about to start Once A Month Cooking..tips?? (Update #13, 20, 24, 25)

[happymom]

Every time I see a thread about this, I tell myself I must try this! But of course, I haven't yet. Now that you've prepared and frozen many of their recipes, do you think you could use the concept on some of your own recipes? That's what I would like to do- I have so many tried and true dinner recipes already, but I really wouldn't know how to prepare and freeze them well...I was thinking that just reading through their recipes might give me some tips.

[mjs64]

Every time I see a thread about this, I tell myself I must try this! But of course, I haven't yet. Now that you've prepared and frozen many of their recipes, do you think you could use the concept on some of your own recipes? That's what I would like to do- I have so many tried and true dinner recipes already, but I really wouldn't know how to prepare and freeze them well...I was thinking that just reading through their recipes might give me some tips.

Maybe this is should be new thread--sorry to hijack. But I wonder the exact same thing. Any thoughts, OP? BTW, I'm amazed at all you got done. Please update with how you're enjoying the recipes. It looks like you did a fantastic job.

[mm123]

Every time I see a thread about this, I tell myself I must try this! But of course, I haven't yet. Now that you've prepared and frozen many of their recipes, do you think you could use the concept on some of your own recipes? That's what I would like to do- I have so many tried and true dinner recipes already, but I really wouldn't know how to prepare and freeze them well...I was thinking that just reading through their recipes might give me some tips.

This is pretty much what we do, since we both WOTH full time, and have zero time to cook during the week. Cooking SO many meals at a time feels overwhelming to me. So, usually on the weekend, I'll take about an hour, and cook double or triple batches of something. My freezer stash gradually builds up that way. We'll eat some that night, and I'll freeze the rest in individual meal-size portions. Then on weeknights, when we come home and the craziness begins, it only takes me about 10 min. to prepare dinner. I just take something out of the freezer, microwave it, and then make a salad or steam some veggies while the main dish is being re-heated.

Of course, there are still MANY days that we'll just have scrambled eggs or peanut butter sandwiches for dinner!

Some things that have frozen well that are currently in our freezer:
- Crockpot salsa chicken
- Chicken chili
- Homemade veggie pasta sauce (with ground round)
- Lasagna
- Beef stew
- various casseroles: Sole, tuna, black bean, chickpea
- various soups- lentil, beef barley
- crockpot pulled chicken
- salmon patties
- quiche
- turkey meatballs

I like this method because it doesn't take too much organization or prep work, since I only make one dish at a time.

I feel a bit bad that we don't usually eat 'fresh' food, but at least it's mostly homemade!!

[♥ms.pacman♥]

ok am updating again since we've eaten more of the dishes. DH loves everything so far. the last one we've had (Cranberry Chicken),was pretty good...my DS absolutely LOVED it. he was eating chicken and he NEVER (voluntarily) eats chicken, and kept asking for more. Amazing. actually, come to think of it, my DS has really liked everything we've had so far, except for one, and it was one i didn't really care for either (but i think that might have been partially bc i added too much of something in the recipe)

And I should mention, that this OAMC method differs a little from simply cooking several batches of a recipe and then freezing it for it to be reheated later. A good number of the recipes involve for example, preparing a marinade and just freezing that along with uncooked chikcen..then once you thaw it, you just stick it all in the oven to bake. Or, it involved freezing browned meat, veggies, spices etc and then once it was thawed, sticking it in the CrockPot and cooking it for 4-6 hrs. I saw that in Amazon reviews there were lots of people who complained about this, because they were expecting that most of the dishes upon being thawed could just be nuked and ready to eat. I guess that can be a downside for some people, but honestly, to me it's actually a good thing...there are not that many dishes that taste good right out of the freezer IMO. for me, the food tastes so much better if its' freshly baked or grilled or whatever. And, it wasn't a big deal to just throw the thawed chicken and sauce or whatever in a baking dish and bake it for 45 minutes, or just toss it in a crock pot in the morning.

anyway, i should say that this method is really working for us. we are eating out a lot less, and meal planning, getting dinner ready is so much less of a headache for me now!! plus, as an added bonus, DS is eating whatever we eat pretty well, and he is trying a lot of new things.

