Preparing for June (Month 4)

The Planning

I put a lot of time into preparing for my 4th month of freezer cooking. First I took an inventory of what I still had in the freezer: a pot roast, a rack of ribs, shredded pork from a pork shoulder in March, steaks (gotta love BOGOs), and leftover cooked chicken from several meals. I used this as a starting point. The shredded pork could be used for enchiladas, the chicken could be shredded and used for chicken chili, and the roast marinaded and tossed in a crockpot. I made these my starting point.

Then I spent a good chunk of time going through my new cookbook, "Don't Panic-Dinner's in the Freezer." This book had several good tips. The most important one, for me, was on lining baking dishes and flash freezing meals. Once the meal is frozen into the shape of the dish, it can be removed and inserted into a freezer bag. The disposable baking pans I had purchased at the start of my OAMC ventures were on their last leg and the really took up too much space in the freezer. The cookbook was worth it just for this tip (even if it should have been common sense)! The book also had a lot of tasty sounding recipes. I picked out a few, my husband picked out one ("Oh, cook that!") and I got motivated to try making my own pizza dough and dinner rolls from scratch!

Once I figured out what meals I wanted to cook, I sat down at the computer and made up a Meal Chart. Then I went meal by meal and made a Pantry List. These are the items I typically have on hand. I also made a Shopping List. Once all my lists were complete I went through the kitchen with my lists. If I saw I was missing something from my Pantry List, I added it to the Shopping List. When I saw I already had something on the Shopping List I simply crossed it off.

Finally, I settled down to work out the best way of processing all the meals. This part was harder for me but for my first attempt I think it turned out well.

The Meals

White Chicken Chili (2 meals)
Texas-Style Lasagna (at least 2 meals)
Broccoli Cheese Soup (the hubby's pick)
Upside-down Fettuccine Bake
Pasta Sauce (enough for two spaghetti dinners)
Pork Enchiladas (2 meals)
London Broil
Beef Pot Roast (2 meals)
Chicken Cheddar BBQ Burgers (2 meals)
Chicken Cacciatore (2 meals)
Pizza (2 pizzas with homemade dough)
Macaroni
Dijon Pork Loin Roast
Ribs

May : Month 3 (I'm getting better)

Despite the various disasters, April's cooking day went relatively well. Having a game plan really helped, the two-week cycle ended up being the right amount of food for my family, and we discovered some new family favorites.

I made the decision to repeat the same cycle for a second month. This time I made sure that my husband knew just what was on the shopping list before sending him off to the store. I also made sure he was home to help prevent the spillage of the last cooking day. With his help I managed to get everything put together with very little trouble. We even made enchiladas with the pork leftover from the month before! As an added bonus, ribs were on sale buy 1, get 2 free and pot roasts were buy one, get one free...SCORE!

At the end of the day my freezer was packed with a month's worth of meals and then some. It was a tight fit with the extra meat but we managed to make it work. At this point I started thinking that it might not be a bad idea to invest in a separate freezer. I hate passing up a good meat sale (and we did pass up some other good deals this month) just because I'm out of space.

After 3 months of freezer cooking I really felt like a had a good grip on the processes involved and I started looking for ways to expand. Up to this point I had only done dinners, but what about lunches and easy side dishes? I searched out another freezer cookbook, this time one with different freezing techniques and a different selection of recipes. I finally settled on "Don't Panic, Dinner's in the Freezer." I also decided to try to create my own "cycle" for month 4. I liked the way my first cookbook broke everything down into simple steps, I loved some of the recipes, but we were really missing some of our previous monthly staples. I set the goal of creating my own monthly meal plan, complete with charts, shopping lists, and processing instructions.

April : The Meals

As I go through this I will be posting my monthly meal plans as well as recipes for some of our favorite meals. I hope that it will show just how much can be prepared in a day as well as the sorts of meals that can be prepared in advance. I also hope to eventually include examples of my monthly plans, shopping lists, etc.

Southwestern Egg Casserole
Four Seasons Pizza
Macaroni
Upside-down Fettucini Bake
Coronation Chicken
Chicken and Dumplings
Chicken Durango
Chicken Scampi
Texas-Style Lasagna
Beef Pot Roast
Hamburgers Teriyaki
George Romney Meatballs
Vegetable Soup with Meatballs
Baked Mediterranean Cod
Pasta Sauce
Salsa Verde Pork

April : Month 2 (or enter the klutz)

My first attempt at OAMC left me feeling completely frazzled. I went in thinking I had a plan only to find out that I really didn't. I was very happy with the results though. We didn't really save any money the first month but we also didn't go out to eat or pick up any fast food. I enjoyed having healthy, home-cooked meals without the hassle. Put it in the fridge to thaw in the morning, pop it in the oven in the evening, and voila!

After having a month to thoroughly go through my new cookbook I picked out a two-week cycle that seemed to have the best sounding recipes. Looking at the serving sizes I decided that it would be more than enough food to last us a month. I wrote up my shopping list and sent my husband to the store while I prepared the kitchen.

I followed the processing instructions. I chopped this, sliced that, and started some chicken cooking. Then I was ready to assemble my first meal of the day. Enter the first problem of the day --my husband didn't realize that the grocery list consisted of the front AND back of the page. I couldn't assemble the meal because I only had half my ingredients! He went back to the store while I continued on with what I had.

