Saturday and OAMC update

I *finally* made it to Wal-Mart (which is always a HUUUGE mistake a) on a weekend day and b) when a "weather system" is moving in). I think everyone and their dog was there. It was a MADHOUSE! However, progress was made! I *almost* got everything on my list (I didn't get EVERYTHING because I was TIRED!) I don't have much left, however.

I am so VERY thankful that my wonderful sidekick, Josh, wanted to go with me to push the second buggy so that we could keep the hot stuff hot and the cold stuff cold and the canned goods on the bottom!

I will say that it was quite odd to have to shop for items such as diaper creme, Lanisoh, nursing pads, baby wash and diapers. So, those items definitely added to the total at the check-out but you have to start stocking up somewhere. I DID use my coupons, however. From now on, I'll definitely start watching the CVS sales and such since I have subscribed to so many fantastic blogs, like Keli's where she talks about the awesome deals she gets! I need to pick her brain to learn to shop like that! I'm so jealous! Ha ha!

Felecia and Mary (love you ladies!) have given me some FANTASTIC advice on the OAMC front and I have heeded their advice whole-heartedly! First off, since this baby seems to want to ride on my sciatic nerve, it's literally impossible for me to stay on my feet for an extended period of time so I, by necessity, had to break the cooking session into multiple ones (thanks for that idea Felecia!)

Also, since I didn't go to Wal-Mart until TODAY, I obviously couldn't have done a tremendous amount since I really only had the meat and none of the accompaniments for the entrees. And, although all the books say NOT to shop and cook in the same day -- I just had to be a rebel. You know me.

However, after my large Costco run and my even larger Wal-Mart run, I have begun to make masterpieces from the madness! The past two days have proved quite fruitful. I have made:

3 beef/turkey meatloaves
2 servings Swedish meatballs
1 serving meatball sub
2 servings spaghetti sauce
2 servings taco meats
2 servings balsamic marinade chicken breasts
1 Italian pot roast marinade
1 pot roast w/veggies
1 tater tot casserole

I've started working on making 3 pans of lasagna. I was going to do some of the "lazy lasagnas" I've read about in most all the books but honestly, I just don't want to skimp on my lasagna. I love my lasagna and frankly, it's worth the trouble and time. The taste is unsurpassed, it feels and tastes gourmet/unprocessed and it is just delicious (in my humble opinion). It will SO be worth it in the end! So, the meat is cooked for that. I just need to make the rest of the sauce to accompany it and then finish the assembly.

I still have several chicken meals to prepare and I think I will marinade more breasts since we all love grilled chicken and it's a quick and easy meal (and since I have plenty from my meat load-up at Costco.) But, like I said, that will all be saved/reserved for tomorrow as, for now, I'm tired.

I think I'm a little dehydrated too. I started having Braxton Hicks contractions ... have actually been having them fairly regularly each evening so I know all this prep work is a GOOD thing! :)

One lesson learned so far is that... as I made my grocery list this time in such a stupid rush because I added no only the "stuff" for my meals for the freezer but also this coming week's worth of meals. So, honestly, my grocery list was a FREAKIN DISASTER which caused me SO much extra time in the grocery store. HAVE AN ORGANIZED LIST! That is SO important. If I'd just used the one I'd prepared on the computer in Excel, it would have gone SO much faster but since I was preparing my list in my bedroom on my bed leaning back on my tower of pillows, I didn't have access to the file at that time. However, with this major lesson learned, I will never ever not have an organized grocery list again.

But, like I said, since I shopped for the upcoming week, I'm excited to actually have a "Menu Plan Monday" again to post since I know a huge bulk of this cooking is out of the way.... This will enable me to be able to focus on the future AND the present as far as meal prep.

And, as promised, once I'm totally finished with this session, all of the recipes I used will be posted on the OAMC page on my blog! I want everyone to have access to these recipes!

One of my childhood friends, Gene, stopped by tonight with his son, Jacob. I've known Gene since I was in the 6th grade (that's a long time). He recently was transferred from Minot AFB in North Dakota to the one in Norman, OK so he's MUCH closer and it's SO nice to see him so often. He's a bachelor. He eats out -- a lot. Lets say probably TOO MUCH! :) He was watching me put things together and was intrigued. I think I may have a bachelor convert! He wants to buy all the stuff and have me do some individual portions for him rather than the big family sized ones that I make. Easy, easy, easy when you're doing all the leg work in advance!

