Once a month cooking

[FreshTressa]

So, I went in today for my first once a month cooking. They have it at this giant kitchen and everyone just pitches in and does one task, and at the end, everyone takes home however many dinners they ordered. I was there from 9-1 today.

It was like an assembly line. I spent the first two hours cutting ****ake mushrooms which was easy, and the second two hours putting chili's in the chilis relleno. It was actually kind of fun. I came out with 24 dinners for our family and it was $250, so, about 8 dollars per dinner.

Then tonight we ate the first dinner. It was SOOOO easy!! I just threw it in the oven, no mess, no thinking, and it was actually really good and both of my kids liked it and ate it.

I am really excited about doing this all the time. It is such time saver in our evening time with me taking night classes.

So far, it is a success!! I can't wait to try more of them.

 

[Serena]

My sil does this, but it's not that organized. Just her and two of her friends do it. She's got six girls under 12 so anything to save time for her works.

 

[FreshTressa]

Lol, they bleeped out some word of sheee-tok-eee mushrooms. How funny!

 

[Sheree Bobbins]

Yes. LOL about the ****ake mushrooms!

This sounds like a great idea. More power to you! Amazingly little time investment for so many meals!

 

[nealymouse]

HUH I have never heard of once a month cooking !!!

I hate to cook tell me more PLEASEEEEEE

 

[Kermit]

Nealymouse, once a month cooking is wonderful. It's basically just cooking up a bunch of meals up to a month ahead of time and freezing them. You use recipes that freeze well. It saves so much time because there are so many things you do over and over throughout the month, like browning ground meat and cooking onions. You make your menu for the month up ahead of time, and you brown several pounds of meat and cook several onions all at once. You can cook a month's worth of food in a fraction of the time it would take if you made one meal a night.

There are several cookbooks and websites devoted to once a month cooking. Search for once a month cooking, freezer cooking, and frozen assets.

 

[The Mystery Machine]

Do you have 24 different dinners? If so, what are they?

I think about doing OAMC (once a month cooking) all the time. It would be great to go somewhere and make it all up.

 

[Lars624]

I was at ****ake mushrooms! That filter catches everything
I would love cooking once a month....I'm gonna look for a websirte with info on that

 

[zulaya]

One of my friends runs a business teaching people how to do this and running workshops. I have to look up her website. You can check the menus and see what they use for suggested ideas once I find it.

Another good website is http://www.30daygourmet.com

I like the concept, I just can't make myself hang in the kitchen that long at a time yet.

Shiitake is the correct spelling for the mushrooms you used, but I think it is hilarious that the filter did that.

 

[Disney Doll]

What a smart idea!!!!! Even if you did once a month prep work (like you mentioned browning ground beef etc) it would probably save time!!!

 

[Cindy B]

Sounds like a great suggestion , but you know you can do it cheaper for your own family.

I easily do about a $4/$5 (at the most) per dinner for my family. (I have four people in my family).

I have done OAMC for a while, but stopped. THere , as Kermit suggested, are tons of websites devoted to it, and you would do it at your own home for much less money.

I am certain whoever "hosts" this is making money on the deal. I did have a website/article on how to do this at your own home with certain amount of chickens.. and to do it.

OAMC is a great concept if you can set aside the time to do it, and save great amount of money in the process.

 

[FreshTressa]

It is worth the extra money to me to not have to organize it myself and do the clean up. If I were really good at organizing meals, I wouldn't need this service!!

This way, I went to a place. They had this giant industrial kitchen inside of a business park and it was more like an assembly line, where each person had 1-2 jobs to do. The have 2 permanent chefs there, one lady that organizes it, and someone that does all the dishes.

About 30 people were there during my scheduled time, about 25% men and each person had one or two jobs at a station. That way, we never even had to worry about assembling it or thinking about it or cleaning up. They did all the clean up for us.

Yes, you could do it cheaper from home. Also, there is this other place where I live that does it, and does it cheaper, but I have heard their food isn't as good.

They also have ones that bring the finished dinners to your house, and people who come into your house and help you do it for the day.

For me, I liked going somewhere. It seemed the easiest and least stressful.

But people I know that do it at home love it too!

 

[chell]

Thanks for this thread. I'm going to have to see if we have anything like this in my area. It sounds like it would be fun to go do that also.

 

[luv2nascar]

I really wish we had a place were you could go and make meals like that
I've heard of businesses but we don't have any close by that you preregister for a class 2 hours & its $15 per meal 8 meal minimum
pick your meals ahead of time. Each meal feeds 4-6 people. You can chose to make two of the same meal to feed more people or have it twice. They have all the ingredients already prepared. You just go there and assemble the food into trays or bags etc to take home and freeze and I think it comes with little labels to tell you how to cook them.
If I could get 10 meals for $150 in 2 hrs to freez for the month I would do it in a heartbeat. If they were tasty.