My First Once a Month Cooking Adventure (OAMC)

Oh.  My.  Goodness.

Cooking this much food requires a bit more stamina than I was prepared for.  I think I nearly died.  That said, I still ended up with this:

And, yes, it all fit in my deep freeze………ers.  Barely.

You may be wondering how this all went down.  I’ll tell you that, but I’m also gonna dish a bit on what I’d do differently and what I’d recommend YOU to do if you want the convenience of all these dinners in your freezer.

How it went down–from the beginning.

I’ve known about Once A Month Cooking since I was pregnant with the twins.  In fact, I was nearly mad that no one told me about this concept after I finally discovered it for myself.  I was at a homeschool meeting/curriculum share night where everyone brought crates of the stuff on their bookshelves and we spread it all out on the floor and had a tour of everyone’s collections.  The 20-year-old book I stumbled upon had an iteresting title about Cooking for Month or something.  (I’m not quoting it because I don’t know the title anymore and when I looked into buying it at the time, it was out of print anyway.) That is where my browsing ended that night.  I think I skimmed/read the whole thing then and there.  I raced home to add it to my cart at amazon.com but when I found that it wasn’t available, I spent hours amazed at how many books there were out there on a topic–of my own profession, no less–that I’d NEVER heard of. Even my mom later told me she knew of people who did it years ago but it always seemed impractical to her. Weird.

As a mom of three at the time (the youngest six months old) and pregnant with twins, I was tearing into the topic.  Then I remembered that I was pregnant with twins.  Right.  There was no way I could endure a project of this magnitude.  (I was also dealing with a hip injury/condition that caused tremendous pain and complicated everything.  I’ve since recovered about 90%–PRAISE THE LORD!!!–a post for another day.)  So, over the next two years I occasionally cooked double of some things and froze off one or two extra meals for the same amount of work.  In that, I got to experiment with freezing…which is a good thing to know something about if you are going freeze $300 worth of food!  Meanwhile, the hip thing kept me from being productive (in all areas of my life) until recently.  And now that Eric and I are on Jenny Craig, I’m cooking *very* differently. No more cream of what-cha-ma-call-it soup and cheese and butter and sour cream and everything else good fattening.  (read:  no experience freezing low fat stuff.)

Fast forward to last month when I discovered a blogger who creates monthly menus for you to freezer-cook with a friend that come with shopping lists, instructions, a podcast that details why she picked these items, and even labels to print to stick right on your foil packages! So intriguing, so marketable, so great!  I spent much time thinking about her business, actually.  (Jen, focus)  I decided I wanted to give it a whirl but I really couldn’t take advantage of her pre-packaged menu because of our diet restrictions and because…well, I cook differently.  I needed to blend my passion for the culinary arts with the convenience of dinner in a flash.  Therefore, I wanted to forge my own way. So typical of me.  And so annoying, too. You should NOT be like me.

Since I was re-inventing the meal…ah-hem, wheel, I should have taken more than a few days to prepare.  Enter stress.  On Tuesday, I started thinking of my menu which meant revisiting some of my old standbys and making them over as lower fat yumm-o-licious meals.  Is that even possible?  I’ll let you know when I thaw them!  Ha!  And, a few hours blog-hopping to find some new ideas.  (Ideas are aplenty when you start blog hopping.)  Then, I patterned my plan from Tricia’s plans with regard to three meals a day vs. just dinner, and planning out who’s doing what and when on cooking day.

This is getting really long…..

I went to Walmart the day before only because it was difficult to cash flow a month’s worth of food for a family of seven unless it was payday, at least.  I also picked up a humongous 13 qt. stainless bowl (you’ll see it in the pictures below) from the restaurant supply store that day.  So glad I did.  Best $8 I’ve spent in a long time.

My 24 year old sister, Chalee, volunteered to help me.  This was super great because she required no payment of 1/2 the food!  Nice to have no pressure for my maiden voyage but still have the help.

We initially crossed off the menu items as we completed them but that didn’t last long because by the time we got the end middle of the list, we were exhausted! The 2nd picture outlines why were so pooped out!  This was 13 hours of cooking for two people, plus prep work a few hours the day before.  The clipboard has my recipes and references in plastic sleeves.  I referred to these a lot and I was really happy I had them all in one place–and protected from the elements :o).  I’m glad that I wrote out our process.  It was a mental dress rehearsal.  We were more efficient because I did this. Typing it out wasn’t necessary but it was convenient that I didn’t have to tell her what to do next all the time.

Here’s a slideshow to fill in some blanks.  (Btw, it’s hard to photograph a day like this…)

Vodpod videos no longer available.

(if you’d like to see the captions, go here)

What I’d do differently.

1.  Accept the fact that I don’t have to be perfect at every thing, every time.

2.  Start with a smaller menu.

3.  Use the pre-packaged plans from blog’s like Tricia’s or from books/websites like this one for the first time, at least. (This, by the way, is the first book I bought on the topic of freezer cooking.  Another great use of my husband’s hard-earned cash :o)

4.  Ensure I’m well rested.

5.  That my cooking day would begin, exist, and end all on the same day.  (refer to #2)  Ok, maybe a few hours the night before boiling pasta or making rice would be ok.  It sure helped us out on cooking day.

6.  Cook at my own house.  I hauled everything except the kitchen sink to my mom’s house because–well, she doesn’t have 5 kids, for one.  But also because she has 2 ovens, 6 burners, more counter space, better lighting, you get the picture.  What wasn’t there was the familiarity of cooking in my own kitchen.  Oh, and let’s not forget, the pressure involved in making sure it was cleaned up to meet her impossible expectations.  Ok, it wasn’t that bad, but there was a lot of pressure.  :o)  Love you, mom.

What I recommend you do.

1.  Believe that this is possible to do this without croaking.

2.  Start small.

3.  Team up with a no-stress friend or do it alone the first time to get your groove.

4.  Maybe get a group of friends together and cook for a new mom as a gift from everyone as an opportunity to cut your teeth.  (lots of friends=fun=low pressure=blessing to the new mom)

5.  Spread the word about OAMC because because it’s a bummer that you (or me) haven’t done this sooner!

6.  Subscribe to my blog! A girl likes to know she’s not writing for nuthin’ :o). See the orange button above my head up there?  Click it!  (I’d recommend selecting Google Reader)

7.  Comment (see #6) :o)

Thanks for reading!  –Jen