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Bookswithtea
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I have a rather large stash of the old Gentle Spirit magazines (now defunct protestant mag) that I pull out when I am looking for inspiration in homemaking, particularly in the kitchen. I'm feeling overwhelmed with getting everything done right now. Going to the grocery store regularly is taking too much time. I do have access to a coop, but its not a working coop. There's a 10% handling fee added by the family hosting the coop, and this makes it too expensive for us. I only use it for bulk grains that are hard to get elsewhere. Our nearest warehouse style store is almost an hour away. I go once every 2-3 months or so.
I need a way to make sure healthy meals are happening without breaking our bank account. And I want the foods in our home to nourish the soul, too, to create warm memories for my children.
I was reading an article today about gearing up for the school year. The author recommended the following:
Breakfast--fruit and hot cereals M-F
She recommended 3 different kinds of hot cereals and bought them in 50 lb bags through the coop (she had 9 children at the time).
Lunch--muffins/bread and homemade soups M-F. She recommended freezing lots of blanched chopped carrots and onions ahead of time, along with precooking and freezing lots and lots of beans, rice and barley, then adding them to a pot each morning along with whatever is on hand to make it different each day.
Dinner is once a month cooking.
Special meals and fun stuff like pancakes or cinnamon rolls are reserved for the weekend.
I've been musing on this all afternoon. I see how this could really simplify things and is certainly nutritious and economical. My family can never get enough homemade bread and muffins.  It makes sense to me.
We already do the oatmeal thing through the coop. I've never had rolled barley before. Does anyone else know if this is any good, and how one cooks it?
For breakfast and lunch, I'm wondering if my kids would just die of boredom from 5 days a week of hot cereal or soup. How do you think your kids would respond, or do you have any ideas for inspiring kids to give it a try?
Are there any once a month cooks here? I did this years ago when our family was small and we had no children old enough to be homeschooling. Now the proportions would be sooooooooo much larger than what I used to do. I'm a bit nervous to take it on, knowing how much work it was when I pregnant with #2. Then again, we saved so much money when we did this, and we were rarely in a situation where we had to resort to hot dogs or fast food. And now I have a couple of kids who are old enough to actually help with the process. This could count as school, right...volume cooking??? 
I did bake 2 weeks worth of bread today. I'm going to do 2 more weeks worth tomorrow morning. It looks so pretty in the freezer and now at least I don't have to hit the store the next time I run out of bread (I have gotten out of the habit of regular milling/baking)!
I'm thinking I might try once a month cooking and once a month bread baking (not on the same day, of course).
If you have done this kind of thing in the past or currently, and have any suggestions or advice, I'd be so grateful.
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mothering ds'93 dd'97 dd'99 dd'02 ds'05 ds'07 and  due 9/10
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mom2mpr
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I haven't done it to the extent you mentioned-with breakfast and lunch planned out. I have trouble with lunches and may try the soup and muffin idea-though I worry about boredom with my kiddos too! Maybe 2-3 days/week soups and muffins )
I did try to make a months worth of dinners a few times using a book called Frozen Assests-Lite and Easy, and while it WAS nice to not have to really cook most nights, the day of cooking was AWFUL. It just didn't work for my family. My kids needed me too much. You might have a babysitter or two and it might be easier.
I have found cooking double works much better for me. Making sauce, double or triple it! And some of the recipes in the Frozen Assets are our favorites and I make one for dinner and two for the freezer. So, if it is good frozen you can bet I am making a freezer asset at the same time as dinner for that night. Same ingredients, one mess! Also like Saving Dinner and a lot of her recipes are good frozen.
My new system involves making a menu for 2 weeks of dinners and shopping for everything that will stay and freeze the first week(yes, usually 2 carts), the second week I just get the perishables that would not have made it to the second week--a quick run in while ds is at piano or choir. This is just what works here-and I have to go to the grocery every week anyhow--mostly for fruit, vegies and dairy. And I have found this has decreased our food bill some.
I do throw a loaf or two of bread in the breadmaker every Monday am and some weeks we don't eat both loaves so another asset in the freezer--we don't eat a lot of sandwiches-got really burnt out a few years ago :)
I love to share these housekeeping ideas, no one around here will talk menus(they think I am crazy!) or grocery shopping(I don't have a "life")or even how to try to keep the house clean...
Anne
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Bridget
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Bookswithtea wrote:
I was reading an article today about gearing up for the school year. The author recommended the following:
Breakfast--fruit and hot cereals M-F
She recommended 3 different kinds of hot cereals and bought them in 50 lb bags through the coop (she had 9 children at the time).