I'm actually enjoying a couple of hours of silence (though I'm seriously getting very very sleepy. 10pm is my bedtime!) The boys went to a pajama party at ASI gymnastics. It started at 7. They're going to run themselves ragged and eat pizza and sleep great tonight. I dropped Andy off to have some "guy time" with a responsible driver (namely, me!) I'll be picking him up about 10:30 and then the boys thereafter. I'll let him tuck them in and I'll tuck myself in.

Once A Month Cooking - Ponderables

And so I just dropped a ton of money at Costco. Should I have shopped the sales and got a great deal on all the meat, absolutely. But, at this junction in my life/pregnancy/week, I opted for convenience and I'm sure I paid a little more for it. Am I okay with it this go round? Absolutely. Will I do it like this always? Of course not. I'm cheap, remember?

In one of the books, I recall reading that it is okay to refreeze meat as long as it's in a marinade or something. Not too sure about that but it's got me to thinking..... because here's my thought:

Say you have your monthly plan of what you want to make for 30 days. You've spent the previous 30 days shopping for this menu. If you find a great deal on meat, you should definitely take advantage of it. However, chances are, you'll be buying it fresh, freezing it, then thawing it to prepare the menu, then cooking it, then freezing it again. Just makes me wonder how is the best way to stay EFFICIENT with your time/cooking/shopping/freezer space when having to do that.

However, I do see now how it is important to take advantage of the weekly sales and plan your menu accordingly. This may mean that you alter your 30 day menu some... or a lot. So, would it be more advantageous to then take the Wednesday sale fliers and plan a week's menu based on that, purchase, prepare and freeze. ???

I don't know. I'm starting to wonder, however... the best way to attack the plan. Pearls anyone?

Book reviews for OAMC

Since purchasing several books for my OAMC endeavor I will give you the highlights for the books in case you are interested in purchasing them for yourself.


1) Don't Panic - Dinner's in the Freezer (by Susie Martinez, Vanda Howell and Bonnie Garcia) This book really is nothing more than a book of recipes that freeze well. It doesn't really give you a "plan" or a "menu" to work from. It does give you an original recipe and then a x3, x6 and x9 version of the ingredient list so that helps if you make it, love it and want to duplicate it for your cooking session.

However, in doing a glance through of many of the recipes, they seem rather labor intensive which really isn't what I want when doing this for round one so the recipes in this book -- although I have sticky notes out of the top for about 45 of them I want to try, I think will be better suited for round 2 of my cooking session. I may change my mind, we'll have to see.


2) Once A Month Cooking (by Mimi Wilson and Mary Beth Lagerborg) This book has several 2-week menus and two 1-month menus. In a nutshell, they show you a two-week calendar and each date box is filled in with an entree. Next, you find a shopping list for everything needed to make the entrees for those two weeks. Thereafter, each entree has its own page following the shopping list with the recipe.

The only thing I see as being a potential problem is if your family doesn't like a portion of what is on that particular menu. If you still want to create SOME of the items on that menu plan, but not all of them, the shopping list is pretty much worthless. So, if that's the case (which it will be for me for every one of their menu plans), I'll be creating my own shopping list for the recipes that I want to utilize from this book.

I do like, however that it has the grocery list and the amount and type of FREEZER containers you'll need. It also gives you a break down of what to do the day before your cooking day, a break down of what you should do before assembling the dishes, and then the order in which you should assemble the dishes for the greatest time efficiency. I think that could prove to be a HUUUUUGE help even IF you don't make everything on the list.

3) Frozen Assets - Cook for a Day Eat for a Month (by Deborah Taylor-Hough) One thing that I didn't like right off the bat from this book is that it really wants you to completely COOK everything and then thaw and reheat to serve it. Simply stated, I don't want to do that. I don't MIND having something that needs to be cook, it's the PREP time that I'm trying to save myself of.

Also, the author typically will take a handful of meals and double and triple up cooking them which means that you're eating the same thing in a specified time-frame. And, like I've said before, I like a LOT of variety in my meals and prefer to not have the same thing over a 20-30 day period. Call me finicky -- it's just how I am. Unfortunately for some future wife, it's also how I'm raising my boys. I can actually feel good about the variety in their diet and I never hear them whine when they say, "We're having _____ AGAIN??" That phrase is never muttered in this house because I not only enjoy cooking, but I also want to be able to give them the variety in their diet that they desire and that I crave.

This book does give a lot of good information, however with planning, tips and advice.

However, apart from my not wanting to eat the same MEAL, it does give you the option to make components of that meal that can be utilized in SEVERAL meals. For instance, it may be quite nice to make ONE huge pot of spaghetti sauce that will work for pasta, lasagnas, baked ziti AND meatball sandwiches. I can totally see how making things like that WOULD be a blessing and she easily shows you how.

