Well, we did it! Mostly…
You already know our menu. Here’s what our day looked like.
Sixteen pounds of ground beef. Thankfully, I took Tricia’s advice and browned all of it over the weekend. That made it so much easier to throw the meals together yesterday! Plus, I have extra which will make suppertime smooth for weeks to come.
Because I lack counter space, we found it helpful to have all of our recipes taped up on the cabinets. Easy viewing and no stressing about spills.
Only two of our items needed baked (I made the lazy granola overnight) so we started with those. If we’d accomplished no more than making these bacon, cheese and egg biscuit cups we could still call the day a success. Yum!
Perhaps I’ll walk a lonely road with this opinion, but I just don’t think cramming 5-6 big bowls/pans into the dishwasher and waiting 2 hours for them to get clean is a good use of time or energy. We washed dishes by hand. Frequently, and lots of ‘em. And lived to tell about it!
Sherry rolling lumpia. Can’t wait to try these!
Our loot! We made all but three items from our plan. What a fun, productive day!
A few thoughts:
- Doing as much prep-work ahead of time is essential! Every time I reached into a container for crumbled bacon, or chopped veggies, or to scoop out hamburger I was grateful for the time saved.
- We chose to scale back and make only one meal of each new-to-us recipe. It’s just not a pretty thought to have a freezer full of meals that the family isn’t crazy about.
- I’m incredibly thankful Sherry agreed to join me for the day. Adding in the fun factor of cooking with a friend certainly kept me going!
- Sherry has a great idea for “next time.” We might split a menu, make a few of each item, and have a meal swapping party! Have any of you ever done that?
- Since I was home, I chose to use my own pans and such. That saved some money in disposable/wrapping costs on this end.
- We did the more labor and time intensive recipes first, thank goodness! Then when our energy was waning we laughed as we threw together a couple of marinades. Poof! Two more meals done.
My overall impression of Once a Month Cooking: Exhausting, but worth it! Will I do it again? Probably, but I’ll mostly stick to my preferred batch cooking, I think. When I do take a full day to cook, it will have to be with a friend. Just in case I scared Sherry off, who wants to join me next time?
This post is linked to Works for Me Wednesday.
{ 1 trackback }
{ 30 comments… read them below or add one }
I too have questioned if my sister and I should cook multiple recipes that our family (namely – KIDS) haven’t eaten before. However, her family really likes to try to new things and I would hope that by putting new and exciting food on my children’s plates every once and a while, they’ll slowly come out of their picky-eating-ruts. That’s wishful thinking, I know, but it doesn’t hurt to try.
We do try to adjust the onceamonthmom.com menus to what we think they will eat (or just simply try) though.
Great job on your cooking day and recap!
We love to try new things, too! I think for our next cooking day we might do a few new recipes (one batch each) and several tried and true, so we can make multiple batches.
How far is it from my house to your house??? Sigh, probably a bit too far. But it sure sounds like fun! :>)
WOW! Y’all got a lot done! Don’t you feel great! I’m going to try those Egg Cups next month, I think my husband will love them!
This looks like a great idea! And those egg muffin cups look really yummy…I know my family will love them! I don’t know that I could do this all the time…but I’m thinking big batch cooking would be great for us during our busy baseball season…especially now that I’m back in school and working part-time. Hmmm…I may have to consider doing this SOON! Thank you for sharing the process…the pros and the cons!
My sister & a friend used to trade dinners once a week when they were single. They would each make two full-size dinners, and then trade portions w/each other. That way they weren’t eating leftovers for two weeks!
I will be curious to see if it takes you less time to go through the meals doing OAMC or batch cooking (i.e. do the batch cooking meals stay in your freezer longer b/c there’s more of them?).
Smart thinking! It’s hard to cook for yourself and not have tons of leftovers.
I have had meal-swapping parties. About 8 of us get together and bake 8 dishes of the same meal (I usually make CB casserole or pie). My 7 friends do the same. We all bring the meals we made, keep one for ourselves, then swap the rest. Following this?? (Just like a cookie swap…but meals instead!) In the end, we end up with 8 meals in our freezers. If you don’t like something, we usually swap with another for what we do like. We do know the menu ahead of time, and at times we have requested a friend not to make a certain something (once it was tuna-fish casserole) which she was totally understanding of. It’s worked out great. We usually did it in October, right before the madness of all the holidays, etc, came. Last year was the first year we didn’t do it, and I’d love to do it again!
Sounds like so much fun! Wonder if I could round up enough people to do it…
It sounds like it was a success! I need to do something like this soon, before softball really kicks in.
Yes, very helpful to have food around during those busy sports seasons!
Wow, I’m impressed. I’ve been thinking about doing this, but I’m thrown my the time commitment. How long do you think you spent cooking?
Probably 2 hours prep one day, and then 6 hours on the big cooking day. WITH a friend. Don’t know how long it would take by myself.
with the egg cups, what can you use instead of cream cheese? I forgot to pick some up when I was out today.
I am fixing my bacon in the oven on a broiler- wow, this saves time too.
I have no idea. This was my first time making them, so I followed “the rules.”
Glad you had fun! I did it once and can’t wait to do it again. Not only did I love having all that food, but I loved doing it with my friends!!
Definitely better with a friend or two. Can’t imagine doing it on my own!
What fun and great rewards! I love to “bulk cook” and have been doing it for years. I do it by myself, but nonetheless, I love it. On days that I just don’t want to cook I thoroughly enjoy going to freezer and pulling out something that is ready to eat. Great inspiration!
Yes, the rewards are great!
I haven’t cooked with someone for years! I do miss it it makes it go by so much faster! Cooking 80 meals by myself gets old fast. I tape my recipies to the cabinets also, I make less mistakes when they are at eye level. I have tons of new to you recipies that I have been cooking for years if you are intrested in finding some new ones. I do a LOT of marinates as my husband doesn’t like casseroles. Congratulations on your first try! I love reading peoples thoughts on the subject and I might just have to try the bacon egg cups they look yummy!
80 meals… that number makes me tired.
hi friend….you guys did AMAZING!! Here are my posts about meal swapping. Some of the comments are great as well and they tell what they’ve done….I’ve done this lots of diff ways – here are a few ideas.
http://beautyandbedlam.com/creative-meal-planning/
http://beautyandbedlam.com/creative-meal-planning-part-two/
Your Kitchen Sisters Club is so cute!
I have to admit, I was tired after I saw the 16 pounds of ground beef! Kudos to you!
I like to try new things but I’m extremely picky. So I don’t try new things often. But I prolly should
Great post
Great job! What a productive day.
What a productive and awesome day! Thanks for sharing your ideas and tips. Just the tip to tape the recipe to the cabinets is awesome! Can’t wait to try that and your other tips!
I love the tip to tape the recipes up! Why have I never thought of that?
And the 8 friends making 8 meals, brilliant!
I’m going to try some of you bacon, cheese, and egg and biscuits tonight! I think my guys would love heating these up in the morning. Especially my oldest son, who is not a cereal person. Thanks so much!!
Great job! I have never done this before. I always have browned burger frozen and freeze extra cooked meats sometimes, but never whole meals like that. Maybe someday.