Once a Month Cooking

Last week, my sister and I did a marathon of cooking keeping in mind my need for less protein. Thursday, we went grocery shopping and Friday morning we made over 36 meals. It was a lot of work but it’s been great not having to think about supper and just pop it in the oven or crock pot. It was a lot of dirty dishes but now dinner is a snap and clean-up is minimal. We only cooked until lunch, so we will have to cook a few more dishes to make sure that we have enough for ever dinner. Here is what we did:

Baked spaghetti: 3 lbs cooked spaghetti mixed with three 24 oz containers of cottage cheese and topped with meat, sauce, and cheese. For meat, we used sausage cut into small pieces and we didn’t put it on the half I would eat for supper.

Mongolian Beef: http://onceamonthmom.com/crockpot-mongolian-beef/. We used half the required meat and added bell peppers, carrots, and onions. We quadrupled the recipe and split it into 6 containers.

Chicken and Broccoli Pasta: http://www.skinnytaste.com/2012/02/chicken-and-broccoli-noodle-casserole.html. We quadrupled the recipe and reduce the meat required. I also did not make this a reduced fat recipe, I used whole milk, and regular cheese and added crème cheese to the sauce. We didn’t have a bowl large enough to mix it all in, so it might be best to only double this recipe.

Mac and Cheese: I used a lot of cheese in this and can’t wait to eat it. When I serve this we will not eat meat. Trust me, it’s got plenty of protein in it. I made a white sauce and added lots of cheese to it and then mixed the elbows in to it all. Sis portended it into pans and topped with more cheese.

Chicken and rice casserole: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/poppy-seed-poultry-casserole/. We didn’t use poppy seeds. We also used organic cream of chicken soup, Yuck. We quadrupled this recipe and reduced the chicken and added more rice.

We bought pans from the Dollar Tree, they were 3 for $1 and they had a nice lid. The one’s we used for her were larger than mine. Everything we cooked is healthy for my kidneys and homemade and we kept protein in mind with each dish.  At the end of the day we had over 36 pans of food.  We are going to have to cook a few more recipes so we have a dinner for every day, but the next one’s will be easy and take less time. 

Here is what my sister had to say about our cooking on Facebook:

Cooking: I highly dislike it.
Washing Dishes: Super highly dislike it.

I spent the morning cooking with my sister - preparing supper for the month. She enjoys cooking - she thought it was fun. I do not enjoy cooking - this was near complete misery.
BUT - My kids enjoyed dinner - it was easy to bake in the oven and resulted in very few dirty dishes. Clean up was a breeze. Plus, this was much more healthy and I didn't have that moment of panic where I had to create a meal out of things in the pantry.

I think I could get used to this - one day of complete torture for a month of peaceful dinners.

Correction: I really didn't do any cooking today. I basically did a small amount of chopping and shredding and small amount of cleaning, Hmm... I guess the only thing I really did was divide food into storage containers and label and place in freezer. My sister did a lot of work. She is really good at this.

If you think you might be interested in once a month cooking - its great! I am sure you can research but don't call my sister. She is MY cooking friend - you will have to find your own.