Putting a nutritious home-cooked meal on the table at night poses a challenge for any mother. If you have a baby who happens to have a fussy period in the late afternoons, you face an even greater challenge. That’s why I was so thrilled to read about the concept of once-a-month cooking (OAMC) last year. OAMC involves buying groceries in bulk and cooking several batches of meals to freeze for later use. Buying in bulk can save a great deal of money, as can having a meal at the ready when you otherwise might have ordered take-out food. Cooking in batches saves time on daily meal planning, cooking and cleaning up!
Before you say, “I hate leftovers!” give OAMC a try! Many of the meals can be frozen uncooked and then defrosted and baked just as if they were made fresh that day.
At first I dipped my toe in the water by trying a few recipes like these that I found on the web. Then I ordered the book The Freezer Cooking Manual from 30 Day Gourmet: A Month of Meals Made Easy and found several recipes I liked. My mom agreed to help me spend four hours cooking about 16 meals at once. By the end we were exhausted and I soon realized that I would be better off cooking double or triple batches of whatever meal I was making each night for dinner. Now when I make Saucy Oven Pork Chops (one of my kids’ favorites from The Freezer Cooking Manual) I make one batch to cook that night and two more batches to freeze for later.
If you want to save even more time and effort, check out one of the OAMC shops popping up all over the place. Make a reservation if necessary, pay for 6 or 10 meals that generally serve six people each (most shops will let you split the meals into three-person servings although some will charge a slight fee), then go from station to station assembling the ingredients straight into a ziptop freezer bag or aluminum foil pan. In just two hours you can assemble two weeks’ worth of dinners–no shopping, no cooking and no cleaning up! Of course it costs a bit more to do it that way (anywhere from $8 to $22 dollars per meal depending on the shop and on how many servings you need) but it still ends up being cheaper than most restaurant meals. Keep in mind though that most freezer meals consist only of a main course and you will need to provide other side dishes such as vegetables or a salad on the day of the meal.
The other night I took a free Super Suppers 101 class. I met a couple of friends at the store at 6:30 p.m., enjoyed a glass of wine (how did I get to be 35 and never taste sangría before?), watched a demonstration and got to assemble a free meal to take home (I divided mine into two meals). If there isn’t a Super Suppers in your area, try Dream Dinners.
Are you a fan of OAMC? Do you have a recipe to share? Leave a comment!
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Those are great tips! When I freeze things in freezer bags I place them flat on top of a manila folder or something else stiff and perfectly flat (my freezer has ridges and holes) to help it freeze evenly and make it easier to defrost.
I haven’t tried that mashed potato trick but it sounds delicious!
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Hey! You beat me to the punch, I was going to post on this very topic! :)
I tried the OAMC a few times back before I had kids and quite honestly, it was just too much for me. But I quickly figured out (like you) that if I simply doubled or tripled a recipe a few nights a week that I could easily keep my freezer stocked. My week usually goes something like this…
1 night cook regular dinner
2 nights, cook double or triple dinner
1 night pull meal from the freezer
1 night eat leftovers
1 night eat out or eat from the freezer
So I really only cook about three nights a week.
My favorite freezer meals? Roasts, spaghetti, chili, casseroles… Two good tips?
1.) Freeze things flat in ziplock freezer bags after squeezing the air out of them. Once they’re frozen, you can stack them up in a row and they take up very little space. When it’s time to eat them, just drop the bag in a big pot of water and heat it back up. (Then it doesn’t dry out like it would in the oven or microwave.)
2.) Make your mashed potatoes with cream cheese instead of milk. They’ll freeze and thaw just fine, no lumpies or liquid separation. Plus, mashed potatoes are easy to make a ton of…nothing like having hot, yummy mashed potatoes one night without having to cook them. ;)
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