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Once-A-Month Cooking

Recipes / Tips and Tricks / Links

Once-a-month Cooking, or OAMC, is a wonderful time and money saver for busy families.  Also known as batch, freezer, or bulk cooking, it allows you to stock your freezer full of meals, so you do not have to spend a lot of time every night preparing food for your family.  

There are three ways to do OAMC:

• Mega-sessions

A Mega-session is where you take one whole day and cook a month's worth of meals for your family on that day and place them in the freezer in family-sized portions.  The shopping is done on a different day, as well as some prep work if you wish, and this session usually takes 12+ hours of multi-tasking with some down time.  The plus to this type of cooking is that it gets most of the work out of the way in one day, and only minimal amount of work is needed to get the finished meal on the table by adding side dishes and salads until the meals run out &/or you are able to cook again.  This type of session requires careful planning to avoid having too many things in the same stage at the same time.  Write out a staggered schedule before you begin, so you don't run into needing to place more pans into your oven that will fit at one time.

• Mini-sessions

A Mini-session is where you take a portion of a day and cook a large number of meals out of several different recipes involving a specific food product (such as a single meat) or a theme (breakfast, lunch, baked goods).  This method allows you to take advantage of good sales on meat or produce, and not commit a whole day to food preparation, but it requires more overall time and clean-up than mega-sessions do.

• Batch cooking

Batch cooking is where you take a single recipe you are fixing for dinner, and double or triple the recipe, and freeze the excess in family sized meals or individual serving size portions.  This method is slower for stocking the freezer, but is preferred by many people, as it doesn't require several hours at one stretch, but it allows you to have meals on hand for busy days.  It does make for more shopping and clean-up time than batch cooking.

In our case, we use batch cooking.  We only have two adults in our household to eat a meal, but most recipes serve 4-6 people.  So I take that recipe and double or triple it, and freeze the remaining food into meal-sized portions for us to eat at a later time.  This keeps me from having to cook every day, or us having to eat the same meal two to three night in a row to consume all of the leftovers.

Meals that Freeze Well

Many types of meals will work for this type of cooking.  Lasagna (cooked or uncooked), spaghetti sauce, soups, stews, and meats with sauces almost always freeze well.  Here are some recipes for my favorite freezer meals.

• Orange Chicken
• Mushroom Dijon Chicken
• Lasagna
• Lemon-Pepper Chicken
• Mom's Spaghetti Sauce
• Mrs. Becky's Potato Soup
• Mom's Chili
• Chuck Roast with Gravy
• Chicken Soup
• Cranberry Pork

Breakfast Items:

• Pancakes
• Bran Muffins

Snacks and Desserts:

• Cold Oven Pound Cake
• Peanut Butter Balls
• Peanut Butter Pie
  

In addition, almost all cookie dough can be frozen, as well as well wrapped, finished cookies. Having frozen cookie dough on hand is wonderful for unexpected company or a quick dessert. It will also help you save time if you are baking a lot of cookies at once, such as for a Christmas cookie swap or as Christmas presents. You can make the cookies as you have time and freeze them wrapped between layers of wax paper, or you can prepare the dough ahead of time, freeze, and bake the day before you need the cookies.
 

Tips and Tricks

Here are some helpful hints as you try out mega-cooking

• Wear comfortable, loose clothing, and sturdy tennis shoes.  Recruit experienced help if possible, or your children to do simple tasks such as stirring, bagging, or assembling.  Older children can chop, wash dishes and help cook.
• If you are doing a mega-session, plan on having several sit-down breaks during the day to do things like chopping veggies.  Also plan on taking a lunch break.  Don't stand on your feet too long and wear yourself out too quickly.
• Wash or load and run the dishwasher as you go.
• Start out with mini-sessions and build up to a mega-session if you are interesting in trying it.
• LABEL EVERYTHING.  Unlabeled items will most likely get tossed in the trash because you can't remember what they are.
• If you decide to use this type of cooking often, invest in a good, large set of Stainless Steel mixing bowls.  If necessary, borrow kitchen utensils and appliances if you need to until you can invest in buying them.
• Doing some prep work the day before, such as chopping veggies and grating cheese, will cut down on the day's work.
• Place your recipes in page protectors to protect from splashes. Keep recipes your family liked in a binder in the kitchen for easy reference.
• Try a recipe out on your family before you make a huge batch of it.
• Package whole meals together into a gallon-size bag.  For example, for tacos, package the meat into a smaller Ziploc, and place into a gallon size bag along with the cheese and appropriate number of soft taco shells.  Or Package the meat and one side dish together with the rolls in a gallon Ziploc.
• Keep a running inventory of the freezer contents so you can keep track of what you have left.  You don't want to eat the same meal five times at the end of the month, or have a bunch if similar meals at one time.
• Consider meals that do not need rigid freezer containers if you do not have a free-standing freezer.
• If you do not have a free-standing freezer, pack your meals into Ziplocs, level them as best you can, and place them flat on cardboard to freeze.  Once they are frozen solid, you can stack them sideways to conserve on space.  Investing in a freezer shelf at the local hardware store is another good idea.
• You can prepare rice ahead of time, and freeze it in meal-sized portions.  It can be warmed by running it under hot water in a fine-mesh sieve or colander.
• Consider making up a meal or two ahead of time that is company-worthy, so you can entertain on short notice, take a meal to a sick church-member or someone who has had a death in the family, without much work.  Lasagna is a good idea for this.  Assemble and freeze unbaked in disposable pans. It will require extra baking time if not thawed before putting it into the oven.  If you are giving the meal away, disposable utensils, plates, cups, napkins, and perhaps a small bouquet of flowers adds a nice touch.
• For soups that require pasta, freeze without the pasta and add while reheating.  Pasta that is frozen and thawed then reheated can become mushy.

OAMC Links

These are links to other OAMC websites:

The Friendly Freezer - this is the website where I first learned about batch cooking and OAMC.  She also has some great laundry soap recipes.
Frugal Mom's OAMC - another great OAMC website with links to frugal ideas and resources.  This website has the recipes divided by meat, and has a lot of recipes.
Freezing Food  - This about.com website has some good basic information and recipes.

You are visitor to our OAMC website.  Thanks for stopping by!

This page last updated on March 26, 2002.

E-mail me at krankedyann@yahoo.com

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