That hurdle jumped I forged ahead. My daughter was out with her grandmother, my husband was at his weekly trap-shoot and I was making good progress. Enter the eternally accident prone me (aka the klutz). I was all ready to finish up my macaroni dish. All I had to do was mix the cooked noodles with my cheese and ham mixture and put it in a freezer bag. I didn't think my largest mixing bowl would be large enough for the mixing so I decided to put it all in the bag, seal it up tight, shake it a bit, and call it good. Except I must not have sealed the bag tight enough...my macaroni and cheese became a macaroni mess! Luckily most of it ended up on a clean counter so I was able to salvage the meal.

I was a little frustrated, mostly with myself, but the end was in sight so I kept going. The next few meals assembled without a hitch and I was feeling pretty good. Only 3 meals to go! Of course I forgot just how accident prone I am. Chicken and Dumplings...my arch nemesis. A very simple recipe...chopped veggies, shredded chicken, and some liquids, combine in a bag and freeze. Adding solids to a bag solo is pretty easy, adding the large amount of liquids...not so much. I tried holding the bag with one hand and the bowl of liquids in the other. The liquids dribbled out. I tried setting the bag in a mixing bowl to catch the dribbles while I poured...the bag tipped over and dumped soup all over the counter, including on my clean dishes. Eventually I got it all together but I swore that the next time I would make sure I had someone around to help.

Overall following the plan from the cookbook helped a lot. I found that their processing order didn't completely fit my style but it did help me get organized. Once again my freezer was full and I had 30 days of stress-free dinners.

March : Month 1

I ordered my cookbook in mid Feb. and a week or so later it arrived. It was laid out in an orderly fashion...a list of meals followed by a pantry list, a grocery list, and preparation instructions. There were several "cycles" to choose from, both 30 days and 2 weeks. The thought of trying 30 new recipes at once, or even 14, was a little frightening. I picked a few I liked, picked a few tried & true recipes I thought would freeze well, and tossed in a frozen pizza or two for a total of 12 meals to cook (14 counting the pizzas). This doesn't sound like much, but for our family of 2.5 it lasted a full month.
The month's menu went something like this:

Stuffed shells
Jerk Chicken
Jerk Pork
Breaded Pork Chops
Basil Pan Burgers
Home-made pasta sauce
Pizza
Enchiladas
Pepper-Lime Chicken
Beef Stew
Tex-Mex Chicken & Rice Casserole
Smoky Black Bean & Rice Stoup
Chili-mac
Chicken Tetrazini

I tried to follow the general plan from the cookbook: do all the prep work first, group similar cooking items together, assemble meals while others are cooking/cooling. It seemed so simple. Boy was I wrong!

First of all, trying to follow a plan that was really more a general idea than a plan did not work so well. I found myself flitting from dish to dish without really accomplishing anything. I would get to a point where I was supposed to add such and such only to realize that I had forgotten to chop it. I ran out of pots and pans several times since I had not planned around what pans I had and at what stage of cooking I would need them. To put it simply, it was a mess.

I spent the entire day cooking 12 fairly simple meals. By fairly simple I mean that some of them simply involved making a marinade (home-made Jerk sauce...yum!) and dumping it in a freezer bag with the meat. The dishes were piled up, the kitchen was a mess, I was completely frazzled, but the freezer was full. I was proud of myself for accomplishing what I set out to do and I was pretty sure I would not be doing it again. There was no way it was worth it.

Again...boy was I wrong! That month my daughter got sick and needed a lot of extra attention. If it weren't for that freezer full of meals we would have been eating take out until she got better. Then my husband and I caught it and again I was so glad I had meals already prepared. By the end of the month I decided that maybe it was worth the headache after all. I decided to try again in March, this time by the book.

"Lets start at the very beginning..."

My mom taught me to cook at a fairly young age. By the time I was in high school I was cooking one dinner a week for our family. I HATED it. I understood that I was learning a valuable life skill but I just could not feel comfortable in the kitchen. Luckily, I married a man who loves to cook. We had a good arrangement, he cooked and I took care of the rest. That sounds a little unbalanced work-wise but believe me, it was worth it to be able to stay out of the kitchen.

Fast-forward several years to when we finally felt we were ready to become parents. I had fond memories of home-cooked meals, the family sitting down to dinner together, and the wonderful smells that were always present. I wanted this for my family but I was going to have to get friendly with the kitchen. So off I went to purchase my first cookbook. After trying a few recipes I discovered that I actually liked to cook...so long as I had a solid game plan, or recipe in this case.

I've since become very comfortable in the kitchen and I enjoy the time I spend cooking. The problem these days is getting a good meal on the table in a timely manner with a very active preschooler running around. Enter Once-A-Month-Cooking (OAMC). I first heard about this from a friend and then from several "mommy" blogs. The more I read about this method of cooking, the more interested I became. One day of cooking and then easy, home-cooked meals for the rest of the month...maybe even saving money in the process...sign me up! So off I went to order a book (Once a Month Cooking, Family Favorites by Mimi Wilson and Mary Beth Lagerborg)

This blog will share my attempts at OAMC, both the successes and failures. I hope that I might inspire others to give it a try, much as my friend inspired me, and to share what I have learned. Maybe fellow freezer cookers will learn something new from my trial and errors, or maybe they will just get a laugh at how inept I was starting out!