Lunch--muffins/bread and homemade soups M-F. She recommended freezing lots of blanched chopped carrots and onions ahead of time, along with precooking and freezing lots and lots of beans, rice and barley, then adding them to a pot each morning along with whatever is on hand to make it different each day.
Dinner is once a month cooking.
Special meals and fun stuff like pancakes or cinnamon rolls are reserved for the weekend.
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Wow, this is incredibly economical and nutritious. You could have lots of add-in options like dried fruit and nuts for the hot cereal. You would have to be talented at changing the style and consistancy of the soup but it's very doable.
The once a month cooking for dinners might do me in, but I have not tried it since I my kids got older. Maybe it would go better than I think. Hmmm.
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God Bless,
Bridget, happily married to Kevin, mom to 8 on earth and a small army in heaven
Our Magnum Opus
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Bookswithtea
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Bridget wrote:
Wow, this is incredibly economical and nutritious. You could have lots of add-in options like dried fruit and nuts for the hot cereal. You would have to be talented at changing the style and consistancy of the soup but it's very doable.
The once a month cooking for dinners might do me in, but I have not tried it since I my kids got older. Maybe it would go better than I think. Hmmm. |
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You think its doable? I am thinking maybe I've assumed its going to be harder (the once a month cooking part) than it actually will be. I did 16 loaves of bread in 2 mornings. If I had planned better (I ran out of vital gluten!) I could have easily doubled this and done it in one long day. I not only have helpers for the baking, but I also have helpers to watch the baby now. The more I think about it, I think I stopped all of this when I had all littlies and not enough hands to both be in the dough and also care for toddlers.
I'm *not* the best soupmaker, so that will take some time for me to learn to do it well. I'm thinking maybe I'll just try it for a week and see how it goes. I can always add 1/2 sandwiches instead of bread, a chunk of cheese with a muffin or a bowl of raw nuts, or some fresh fruit or salad to the table. The idealistic part of me thinks how lovely it will all look on the table...like Heidi and her grandfather! 
I may try freezing 2 weeks worth of meals first just to see how it goes, since the proportions are going to be so much larger than when I used to do this.
Anne, I know exactly how you feel about having no one to chat menu plans with. Even my hs mom friends think I'm looney.  I'm trying to decide if the Frozen Assets book is worth buying. I'm so tired of buying recipe books and not using them. How many does each meal usually serve? I have Saving Dinner. One of the things I like about that book is that each meal is 6 servings to begin with. I hadn't though to see if there are freezable meals in that book. Maybe I'll flip through it this weekend.
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Blessings,
~Books
mothering ds'93 dd'97 dd'99 dd'02 ds'05 ds'07 and due 9/10
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marihalojen
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Bookswithtea wrote:
Lunch--muffins/bread and homemade soups M-F. She recommended freezing lots of blanched chopped carrots and onions ahead of time, along with precooking and freezing lots and lots of beans, rice and barley, then adding them to a pot each morning along with whatever is on hand to make it different each day.
For breakfast and lunch, I'm wondering if my kids would just die of boredom from 5 days a week of hot cereal or soup. How do you think your kids would respond, or do you have any ideas for inspiring kids to give it a try? |
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You could present it as fun cafeteria food! If they were at school it most likely would be repetitive food cycles they'd have no control over!
I don't know how inspiring that is...  But I think it is a great idea to try! Keep us updated on how it goes 
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Mother to Mariannna, age 13
The Mari Hal-O-Jen
SSR = Sailing, Snorkling, Reading
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Bookswithtea
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marihalojen wrote:
You could present it as fun cafeteria food! If they were at school it most likely would be repetitive food cycles they'd have no control over!
I don't know how inspiring that is... But I think it is a great idea to try! Keep us updated on how it goes |
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You know, this is a very good point. I am not sure where they got the idea that in one week they need to have 21 different meals over the course of a day. My oldest was whining recently that he's sick of sandwiches for lunch. Now if I offered him bean burritos daily (his favorite) I think that would be a different story!
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Blessings,
~Books
mothering ds'93 dd'97 dd'99 dd'02 ds'05 ds'07 and due 9/10
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Servant2theKing
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We tried once a month cooking years ago and found it too difficult and labor intensive for our household. A nice variation on the theme is to simply double or triple batches when you make a meal, side dishes, desserts, muffins, quick breads, or even individual ingredients (such as browned ground beef, pizza crusts, chopped vegetables, etc.) I call it banking meals and I absolutely LOVE pulling something out of the freezer when we're in a rush and having trouble fitting meal preparation into a busy day!
