which gives me the broth I need for other recipes. (I used to just use bouillon or canned broth. Now that I have "real" broth I can taste such a difference. The food/soups are so yummy!) Then I start a crock pot meal. Then I start something for my oven.

Again, you are cooking DOUBLE portions of everything you cook. Chicken noodle/chicken tortellini/chicken and rice soups are something that everyone at my house actually likes so I quadruple the recipe for chicken soup and then just add the starch (noodles, rice, tortellini) when I reheat it.

While all those are cooking, I start the assemble recipes... beginning with the most labor intensive... saving the easiest ones for last. When something is done cooking I take it over to my kitchen table to cool and prepare the next one for that method (stove-top, oven, slow-cooker). The assemble ones I just fit in while stuff cooks. Some assemble ones go together naturally. For example, last time I used the same cheese filling for the manicotti and the lasagna so I prepared those back to back. The more practice I get, the more efficient I am. Also, you want a garbage by where you are assembling, the stove, and where you are packaging.

When a dish has cooled sufficiently, I put it in the gallon bag or cover it and freeze it. Label what it is and the cooking instructions (if it needs to actually be cooked, not just reheated).

The book (again their website is www.dinnerisready.com ... I promise I am not getting anything for promoting it... just want to share ;) ) has lots of helpful hints and it goes into greater detail on the system. It also has some recipes I tried that Jer has LOVED.

Another thing: you can keep reusing the same knives, bowls, measuring cups, etc. if you just rinse them between recipes. Of course, wash stuff that touches raw meat and eggs, but everything else you don't have to wash until the end. It takes an extra load of dishes in the dishwasher that day, but overall it saves tons of dishwashing. I am not "cooking" a full meal each night so I can get by with one load/day now instead of at least two. After dinner clean up is so much easier because there aren't knives, measuring cups, frying pans, etc. to wash... it is just the plates, cups, etc. and maybe one pot.

And that is it!!

I can't say enough good things about that book and this system. It really has been a huge lifesaver. I love going to my freezer in the morning and pulling out something for dinner that night. I love being able to pull something from the fridge and put it in the oven before I leave to take kids to karate and have it done when karate is over. I love that I'm not trying to cook at the time of day my kids need me most.

So... this is a long post... and I REALLY should get working on my Usborne stuff, but I just wanted to share that information. Thanks for reading!