Once a Month Cooking

Last month I followed two friends on their Once a Month cooking adventure. If you have ever tried to embark on the adventure, you know the kind of planning that goes into making this day a success. The work is long and sometimes hard, but the pay off is big. My gal pal Elizabeth's husband works nights so her motivation is to spend less time in the kitchen so that she can maximize her time with her husband, so the one day a month cooking method really appeals to her. Jessica, her partner in crime just wants to have quick, easy meals on hand that she can pull out of the oven or microwave and have on the table without thinking too much about it. If you are considering trying this, there is a great website that will do all the planning and lay out all the details for you http://www.onceamonthmom.com/
After checking the site out and peeking in on their cooking day, I was very impressed. For $126.00 they made 30 meals which included breakfast, lunch, dinner and a few snacks. That's about $4.00 a meal... Not bad!

Here are a few tips they discovered along the way;

You need big slow cookers to help out.

A food processor would have been helpful in making the job go faster

Chop the veggies the night before

Coupon shop ahead, for even greater deals

Use one of the meals as lunch for your cooking day

The whole day took them about 12 hours, but they assured each other and me that next time it won't take so long.

Command Central Jessica checking out the recipe Elizabeth slaving away at the stove :) They needed bigger crockpots The end result... 30 meals, ready to go!