During the cooler Fall and Winter months, fix multiple batches when cooking and baking, and enjoy the fruits of your extra labour, especially during the holidays!
One extra tip...when you do the Math for multiplying a recipe, record the information right on your recipe card to save repeating those steps again later! Just yesterday we quadrupled homemade Mac 'n Cheese, ate a batch in 9 x 13 pan for dinner, saved one for weekend leftovers, and froze two more for later! It's really just as easy to make several as it is to make a single recipe! Start a bank of meals ('n such) today... you'll be awful grateful when you draw dividends from your investment!
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Bookswithtea
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Servant2theKing wrote:
We tried once a month cooking years ago and found it too difficult and labor intensive for our household. A nice variation on the theme is to simply double or triple batches when you make a meal, side dishes, desserts, muffins, quick breads, or even individual ingredients (such as browned ground beef, pizza crusts, chopped vegetables, etc.) I call it banking meals and I absolutely LOVE pulling something out of the freezer when we're in a rush and having trouble fitting meal preparation into a busy day!
During the cooler Fall and Winter months, fix multiple batches when cooking and baking, and enjoy the fruits of your extra labour, especially during the holidays!
One extra tip...when you do the Math for multiplying a recipe, record the information right on your recipe card to save repeating those steps again later! Just yesterday we quadrupled homemade Mac 'n Cheese, ate a batch in 9 x 13 pan for dinner, saved one for weekend leftovers, and froze two more for later! It's really just as easy to make several as it is to make a single recipe! Start a bank of meals ('n such) today... you'll be awful grateful when you draw dividends from your investment! |
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I hear you. But I have the worst time just doubling or tripling several nights a week, mostly because that extra 20 minutes or so that it takes is just enough to put my toddler over the edge. That's why I was thinking this might work better for me...if I can do it on a day when dh is home and can help with the babies, then I can feel free to really get my hands dirty.
I do record the ingredients for doubling/tripling, too. It makes things ten times easier when I go to do it again!
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Blessings,
~Books
mothering ds'93 dd'97 dd'99 dd'02 ds'05 ds'07 and due 9/10
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booklegger
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| Posted: Oct 07 2006 at 7:18pm | IP Logged
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I agree that the once a month approach won't work for everyone. My family did not really care much for the recipes in Frozen Assets. I still use my mothers old Make A Mix cookbook, primarily for the baked goods. It is easy to cook a large crock pot of beans and use them for a meal, while still having plenty for the freezer for meals down the road (bean burritos for a fan?)
When I did OAMC I did save a lot of time and a lot of money but the one or two days of prep is so labor intensive. Like I said my family didn't always care for the entree to begin with. When I used the approach these other women are talking about I knew I was already making a meal they approved. Doubling or even tripling the process is still a good amount of work but not nearly as Everest as meals for an entire month.
I like the Robin Miller approach of three meals out of the initial offering. This has been easier for me and I have been spending a lot less time in prep. I save every single leftover we have (except what was left on a plate, of course) and incorporate it into a meal later on. It's not just to be frugal, it buffs out a meal.
For instance, we had meatloaf this week. Last night we had pasta and the leftover meatloaf was cubed up in the pasta sauce. It really does taste like a meat ball anyway. No one in my family even notices. If I am going to cook pasta for a meal I cook a huge amount and toss it with some olive oil. The leftover pasta goes in a gallon freezer bag (bags) for later. Last nights meal was literally pasta from the freezer with leftover meatloaf in a jar of pasta sauce, pre-made rolls from the freezer and a vegetable. It isn't any harder to boil a big pot of pasta while making a major entree on a Monday night especially when I know most of the meals for the upcoming week will come from that one night.
I guess what I am saying is try to make and bake with a future meal in mind. Something as simple as an extra large meat loaf is a meal to begin with but easily becomes the meat for an italian pasta dish or even a home made beef and noodle hamburger helper type dish later. You can get three or four meals out of one main dish.
