Once a Month Cooking

[mowingcorey]

Can anyone give advice/thoughts on once a month cooking and cooking in bulk? Can you recommend a cookbook or place to start? Thanks.

[JazzDad]

Hmmm. Cook large amounts and freeze portions in plastic zip bags? (I know, always some wise-xxx in every crowd.)

Do an internet search on frugal living.

[Pat]

Lots of foods freeze well and can be bagged in bags that are approved for boiling temperatures or microwave. You drop a bag in water and boil the water till the contents of the bag is heated enough. Alternatively you open the pouch a little with it in a bowl and microwave it till it is heated. Some foods will spatter a lot if given a chance.

You can cook up larger quantities of foods and place a serving of each dish in a compartmented plastic microwave/freezer safe container with sealing lid. Sort of like frozen TV dinners but DIY. You freze till needed then microwave in the compartmented container and you have a meal.

If no microwave, then things get harder. If no freezer things get a lot harder.

Pat

[miss_thenorth]

When I was in college, I did something similar--as in once a week cooking. I just cooked what I liked to eat, and froze the leftovers in single serving size meals. Just heated them up in the microwave, and things were good. It simplified things a great deal, and was cost effective as in I cooked regular sized meals- roast, porkchops etc, did some rice and mashed potatoes, and a veggies, made up a variety of meals. Then during the week, I wasn;t spending alot of time cooking, or mkaing impromptu visits at the local fast food joint, and had more time to party--I mean study. ahem...

There are good websites with recipes and grocery lists etc. I looked at them years ago, but they are out there.

Good Luck

[cajunman]

Guess some folks don't have the time to cook everynite or several nights per week.
I enjoy cooking and could cook 7 days a week.
Dont like frozen stuff.
The best thing to do is cook in volume and freeze your food, then nuke it when ready.

[mare]

Make-A-Mix Cookery and More Make-A-Mix Cookery are to great books that make basic mixes to use in a multitude of recipes. Meat Sauce mix has ten recipes, chicken mix has 9, mexican meat mix has 5, and so forth. there are mixes for drinks, desserts, appetizers, vegetables. You make the basic mix, freeze in portions and then use as desired. The books can be found used on amazon.com for a reasonable cost. I have been using this for over 15 years. Our daughter now uses the book. The recipes are cost effective and nutritious. Hope this helps.

[NSbound]

This also reminds me of University times. McDonalds would sometimes have buy-one-get-one-free for Big Macs. I would go in every day of the sale and BOGO, freeze them all, and nuke as required. The styrofoam containers came out of the microwave a bit bent, but I was happy! [img]/forums/images/icons/shocked.gif[/img]

[dana]

I have been wanting to try this but some of our dietary needs have changed recently so I haven't gotten around to it yet. There are a lot of good websites on the web with recipes and best ways to store.

[Bird]

We don't really try to cook large quantities as much to avoid cooking for long periods of time as for other reasons. Easter Sunday, our kids were coming to dinner after church, so I decided the day before to make twice baked potatoes. I bought a 10# bag of potatoes and once started, just decided to do the whole 10#. They're something that freeze well and are good reheated in the microwave (just finished eating one a couple of minutes ago). And this past weekend, Walmart had briskets for $.97 a pound, so I bought one, smoked it Monday night, sliced it Tuesday morning, put it up in ziploc vacuum bags and into the freezer. We'll thaw and warm it as needed for barbecue, or I like to chop some up, put it in the crockpot with 3 cans of mixed vegetables, a can of tomato sauce, a can of V-8 juice, and a bit of salt & pepper for a vegetable/beef soup to eat with cornbread.

[pinkie]

I can't imagine cooking only 1 time a month. Sure it sounds great but you would be cooking for days just for that month. I know some people who cook enough for 2 meals each time they cook and then they put the second one in the freezer for a later date. You would need good freezer containers and Zip-locs.