Once A Month Cooking- “A method of cooking that helps a busy mom prepare healthy, inexpensive meals for her family by cooking one time a month, hence solving the age old ‘What’s for dinner?’ question. If done correctly, (meaning foods meet standards and taste buds of your family) you will produce a low stress dinner hour with less clean up after the meal, save money, and more free time to spend with your family.” Defined by a mom who has been cooking this way for years!
Hi, my name is Michelle and I am the busy mom of 7, ages 15-6. I work full-time outside the home and in any given season 3 or more of my children are playing sports or are involved in extracurricular activities. My husband is a pastor who has some unusual hours so the burden of planning, preparing and serving the meals for our family is a task that is not easily shared if we were to start each meal from scratch at the dinner hour. By preparing meals using the once a month cooking method, everyone in the family who can read and/or work the appliances is able to help out with the meals at dinner time.
This all started 9 years ago when I was given a book from a friend called Once a Month Cooking by MaryBeth Lagerborg and Mimi Wilson. (Yes, you can purchase this book and they will walk you through the process just like they did for me! I recommend placing it on your Christmas wish list if you’re interested.) As I read the book I thought “Wow” here is a concept I can grasp: Cook one time a month and feed the family with relative ease from here on out.
The book gives recipes, tips on storage, grocery lists for the meals that you are making, and step-by-step instructions on the cooking day process. However, after reading the book, I began to realize that I needed a way to do this that was a bit more fun and exciting. So I called a friend, loaned her the book, and she was hooked. We set a date and started shopping.
After cooking with a friend, and having a blast that first time, when it was time to cook again she was not available, so I asked a new friend. It snowballed from there and now there is a list of 35+ ladies that enjoy cooking in a group. Many of these women know what they need to do to provide for their family, but for one reason or another are worn out cooking for their families. Hence, we morphed into a large group of women who desire to serve our families, and since we are doing it together we can fellowship at the same time.
Getting Your Group Organized
When you cook as a group (more than 2 ladies) I suggest you have someone serve as the leader or point person.
Find a location at which you can cook all at the same time. Choose based on your location and how many women can cook at one time. Places like fellowship halls are great for large groups; personal homes can usually host a group of 4 or 5 comfortable. A group of 8 women could cook in two homes; one house doing beef dishes and another house doing chicken dishes.
As the leader, I choose a date and the recipes for main meals, desserts, and breakfast foods that we’ll be cooking that month and email it out to the group. They respond back if they can cook on that date. The cooking group is limited to the space that you have to cook in.
After I know who is cooking, I send out an email of each meal’s ingredients so that each cook can choose the meals they want to make. I record each cook’s meal selections and the number of times they desire to make the meal as well as any special exceptions---like no onions. From there, all the cooks are responsible for taking the remaining weeks before the cooking day to shop and sort their menu items.
Shopping
Now the part in the definition about once a month cooking being inexpensive does not happen right from the start. There is some significant budgeting that you should do in advance of your first cooking day. If you are on a budget, you should start planning at least 4 -6 weeks in advance of your first cooking day so that you don’t spend all your grocery allowance at once.
There are some things that you can purchase in advance if you are just considering the idea. These items are more expensive and, even if you never get to the cooking stage, these items will not go to waste in your kitchen. Items like reliable freezer bags, heavy aluminum foil, meats that are on sale and can be frozen, pasta (while not expensive has a great shelf life) and cheeses that also can be frozen until just prior to cooking day.
If you are on a budget, always start shopping in your own pantry. Items that are found there can be set aside immediately and crossed off your shopping list.
Arrange your shopping list by meats, canned goods, pastas, frozen foods, fresh produce, and dairy products. Again if budgeting, start shopping early and don’t wait until the week before.
Organizing the Ingredients
Now what in the world does that look like you ask – well it is really simple!
Let’s say that you are cooking 12 meals. Get 12 brown grocery sacks and write on the outside of each sack the meal name and number assigned to it and your last name (Remember you are cooking with a group and clearly need to mark all your food items). As you shop and go through your pantry looking for ingredients, you will place all the ingredients for each numbered recipe in the matching numbered bag.
For example, recipe #1 is Chili. You have a brown grocery bag labeled #1 Chili – and your last name. Now inside that bag will be your 1 gallon zip lock storage bag for freezing the meal in, canned tomato sauce and paste, kidney beans, canned chopped tomatoes and all your seasonings measured out in a small sandwich bag. Make sure all the items are clearly labeled with your last name and the recipe number. A sharpie marker works the best.