As far as soup for lunch every day, even I would get bored with the same old every day and I imagine the cook would be much more motivated by this than the diner. Like I said I use every leftover we produce and one way I do so is I put even the smallest amount of something in the freezer. I have those real small Ziplock circular containers. They hold a small amount but they also hold more than you would think. Leftover pulled pork with some leftover rice or potatoes in this small dish is an example of what going to be on a lunch plate sometime soon at my house. All I need to do now is pull out a leftover veggie and a corn bread muffin and it is a meal. If the "main dish" has been in the freezer long enough I won't even hear the complaint "this again?" Leftover steak is a steak salad or sandwich, leftover chicken is a quick pasta dish or a chicken salad sandwich.
Pasta for dinner one night.
Beans for dinner another.
Pasta fagili later.
Minestrone even later.
Still, a freezer bag that small amounts of the night's leftovers is combined in becomes a big pot of soup later on, too. The accumulation still serves in a sense when it comes to the OAMC approach. Even the juice of of a can of corn goes in. Maybe I just take it too far, it just works for me.
Here is my basic soup for the freezer that all other leftovers can be added to when we need a soup and sandwich night.
Big-Batch Vegetable Soup
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cups chopped onions
1 cup sliced celery
2 teaspoons italian seasoning
salt and pepper
3 cans vegetable or chicken broth (although I make my broth out of leftovers, too and in the crock pot so you can use store bought or homemade.)
1 can (28 ounces) diced tomatoes with juice
1 tablespoon tomato paste
8 cups mixed fresh or frozen vegetables
1. Heat oil in large stockpot over medium heat. Add onions, celery and seasoning. Cook, stirring for 5 to 10 minutes or until onions are soft.
2. Add broth, tomatoes and their juice, paste and 3 cups of water. Bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer for 20 minutes or so.
3. Add veggies. Return to a simmer. Cook, uncovered, until veggies are tender, 20 to 25 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Cool before storing.
This recipe is easily doubled or even tripled. Frozen in one serving containers would work for the lunch idea you have. This is the soup recipe I use the most often. Easy to make a lot up ahead of time and easy to alter with simple additions.
Hot cereal for breakfast every morning is a great idea and very healthy. On Sunday mornings when I make pancakes I make a LOT of pancakes. Those that arent eaten also go in the freezer and one little boy in particular is always thrilled when I pull them out on a week day for his breakfast. Same goes for muffins.
I didn't mean for my post to get this long. My main point really is that "batch cooking" diverts some of the monotony that OAMC can bring along. For me batching it allows for some more creativity.
Somewhere there is a balance that allows Mom less time in the kitchen while still making a family happy with the meal placed in front of them.
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Rebecca
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I think the breakfast and lunch ideas are fabulous. It really sounds so healthy to eat the hot cereal and fruit followed by the soup and bread for lunch.
My family eats the same breakfast and lunches each week (Breakfast on Monday is cereal and fruit, Tuesday is toast, eggs and fruit every week, etc.) but our dinners are on a three week rotation. When I make the dinner, I make one for the next rotation. For example, if we are having roast beef on Sunday, I make another and freeze it for the roast beef day three weeks down the road. It does not really take any longer that way and dinner is in the freezer for the next time.
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mom2mpr
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Bookswithtea wrote:
[QUOTE=Bridget]
Anne, I know exactly how you feel about having no one to chat menu plans with. Even my hs mom friends think I'm looney. I'm trying to decide if the Frozen Assets book is worth buying. I'm so tired of buying recipe books and not using them. How many does each meal usually serve? I have Saving Dinner. One of the things I like about that book is that each meal is 6 servings to begin with. I hadn't though to see if there are freezable meals in that book. Maybe I'll flip through it this weekend.
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I bought the Frozen Assets from Rainbow a few years ago. I flung a lot of cookbooks but have about 12 now that I just cannot part with. Anyhow, recipes from Frozen Assests-Lite and Easy we have enjoyed, and like after freezing:
Macaroni and Beef(usually give to new Moms after a baby)
Tortilla Casserole(A favorite and EZ)
Lemon Mushroom Chicken
Herbed Pork Chops
Italian Pasta Bake
PAsta e Fagioli
Cool Lime Burritos
Just flying through the book quickly it looks like all the recipes serve 6 people.
From Saving Dinner I usually make extra and freeze:
Stuffed Quesadillas--Another big favorite-I triple the recipe and bake them instead of frying, easier to get more cooked quicker and maybe better for us?
Crock Pea Soup
Beany Burritos
Crock Beef Sandwiches
PArmesan DRumsticks
I am off to bed...
Anne
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4Real Forums : Tea and Conversation
Topic: Once a Month Cooking/Breakfasts/Lunches..