[♥ms.pacman♥]

am bumping this to say that our first batch of OAMC meals lasted us about 6 weeks!! it's 14 dinners, but some of them make up to 8 servings. Plus with occasional eating out, and with DH out of town often, we only used maybe 2 to 3 meals a week. Out of the 14 meals, there was only one of them that DH, I and DS didn't really care for (and it wasn't horrible, it just wasn't something i'd make again). A lot of them were pretty good and my 2yo DS ate them and asked for more, which gets a gold star in my book.

am gearing up now to make another round tomorrow. I know it will be exhausting but it will be nice to have a bunch of ready-assembled stuff to go for the next month or two. I never realized how helpful it was to have these meals until they ran out a couple weeks ago! i did do a round of cooking last weekend where i made 3 different dishes (didn't freeze them,just refrigerated), but still, it did take a good part of a weekend day to make them and only lasted about a week.

With the shopping, what helped this time around was getting a lot of the meats at Costco. When you need 10 lbs of chicken breast or 5 lbs of lean ground beef, it was good to get it from Costco rather than having to buy a bunch of them at a regular grocery store

[brittone2]

am bumping this to say that our first batch of OAMC meals lasted us about 6 weeks!! it's 14 dinners, but some of them make up to 8 servings. Plus with occasional eating out, and with DH out of town often, we only used maybe 2 to 3 meals a week. Out of the 14 meals, there was only one of them that DH, I and DS didn't really care for (and it wasn't horrible, it just wasn't something i'd make again). A lot of them were pretty good and my 2yo DS ate them and asked for more, which gets a gold star in my book.

am gearing up now to make another round tomorrow. I know it will be exhausting but it will be nice to have a bunch of ready-assembled stuff to go for the next month or two. I never realized how helpful it was to have these meals until they ran out a couple weeks ago! i did do a round of cooking last weekend where i made 3 different dishes (didn't freeze them,just refrigerated), but still, it did take a good part of a weekend day to make them and only lasted about a week.

With the shopping, what helped this time around was getting a lot of the meats at Costco. When you need 10 lbs of chicken breast or 5 lbs of lean ground beef, it was good to get it from Costco rather than having to buy a bunch of them at a regular grocery store

Glad it is working out! Freezer cooking is a total sanity saver for me!

[overcome]

I put the book Fix, Freeze, Feast on my Christmas list. If I don't receive it, I'm going to order it on Christmas Day!!

And I think I have DH convinced to buy a stand alone freezer!! Woo Hoo!!

I am totally psyched to try this technique. Thanks so much for updating.

[♥ms.pacman♥]

bumping this to say we did a 3rd round this weekend, this time from the OAMC Family Favorites book that WTG recommended. we did the gluten-free 2 week cycle. so far we've eaten 2 of the meals.. Szechuan chicken and the Mediterreanean burgers,and they were both pretty good. the burgers IMO were pretty amazing. i like how this cycle doesn't have much casserole/pasta based meals which we are not so much a fan of.

it such a pain to get all the grocery shopping and prep done for these but in the end it is worth it. it saves so much time and takes the guesswork out of what we're going to have for dinner.

[WatchingThemGrow]

bumping this to say we did a 3rd round this weekend, this time from the OAMC Family Favorites book that WTG recommended. we did the gluten-free 2 week cycle. so far we've eaten 2 of the meals.. Szechuan chicken and the Mediterreanean burgers,and they were both pretty good. the burgers IMO were pretty amazing. i like how this cycle doesn't have much casserole/pasta based meals which we are not so much a fan of.

it such a pain to get all the grocery shopping and prep done for these but in the end it is worth it. it saves so much time and takes the guesswork out of what we're going to have for dinner.

That's a great idea to do the gluten-free ones! Duh - I just thought people who ARE G-F could do those, lol.

We need a batch and I wasn't pumped to do any of the other batches we've done again just yet. I'll try this one soon!

[infomama]

I wish there was a best of OAMC cookbook. I can't cook all kinds of meals without knowing if my family will eat them.