Along the same lines, the author also provides mixtures, such as her ground beef mixture that she uses for meatballs, salisbury steak, sweet-sour meatballs, and meatball sandwiches. You just have to find what all you want to use it on.

However, for someone like me, it may prove just as effective to purchase a few jars of Prego Fresh Mushroom (my favorite) and use that whenever you need spaghetti sauce and then there is NO prep time for the sauce at all. It's all about what you're willing to pay for and ultimately, what your time is worth. Personally, my time is WORTH more than making spaghetti sauce from scratch. So, if we're having spaghetti, the prep time (for me) will be saved in browning the meat and having that ready to put in a pan WITH a jar of my favorite sauce and a can or two of mushrooms. BUT, I'm not going to totally knock this until I try it because -- frankly -- her bulk spaghetti sauce does sound good and I'm game for anything once. As such, I may make a pan or two of her Baked Ziti and Lazy Lasagna. Just to see how it all turns out. I know my lasagna takes about 4 hours to make from scratch and it's a WHIPPING that I only do for special occasions. I'll try anything that is a "regular" on our menu another way, at least once!

ALSO, another aspect of this book that I have discovered that I really don't like is that they have the SAME recipes repeated all over in the book multiple times. I GET IT, you make Bulk Spaghetti Sauce -- WHO CARES. Why not add something else in and just refer back to a particular page number? I don't understand this logic. Her editor must have been a man.

***TO BE CONTINUED**

Once A Month Cooking - Part C

STEP C

Now that you have your list of regular meals and your grocery list for those meals, you need to go through and PLAN what you're going to prepare for your freezer for the next _____ days. You could work up a 1-week, 2-week, 4-week or be adventurous like me and prepare to do a SIX WEEK PLAN!

**I will share my personal fear, anxiety and experience from this part of planning. My hangup on doing this was that I took a look at my actual calendar and then went, "Are you freakin' kidding me?" However, what I needed to realize was that I'm going to be preparing meals for my FREEZER and NOT for my calendar!

From whatever events are on my calendar, I can pick and choose what will be the quickest entree to cook that evening -- not look at the calendar and call for pizza delivery! Initially, I was looking at my calendar with eyes saying, "On this night, how in the world will I make a dinner having one son at football practice from 5:45 - 7:45 and another at t-ball practice from 5-6:30?" Instead, I should be thinking, I'm going to have several things in the freezer that I can pull and stick right in the slow cooker. Therefore, dinner will be ready at 6:45 for Drew and then, still be warm for Josh when he gets in from football practice. I was already denial, creating mountains out of molehills and stressing out just looking at the calendar when what I needed to do was simply focus on what I'm putting in my freezer. Just KNOWING that I am going to need meals that are precooked and/or slow-cooker ready for those kind of days, is half the battle!

Now, for me, like I said, I'm going to ATTEMPT to do a six-week plan. It's quite an undertaking, I know, but since I'm six weeks out from having a newborn, I can only see that as being a good thing (as I say that in my most "Martha-ish" voice). Also, since my casseroles are quite large and can typically be divided in half, that means I will have TWO meals from just ONE recipe without even doubling it!! AND, more importantly, since we will designate one nights and a couple of lunches as leftovers on the weekly menus, we will (**hopefully**) be eating from the freezer for WEEKS! What a wonderful thing!

The only issue I'm discovering now is to have a ready supply of sides on hand. How DOES one go about this? I need to research further because I don't want to be in a "side rut"! However, right now, I'm working on entrees and that's enough stress!

So, I know that I need to prepare enough meals for six weeks. That's 44 days. I think doing this will give me not only a good base of "regulars" but also a good variety of the new recipes that I can't wait to try out.

My 44 meals will consist of this:

1. Beef stroganoff (1 serving)


2. Cheeseburger macaroni (2 servings)


3. Burgers (2 servings)


4. Sloppy joes (1 serving)


5. Meat loaf (2 servings)


6. Pot roast w/veggies (1 serving)


7. Spaghetti (2 servings)


8. Steak (2 servings)


9. Tatertot casserole (1 serving) **this makes enough for 2


10. Tetrazzini (1 serving) **this makes enough for 2


11. Quickie tacos (2 servings)


12. Italian shredded roast beef sandwiches (1 serving)


13. Swedish meatballs (2 servings)


14. Meatball subs (1 serving)


15. BBQ chicken (1 serving)


16. Chicken a la king (1 serving)


17. Grandma's chicken and rice w/veggie (1 serving) **this makes enough for 2


18. Chicken spaghetti (1 serving)


19. Chicken quesadilias (1 serving)


20. Fajitas (2 servings)


21. Marinated grilled chicken (4 servings)


22. Picaunte chicken (1 serving)

I'm now left with choosing 11 meals from my 4 books to incorporate into tomorrow's endeavor. I'm going to go figure out what those are right now and I'll come back and edit the post to incorporate those after choosing.

