31 Days of Homemaking Day 21

Categories Homemaking
Comments 1 Comment
, ,

Give Once a Month Cooking a try,

Once  a Month Cooking sessions consist of shopping, cooking and freezing your meals for a whole month. I tried this a few times myself but I just didn’t mesh with this type of freezer cooking. Now I loved having so many meals ready to go in the freezer for the month. Just thaw and heat and eat. What could be easier. I just dreaded the weekend of shopping, prepping, cooking, cooling and then freezing so many meals.

Don’t get me wrong there are lots of homemakers that do this every month. Some homemakers get together with friends and each friend cooks a few meals and then they do a swap of meals. Some others will team up with a friend and cook all their meals together and split the meals. There are many different ways to do OAMC session. There are lots of homemakers that use this method and love it.

I have just found in my experience the supplies I need to make all the dishes are never on sale at the same time. So I end up paying a lot for a few items and purchase some on sale. But if you usually end up going out to dinner instead of cooking at home, OAMC could really save you money even if you don’t get the ingredients on sale.

Here are my list of Pro’s and Con’s to freezer cooking once a month

Pro’s

  • The mess and clean up are done on one day, not every night.
  • Shopping is out-of-the-way in one big trip. You only need to pick up  fresh items from the store the rest of the month.
  • Quick and easy dinner prep all month-long, thaw, heat and eat.
Con’s
  • All the work is done in one day and can make it a long day.
  • Not all ingredients will be on sale on the shopping day.
  • There is less variety in your menu unless you make many different meals which adds to your work too.
I have found that a hybrid of OAMC works best for me. Here is how I do my freezer cooking.
 When I see a particular meat item on sale I will decide what recipes I want to make with the meat. Then I will make a big batch of the recipe or recipes and freeze for later use. An example of this method is when I get hamburger on sale I will cook up some of the ground beef to be used in pasta sauce, tacos and build your own haystack recipes. I will make some into meatballs and some of the ground hamburger will be frozen in 1/2 to 3/4 pound packages. It saves time and I am only handling the raw meat once.
By making up my freezer meals when the most expensive item, the meat is on sale, I can save and still have a stocked freezer. I don’t end up spending a day or two cooking, only an hour or two. Just these few changes has really helped freezer cooking works for me.
If you decided to give OAMC a try, be sure to adapt it to how you eat and how you shop. One size does not fit all when it come to freezer cooking. You may love shopping cooking all your meals for the month at one time or freezer cooking with the sales may be a better fit.
Do you do a once a month cooking session? Or more of a batch freezer cooking session?
[signoff]

One Comment

  1. I have not tried OAMC before because the thought of planning out and then cooking a whole month worth of meals overwhelms me! I usually make a double batch of something, put half of it in the freezer and then serve the other half that night for dinner. I have also tried making 2-3 night’s worth of meals in one afternoon, then freezing them to use later. Freezer cooking is definitely a help.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *