Once a Month... or blue moon

There are lots of sites on the web for Once A Month Cooking (OAMC)- and I have always been intrigued by the concept. With baby number three approaching fast - I'm now 35 weeks along, it seemed like a good idea to try it out, at least a modified approach. I actually like cooking each night, so it isn't a big incentive to me to just pull things from the freezer each and every night. I'm also not a big leftovers or repeat fan, so making 10 of one meal and then eating it once a week or more isn't appealing either.

So here is my modified approach:
I've searched through most of the websites and read several of the books. As a vegetarian (mostly), lots of the recipes are not good for us - very meat focused. But I do use the soy crumbles that look like ground beef, so for this day of cooking I relied on those. I picked three casseroles that not only sounded like they would taste okay, but were slightly different enough so it didn't feel like one big giant beef casserole month. I also picked a few other recipes that are not technically OAMC - but come from the 5:30 challenge - five ingredients that (since I don't buy everything in cans) come from my freezer.

The kids were unusually cooperative, especially considering I've been sick and this wasn't the smartest use of my limited patience and energy. Chris had gone shopping for all the ingredients, and I didn't want anything to go bad, so I pushed through. It took most of the day - working methodically so as to reduce the number of steps and dishes as much as possible. I also used my bread machine's dough cycle to great use today.


So here's what we ended up with (meals based on our family of four and occassionally a guest) - four pasta/cheese/meat casseroles, two Italian bread covered casseroles, enough pizza roll ups for 6 meals, 12 ready to cook bean burgers, 30 bean and cheese burritos, a dozen crescent rolls, risen and ready to bake (the leftover dough from the italian casserole), and six giant baggies which contain smaller bags holding the ingredients to some 5 ingredient meals (all of which I can put together in under 10 minutes and have on the table in 30). The freezer is getting full! I'm exhausted, but it is so nice to know that when baby comes (or if this sickness continues), I can just defrost, bake and eat well...