Anyone else do once a month cooking?

[mommd]

This is my second month of doing this, and I have to say it is the greatest thing I've ever done to maintain my sanity and eat healthier. Not only that, I have cut my grocery bill in half! How great is that?

Anyone else do this or something similar? I was just wondering if there was anyone who would be interested in swapping recipes or tips or anything like that. :)

[mudder17]

More details? What do you do? And you do you figure out what you're going to make?

Eileen

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Kaya's a cousin! 10/1/05, 5lb13oz

[Saartje]

I do it, or at least a modified version that I've found works well for me.

I'll post some more details of what I do in a little while, Eileen. :)

[emilys_mom]

Yes-- please more details. I read about this in Miserly Mom's. Also, how do you know how/what to freeze?

[mudder17]

Thanks, Sarah--I'm bookmarking this thread! :)

Eileen

http://www.mothering.com/discussions/images/smilies/candle.gif for Leah
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Kaya's a cousin! 10/1/05, 5lb13oz

[mommy_someday]

Renee, I would *really* be interested in hearing more about what you're doing. I did Meal Makers once, which was a huge help. If I could do that at home, it would really be great. Please tell us more!

[JustMe]

I would love to hear more about how this is done as well!

Robyn
mom to an almost 3 yr old from Guatemala

[mommd]

Double post

[mommd]

Well, a group I'm in locally had a meeting geared toward this. There are several books out there, the one I started with is "Frozen Assets". It has a two-week meal plan and a one-month meal plan. I knew we wouldn't eat some of the recipes so I just didn't make those. There is also a yahoo group I'm on from this book: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/frozen-assets/

They have some more recipes on there.

Basically, I break down cooking into "sessions" using a specific meat as for recipes. For example, I'll cook 5 pounds of ground beef, and from that can make stuffed peppers, sloppy joes, baked ziti, shepard's pie and spaghetti casserole. I'll than cook 5 pounds of chicken breasts (not boneless skinless) and use the meat to make 4 or 5 chicken dishes. It really is an entire day of cooking though, so I usually break it up to a weekend.

I also made breakfast sandwiches (think egg mcmuffin) and froze them, and than can simply microwave one every morning. So far, all the recipes I've used are from that book and yahoo group.

I spent a total of $165 for an entire month of food, including breakfast, which is about half of what we used to spend!

You should ckeck out the yahoo group, it has lots of ideas there!

I'll post more when I can tomorrow, but I go back to school tomorrow so I'm not sure when. :)

[mommd]

The planning takes some time. I try to see what's on sale before I plan, so I can save as much money as possible. For example, if ground beef is on sale, I'll make ground beef recipes. See my post below for more info! :)

[AngelaS]

I've never done a true "cook all day so you can eat all month" cooking session, but I double or triple lots of things I make and freeze the excess. I Foodsaver my freezer stuff and it truly does save me LOTS of time!

[mommyoftwo]

I think this is such a great idea. After my first daughter was born, people from our church made a bunch of meals for us this way and it was wonderful. I've been wanting to try this but didn't know where to start. If anyone has any cookbook suggestions or other resources, please post them. TIA!

[JElaineB]

I have been trying to do this for the past few months since I went back to work full-time but it isn't working very well. :( I think I would go insane trying to cook that much in one day or even one weekend so what I have done is cook big batches of things and freeze them. But then I ended up cooking too frequently and kind of got burnt out. Plus we always forget to take things out of the freezer to thaw. I think I will try to start again with this now that the New Year is here, we are eating out way too much. I have several books, including "Frozen Assets". I also really like "The Freezer Cooking Manual from 30 Day Gourmet: A Month of Meals Made Easy". The recipes I have used of my own that have worked successfully are mini meatloaves, American Chop Suey (a.k.a. goulash, a.k.a. pasta w/meat sauce - though I cook the pasta the night of and only freeze the sauce), chicken fajitas and chicken cutlets (to make chicken parmesean). I really need to branch out a little more though. I would love some tried and true recipes and would be happy to share mine as well.

Jennifer
mom to Jacob 9/27/02

[mudder17]

I have food saver bags as well and I was wondering, should I let them thaw out the night before, or is it safe enough to either thaw in room temperature water (tap water) like a turkey or in the microwave?


Eileen

http://www.mothering.com/discussions/images/smilies/candle.gif for Leah
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http://tickers.baby-gaga.com/t/catcatcvi20040222_4_Kaya+is.png
Kaya's a cousin! 10/1/05, 5lb13oz

[knaidel]

The title says it all: what are these bags? Are they special for freezing food?

[Elena]

Wow, sounds like such a nice idea!

Could you please tell me more about your freezing/defreezing routine? What containers/bags do you use? How long does it take to freeze/defreeze? Does it change the taste of food?

Is it going to be appropriate for vegetarians (for cooking grains, beans, vegetables)?

[amp]

Like some other posters, I do a modified version of this and love it, although I hate the day I actually have to cook so much stuff. When ground beef is on sale, I'll buy several pounds and cook it all at once and then divide into 1/2 lb and 1 lb portions to use later in dishes.

I also do the same with chicken. We season or marinate (fajita) it, grill it, slice it and freeze it separate bags. Then it can easily be added to or reheated for other dishes.

We also do this with bacon, sausage patties (for breakfast sandwiches) etc.

We also sometimes make up a batch of burritos (chick or beef) and freeze. I also divide my lasagnes and baked zitis (etc) and cook one for the currrent meal and then freeze the other portion (we can't eat a whole 9x13 pan!). I also buy steaks in quantaties of 4-6 and marinate them all at the same time, then cook the current ones and freeze the others raw in the marinade and thaw for cooking later.

[s7714]

>I also really like "The Freezer Cooking
>Manual from 30 Day Gourmet: A Month of Meals Made Easy".

I really like this one too. I like that the recipes are simple and can easily be adjusted to my family's likes and dislikes. Not a "gourmet" cook book in the least, but that's one of the things I love most about it (my family will actually eat these things. ;) ) ETA: This cookbook also covers a lot of freezing basics, like what things freeze well and what doesn't, etc. A good book to at least check out from the library so you can read it's FAQ information!

I haven't really tried the cooking for an entire month method, but I have done it in 1-2 weeks segments. It does make life much simpler to have things already prepared!

To the poster asking about the foodsaver, here's a link:
http://foodsaver.jardendirect.com/
There are a lot of other brands of vacu-sealers on the markets now, but FoodSaver was the only one available (for in home use) for a long time.

Jennifer
Mommy to
Annalia 3/03
Sophia 6/05

When raising kids the days are oh so long, but the years are short.--John Leguizamo

[KrisM]

Sounds great. I'm going to check out those books!

I do make some stuff in large batches. Last night, I made spaghetti sauce and got 16 servings of it in the freezer. We have a couple other things that we make this way, too.

[mudder17]

Foodsaver is a brand of machine that will suck the air out of a freezer-safe bag and seal it shut. So food tends to stay fresh much longer in the freezer and you don't end up with freezer burn. I got ours at Sam's. I've used it to freeze a lot of the fresh fruit from this summer and been able to use them at my leisure to make smoothies. :)


Eileen

http://www.mothering.com/discussions/images/smilies/candle.gif for Leah
http://www.gynosaur.com/assets/ribbons/ribbon_emerald_18m.gif

http://tickers.baby-gaga.com/t/catcatcvi20040222_4_Kaya+is.png
Kaya's a cousin! 10/1/05, 5lb13oz

[mommd]

Another book is "Dinners in the freezer" by Jill Bond, I think. I haven't used this one yet, but I've heard it was good by some friends.