Sunday, January 9, 2011

Once A Month Cooking - OAMC

So many things can be written about this. I just want to touch the basic concepts. I learned about OAMC at Life as MOM . She has been an invaluable resource for all types of ideas for cooking for the freezer. But first you may ask me, “Why would you want to eat out of the freezer all the time?” The beauty of this is I don’t. Maybe half the month. Usually on days I’m at school. Instead of buying a frozen lasagna or frozen pizza, or wondering what the kids are going to eat if Jr and I don’t feel like cooking, we have a few freezer meals to fall back on (and we’re lucky enough that Paige is old enough to really help in the cooking of them if necessary). Jr’s main complaint is, he doesn’t want all casseroles, so that is challenging for me, not just in OAMC, but everyday, because I LOVE crockpot meals and casseroles. So I have to try and mix it up some.

Favorites so far are: lasagna (of course), homemade meatballs, taco meat, browned meat for sloppy joes, shredded chicken for subs, soups, chili, bbq deer meat (can be used as a main dish or to top loaded potatoes), burritos, creamy mashed potatoes. I need to focus on building fajita kits, making some pot pies, and prepping more vegetables so they’ll be ready to added to any meal, such as: diced onion, sliced peppers, and so on. I’ve also finally ventured into baking from scratch (ever so lightly, cuz me and Ms. Crocker have known each other too long for me to just dump her!). Today Paige is going to make some banana nut muffins (she received some muffin baking cups (silicone I think) for Christmas, and nana and granny have been begging for some! The leftovers we’ll freeze for breakfast. Also, most Saturdays or Sundays it’s Thomas’ time to cook pancakes (he’s the best pancake flipper EV-ER). So if there is any leftover batter, we cook them on up and freeze them (just like Aunt Jemima). I’ve recently discovered an old blog at Life as MOM for how to do breakfast sandwiches (it was a lot of readers helping readers). So the next time I’m at Wal-Mart I’m going to get some English muffins and give it a try. I really dispise having to wake up and cook before I’m awake (don’t mind it if I’m getting paid tho, lol).
The plus side to doing all this cooking once a month. You’ll only be dirtying big pots once or twice instead of 30-31 days. Think of only cleaning the big pots once a month! For my family we also do a LOT of browned ground beef: sloppy joes, hamburger helper, sometimes spaghetti, lasagna, tater tot casserole, goulash, the list goes on for ever. So if I decide between all those meals I need 30 pounds of ground beef, when I buy it (preferrably on sale, or marked down) I just go ahead and fry it up (usually with onion, because I’m an onion freak) and then just package it as needed either just in 2 pound packs or go ahead and assemble the casserole for the freezer. The biggest issue I have is enough dishes (luckily my mom gave me all hers and that helps out a lot). Then another item, creamy mashed taters….if potatoes go on sale, I make up a huge batch of this (it has cream cheese in it so it will freeze ok) and I bought foil christmas tree pans on clearance at Wal-mart 2/25 cents…..perfect sizing for my family! I really don’t like to peel potatoes every night, but I wouldn’t mind doing 20 pounds once a month! And to mash them I just add all my seasonings, butter, and cream cheese to my Kitchen Aid mixer and let it do the work for the creamiest potatoes ever!
I’ll cover more on freezer cooking as I do it. I will definitely have recipes available. So keep your eyes peeled for them!

2 comments:

  1. I recently bought a cookbook called "once a month cooking" for $3.99 (I think) at Barnes & Noble. It is great! I haven't done it yet. I just got the book and read over it. I plan to do it next month. It breaks it up into once every two weeks, or once a month cooking.

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  2. Yes, I got the same book as well! Love it!

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