once a month cooking

So I was told about this web site called Once A Month Mom (onceamonthmom.com) that gets you cooking just once a month for your family! You can get a menu, grocery list, recipes, labels for your food and a list of what to do when, all from this gal on her site and it's free! So fabulous!

You're "supposed" to do it with a partner and then you split all the food you make. It's "supposed" to take 8-12 hours for 2 people to do all the cooking. Well, I decided to split the recipes in half and just do it by myself. It took me a little longer than 12 hours, but I split the shopping and cooking over 2 days and took my time. (I have a big group of friends who got together and split into teams, but I missed this months team list.)

I did change it up a bit from what was posted, because some of the recipes aren't things we usually eat, but mostly stuck to what I was given. And then some of the items that I purchased weren't as "high quality" as I had hoped- example: I was going to make the stuffed buffalo chicken, but my chicken breasts weren't so great, so I chopped it up and made enchiladas instead. The cost wasn't too bad and if you average it out over all the meals I got from it (39 total) it comes out to around $7.70 a meal. I think that next month I could do it for even less! I had to buy some spices and other things that I didn't have on hand and now that I do, I can cut that cost.

I also think that next month I will take advantage of the labels that are provided. I was out of ink and couldn't get any (sometimes I wish Pagosa wasn't so far from Office Depot...) so I just wrote my own labels.

Each meal is supposed to feed 4 ADULTS and I'm pretty excited about that! As Jason eats enough for two we'll see if there's is enough in each meal for him or if he winds up raiding the kitchen late at night because he's still hungry! But I'm not too worried because Katie and I don't eat a whole lot and Liam and Evie combined only eat about one adult size portion.

All in all, it was a really fun experience and I am looking forward to doing it again next month!

Here's what $300 worth of groceries looks like in the back of my car...

2 days and 20 hours of cooking, one cut finger and 2 sore feet later, I have 26 lunches/dinners and 13 breakfasts in my deep freezer! Yay me!

I've got: lemon chicken, tangy marinated steak, tomato basil burgers,

Italian flank steak pinwheels, a bag of spaghetti sauce...

...chicken pesto wraps, buffalo chicken wraps, chicken enchiladas,

spicy beef taco filling, black bean chicken salad, summer harvest soup...

...homemade strawberry pop tarts, cinnamon rolls w/ icing,

french toast sticks and fruity breakfast wraps!!!

6-19-10 Special Note:

Thank you Tricia for posting my blog under Saturday Stumbles on your web site! WOW! I feel honored! To those of you who have posted comments asking where I got the recipes, etc. ~ everything is from onceamonthmom.com under the Summer 2010 OAMM Menu. There is a list of what's on that menu posted below with notes as to what I did differently.

Blessings, Brynn

Breakfasts-

Fruity Breakfast Burritos (LOVE these!)

Harvest Cinnamon Rolls (WOW!)

Frozen Fruit Cups (I didn't make these. I added French Toast Sticks and Pop Tarts- both recipes from OAMM!)

Lunches-

Summer Harvest Soup

Grilled Chicken Pesto Wraps

Black Bean & Mango Chicken Salad (Jason doesn't do mango well, makes his mouth go numb, so I subbed in peaches.)

Buffalo Chicken Wraps

Dinners-

Stuffed Buffalo Chicken (Lousy chicken breasts, so I chopped it up and made enchiladas (my own recipe.))

Lemon Chicken

Beef Potato Wraps (Didn't do these. Got a taquito recipe from OAMM, but then I had issues w/ my tortillas, so I bagged the meat and will use it for tacos.)

Sun Dried Tomato & Capers Pasta Sauce (Didn't do this either, I have another pasta sauce recipe I like, so since some sauce was required for the soup- I made a pot, used what I needed then froze the rest.)

Tangy Steak Marinade

Italian Flank Steak Pinwheels

Bacon and Blue Burgers (Didn't make these, I don't eat much red meat, so I just opted to not make them.)

Tomato Basil Hamburgers