Has anyone really done "Once a Month Cooking"?!
Has anyone really done "Once a Month Cooking"?
What was your experience like? I'm trying to come up with ideas for after our baby is born in August, but I'm not sure if I'm really up for all that cooking and freezing. I do love to cook, though, and would love the benefit of saving so much money if we can avoid ordering take-out... The other issue is that I'm finding lots of casseroles, and I'd like to avoid using the oven, since it will be mid August. Is there anything you can make ahead and put in a Crock Pot? Any tips at all would really be appreciated, thanks~
Answers:
There are some variations to this. One is that you can cook a triple batch everytime you do dinner. Freeze two dinners and eat one. So, it's not doing it all in one weekend, but still saves you a lot of time.
You can also bake a couple of chickens and boil a big package of chicken thighs at once. Allow them to cool in the fridge and then package up each chicken separately and freeze two or three thighs per package. Then you just defrost at supper and add what you like.
The trick with cooking for a month at a time is to use a lot of the same things but with different spices and variations.
You might cook up twenty chicken thighs in boiling water and make that into soup, stew and a veggie/rice/chicken thighs.
Also on the stove you can be cooking rice, spaghetti and boiling shrimp (keep an eye on them because they cook fast).
At the same time, you can have a couple of pot roasts cooking in a crock pot and hamburger browing on the stove.
Divide the hamburger into chili (which you can cook in another crock pot), tacos, spaghetti and a burger/rice/veggie dish.
Once something on the stove top is done, you can cook up all the veggies in different batches so that you can spice them all differently.
In the stove, you can bake a couple of chickens and cook up more chicken thighs with BBQ sauce.
Just make sure you have everything you need from the grocery!
We have done it pleanty of times. Usually I do cook something in the oven, but I also use the crock pot and the stove.
Spaghetti Sauce
Lasagna
Chicken and Dumplings
any type of bean or bean soup such as Navy or 15 bean
Hamburgers freeze really well
cornbread to go with beans/ soups
find crock pot recipes you like, make them and freeze them. My in-laws taught me that you can eat home-cooked meals everynight without really cooking!
I don't do once a month cooking, but why not just start making double of whatever you're cooking and freeze the other half? As for the baby issue, newborns will be asleep for most of the day, you will be able to cook. It's when the baby starts to crawl and is around more is when you might want to not make such elaborate meals. Instead of a roast, you might make Hamburger Helper that night. During the summer, I don't like to use the oven either, so we grill a lot. I don't have a crock pot, so I can't help you there. You might want to get yourself a cookbook for crock pots to help you. Good luck with your baby.