The week before cooking day, I then circulate “What to do the week before Cooking Day” instructions. These are the instructions for sorting as well as any precooking that needs done.
Going back to the example of the Chili, under the instructions for recipe #1 it would say “sort and label dry ingredients, don’t forget to include your 1 gallon zip lock freezer bag, precook your hamburger, drain and place in a storage container, chop one cup of onion and place in a storage container labeled in the same fashion as the dry goods. “
This would continue for all the meals that each cook is making regardless if they are making 12 meals or 40. You would go through each step to prep all the meals that you are taking to cooking day.
Cooking Day
By this point if you aren’t completely overwhelmed, then it’s time for our Once a Month Cooking day (on steroids). At this stage, all the planning, shopping and prep work is done---regardless of whether you prepare all the recipes on the list or if you just do a few (which is what I recommend to first time cooks). Now it’s time to meet up with your cooking group and have fun.
Bright and early on cooking day you’ll load up your car with all your dry storage bags (which can be done the night before) and your two coolers (one for raw meats and one for precooked meats and vegetables). Remember when you are packing up your ingredients all things should be labeled.
Setting up the Cooking Site
The leader sets up the cooking site in advance by designating an area for coolers and making a place card for each recipe with the number and name so all cooks will place their dry good bags on this spot when they empty their cars. Start coffee, you will need it. Set up cooking stations for two cooks per table. If you have the space, a 6 foot table with large mixing bowls and any utensils that may be needed is also great to have.
When the cooks start to arrive, you’ll place all the coolers in one area. The dry goods are sorted by recipe number so each cook will drop their brown grocery bag # 1 with all the other #1 bags, the #2 bags all together, etc.
Let’s Cook!
Now the question is how do we cook? Have we not just spent a week or more shopping and prepping our food?
As the leader, I start the day with prayer and then divide the ladies into teams of two. Each team gets a recipe, and it does not matter if they are personally making that meal or not, they are responsible for making the meal for all the cooks who are.
Let go with our example of recipe #1 again, Chili. I give the written recipe to a team. They will also receive a list of all the cooks who are preparing that meal, how many times they are making it, and preparation labels for on the outside of each finished meal’s storage container, ready to go to the freezer.
The team would gather the dry goods bags from the bags marked #1 and search the coolers for meats/cheeses and veggies for all items marked #1. They would return all the items to the work station. Check off that they have all the ingredients for each cook and begin to prepare the largest vat of chili anyone has ever seen. Yes, that is correct!! All the ingredients from all the cooks get mixed together and then split into the individual cook’s storage containers marked with an instruction label on the outside. Within a span of 30 minutes a team of two can prepare a meal of Chili 10 or more times.
The only time the ingredients don’t get mixed together is if there is an exception to the recipe (like no onions or no peppers), and then that cook’s meal would get prepared separately.
Do you see the blessing and the benefits to cooking in mass? Friendship and fellowship. Meals ready to serve for a month. Less cooking time.
To close, let me just share with you a story from our last Once a Month Cooking day. We had 14 women cooking who started at 7 am on a Saturday morning at our church fellowship hall. We were done cooking and CLEANED UP by 2:20 PM (that included a small break for lunch) and we made 286 meals in that amount of time. Let me do the math for you---we assembled 40 meals an hour cooking in this manner.
If you have any questions, you can contact Michelle at michellelingle (@) verizon (dot) net.
wow - what an awesome time of fellowship, not to mention the payoff of meals for a month! Thanks so much for sharing this - I've heard about it/thought about it before, but it sounds super intimidating at first...your breaking it down helped tremendously! Thanks much!
ReplyDeleteI've always wanted to give this a try, but just haven't been brave enough:-) I often do cook up things and freeze, but not regularly
ReplyDeleteI learned from Michelle and once the first month is past it really is easy!
ReplyDeleteWow--sounds like a great time with great benefits!!
ReplyDeleteHoly cow - that made me tired! But it sounds super cool. I've been to place where I have done somthing similar to this. It's grea to do with friends.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great post! Thanks for breaking it down so simply. Sounds like you're a pro at this.
ReplyDeleteThat is a very good explanation of once a month cooking. My husband and I do OAMC fairly regularly but not nearly as organized as you do it. Congrats on your organization skills. I really enjoyed reading this post.
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