So the other day I was just reading around on different blogs and came across someone talking about "once a month cooking." I started to read about it more because I was curious and totally fell in love with this idea. It's pretty much what it sounds like. You make a menu of meals you want to make, and one day you make and freeze enough meals to last your family a month - and you never have to cook for the month, you just pop one of your meals in the crockpot/oven/whatever the case may be. Well... I like the idea, but I wanted to change it a little bit. I enjoy cooking, so for me, I love the idea of cooking a bunch of meals to be frozen (especially for those nights my husband doesn't get home from school until 9:30), but a whole months worth - not for me.
Anyways, I started researching different recipes, and the most exciting part was that because of all of my recent stockpiling, I really don't have to buy much at all to prepare TONS of meals for my family.
Here are the meals I'm planning on making (if you care to have any of the recipes let me know and I'll post them):
-lasagna (double recipe to make 4 mini lasagnas)
-chicken pot pie (x4)
-brown bag burritos
-taco soup
-chicken parmigiana (x2)
-chicken & rice pilaf
-chicken macaroni bake (x2)
-mini meatloaves (x2)
When I look over the recipes and the amount of servings they make, this will probably easily make us at least 20 meals. I love this idea because it is perfect for those nights that you just don't want to cook - and this way you can just pull out one of your pre-made meals instead of running out to eat (will save more money this way!).
So this probably isn't for everyone, but for me this sounds great because with a 6-month old, it's not always the easiest to make an elaborate meal every evening. (People with more than one kid right now are probably rolling their eyes at me at this point). Anyways, this doesn't seem like it will be NEAR as much work as I originally thought. Last night I browned up the ground turkey that the recipes need, and I cooked the chicken breasts in the crock pot over night (which is seriously probably the best way ever to cook chicken!). Later I plan on cooking the rest of the chicken and chopping it up, cooking the noodles, and chopping the onions - and then I'm all ready to go for my cooking day! Then, on my cooking day, all I'll have to do is put the things together!
Ok, so I've gone on about this a lot longer than I planned on (still waiting on my little man to wake up...), but anyways, here is the lady that I think is the most amazing person ever when it comes to once a month cooking:
Once a Month Mom! Click here to check out her website. She is amazing! She puts together her menu, you can copy all of her recipes - she even puts together a shopping list, lists what size containers you will need for storage, EVEN includes labels that you can put on your foods (with directions on how to thaw & cook!). I have become totally obsessed with her website and am planning on using a lot of her recipes to try this out. If all goes well, I may just have to make this a once a month (or every other month) type deal!
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