Once a Month Cooking

I tried my hand at Once a Month Cooking for the first time...shew, I am tired!  The kind of tired that making 10 breakfasts, 8 lunches, and 16 dinners will make ya. 

I followed Once a Month Mom's Traditional Menu for May and this is what I made today -

Breakfasts

• Fluffy Whole Wheat Pancakes
• French Toast Casserole
• Chocolate Chip Banana Breakfast Cookies

Lunches

• Cheesy Meatloaf Muffins
• Hot Ham and Cheese Croissants
• Black Bean and Corn Stuffed Potatoes
• Southwestern Egg Rolls

Dinners

• Chili Dog Casserole
• Slow Cooked Buffalo Chicken
• Meatball Minestrone
• Chicken Marsala
• Baked Cheesy Chicken Penne
• Coconut Chicken
• Chicken Fajita Soup
• Sweet Mustard Beef**

Basically, how the website has it set up is you make a double batch of all the recipes and so you each each recipe twice during the month.  I can handle that.    Also on the website, there are month menus for whole foods, diet foods, gluten free, and vegetarian.  I will probably do the whole food one next month.  However, I chose the traditional food this month because when I looked over the menus I realized we had a lot of the ingredients needed for the traditional food menu, which would save us money.  Bonus!!

Speaking of money - how much did this cost me? 
I printed off the grocery list (another cool thing about the site - you put in how many people you are feeding and it adjusts the grocery lists and menus accordingly!) and went through what we had on hand.  I had several of the ingredients (for example I had a TON of frozen chicken and did not need to buy any chicken) including most of the spices and pantry staples (flour, cornstarch, sugar, etc).   I hit up Aldi first and then went to Walmart for everything I couldn't get there.  I spent about $130 on groceries needed to cook this menu (though I am not sure how much it would cost if I had to buy everything).  Not bad at all!

The night before
I followed the instructions on the Once a Month mom website and we grilled the chicken for the Chicken Fajita soup the night before (we were grilling out anyway).  I baked the potatoes needed for the Black bean and corn stuffed potatoes and threw them and the cooked chicken in the fridge.  I also made sure that all of our meat (chicken, hamburger) was in the fridge to thaw overnight.

The big day
I started cooking at about 11 am.  I cooked all day until 8:30 pm following the step by step instructions on what to do when.  It worked really well!  I took a break mid day for a nap and had several times when I stopped and played with Fisher.  I like cooking but I often feel so rushed cooking when I have a hungry toddler and my own stomach is growling.  So it was actually really nice to spend the whole day in the kitchen and not being rushed.  I did make quite a mess and used a ton of dishes!  I ran our dishwasher twice during the time I was cooking and I also hand washed several things that I needed quickly.  When all was said and done, Shawn came in and cleaned the kitchen up.  He spent probably thirty minutes cleaning. 

I feel accomplished!!  Our deep freeze is half way filled with cooked foods!  I am super excited that I have food for the majority of those nights when I come home from work feeling like blah-I-don't-want-to-cook.  I hope this keeps us away from eating out.  However, one thing I like about this plan is that there are still plenty of nights that we can eat whatever we feel like.  I love grilling out in the summer and of course eating out with friends and family - so I liked that I didn't make 30 dinners and would feel like we needed to stick with the menu and eat them so they wouldn't be wasted. 

  I will let yall know how the food actually tastes - but from my taste tests throughout the day, I think it is going to be pretty good.  I have a feeling Fisher is going to love the Chili Dog casserole (one I am not looking forward to myself) and I can't wait to have the French Toast casserole this weekend!