Sunday, February 28, 2010

My First Once a Month Cooking Day!

For the past few weeks (months really) I have been tossing around the idea of Once a Month Cooking. It was such an idea that I adored, but didn't know if I could pull it off. I like cooking (more now than ever) but am not the greatest at following recipes. With Once a Month Cooking you sort of have too, since some things just don't freeze well.

Since this was my first time, I started with just 5 things. It was only going to be 4, but I decided to try one thing that wasn't really freezer cooking but that my kids could eat now.

Breakfast/Snacks:
Breakfast Burritos
Home made Pop-Tarts
Nutrigrain Bars (I have this recipe in an e-mail from a friend. I will gladly share it!)

Dinner/Lunch:
Lasagna with meat
Chicken Nuggets

Total, it took me about 5 hours to get everything done.

I loved doing this. Making sure that even if I am sick, busy or just plain don't want to figure out what to make for dinner, we have options. We have something that we can throw in that will be a full meal for the family.

I loved finding blogs that we helpful to planning and organizing my cooking plan. I never would have thought that there would be so many resources out there. I had gotten this book from BIL for Christmas, and did the lasagna recipe from there. It is a FABULOUS book to have!

I also used Once a Month Mom and Life as Mom a TON in figuring out how to get this started, and keep my sanity. Looking forward to summer, this will make a huge impact!

Next month...more!

7 comments:

darcie said...

I love the concept, but don't know if I could give up 5 hours of my time in one day to do so much cooking (because I hate cooking)
looking forward to reading more about it though!

simplicity said...

Great idea!
You're not only going to eat lasagna and chix nuggets for dinner all month though, are you???? do you cook other nights then too?

Some other good meals for freezing that I do is chili, taco meat.

I also buy Simeks meatballs for last minute dinner idea to throw in the crockpot for a few hours.

Terra said...

I do a wee little of this and strive to do more! I do pasta sauce, meatballs and stuffed shells...Chili and Potato Soup...I Hope to start adding to that so I can have lots of choices ready to go!!!

Zonnah said...

You are right, the nights you don't feel like cooking you will be extreamly happy :)

Phoebe @ GettingFreedom said...

Homemade Poptarts?! Yep, I've got to try that one. :)

Anonymous said...

I started out with just a few meals too. Now I'm up to almost half what Tricia does on the site (and that's enough for me for now!). I'd love to know your recipe for nutrigrain bars!

Anonymous said...

You're off to a GREAT start. You're going to love having that stuff in the freezer after a rough day at work. I too would love the nutrigrain bar recipe. Sounds yummy.