STEP D

Get that grocery list and GO SHOPPING! I've got the meat, now I just need the "stuff." Stay tuned!

Once A Month Cooking - Part B

OK, so this is a little later than expected since I was hoping to continue that night, but as they always say "better late than never!"

Here's how I've started my OAMC planning.

STEP ONE
Create a spreadsheet in Microsoft Excel of our "standard" rotation of meals. I'm sure there are a few more that I could add to this but this was just off the top of my head. I created 5 columns across the top: Beef, Chicken, Other, Breakfast and Lunch. Beneath each column heading I just started to create this list of our family favorites.

In the Beef category we have: beef stroganoff, chopped steaks w/sauteed onions, cheeseburger macaroni, hamburgers, kabobs, manwich, meat loaf, pot roast w/veggies, salisbury steak, spaghetti, steak, tater tot casserole, tetrazzini, quickie tacos, chili mac, Italian roast beef sandwiches, stew, stuffed peppers, meatball subs

In the Chicken category we have: baked chicken, bbq chicken, chicken a la king, sour cream chicken enchiladas, grandma's chicken and rice bake, chicken Parmesan, chicken pizza, chicken pockets, chicken spaghetti, quesadilias, fajitas, marinated/grilled chicken, oven fried chicken, picaunte chicken, chicken tortilla casserole, broccoli and chicken rice bake, King ranch chicken

In the Other category we have things that take lots of time to prepare or are high fat/calorie meals that I don't necessarily make on any kind of routine basis but that we still enjoy OR other types of meat or quickie meals that I routinely make that didn't deserve their own category: ham w/scalloped potatoes, hot dogs, nachos, grilled pork chops, potato soup, ribs, salmon patties, sandwiches, sausage, shake n bake, turkey and dressing, stuffed shells florentine, cheese enchiladas, fettucini carbonera, lasagna, red beans/sausage with corn bread, pasta milano

In the Breakfast category, I listed what we'd normally have for a breakfast rotation: pancakes, waffles, cereal, oatmeal, bacon/egg/cheese toasters, bacon/egg/cheese biscuits, taquitoes, scrambled eggs, hash browns, toast, biscuits and gravy, sausage, pigs in a blanket, sausage/croissant casserole, French toast, breakfast burritos

In the Lunch category (which needs to be GROSSLY expanded) is typical quick lunches: egg salad sandwiches, chicken nuggets, pizza, frozen dinners, hot dogs, left overs, salad, sandwiches, soup

All of this information appears ONE worksheet so I named the tab at the bottom "Monthly Meal List" and left it at that.

One thing I can clearly see from doing this is the need for more fish in our diets but -- I will confess -- I'm AFRAID of cooking fish. Why? #1) I don't like the "fishy" smell. #2) I don't want to under cook it and die. #3) We never ate lots of fish growing up (that wasn't fried) so I don't really have a HUGE palate for fish and don't want to make a lot of fish dishes that ultimately wind up tasting like crap (to me) because that's a waste and #4) I don't know how to SHOP for fish. Generally, if we want fish, we go out to eat.

I'd really like to bring that home this indulgence we have to not only save money but also to expand my cooking repertoire of fish types, textures, flavors and toppings. So, that's DEFINITELY something that I will be doing.

STEP TWO
Get your grocery list ready! Just knowing what you routinely cook will help you start to build your grocery list. For now it will contain the ingredients of those items on your Monthly Meal List which you can now expand upon as you add more recipes to your OAMC plan. To begin preparing a blank grocery list, I named the second tab "Grocery List" and created-just that- a huge grocery list.

Then, I went in and expanded the list even further to include everything I can think of so that as I plan my week or two weeks or three weeks or full month of menus, I can simply add up the totals of each item as I require more of it on the computer, print off one list and take that shopping with me.

The beauty of having it on the computer for me, is because I'm an anal-retentive perfectionist who likes her lists nice and neat and organized. It's a sickness but I've come to accept it. Plus, by having my grocery list on the computer, I can change quantities, make notes and my list still looks pretty. And, stupidly enough, that's important to me.

My ultimate plan is, however, to add ALL of my regular menu rotation items to a software program that I own called MasterCook 7. In MasterCook 7, I can create my own custom cookbook called "OAMC" and because of the functionality of this program, all I would have to do is select the recipe and the PROGRAM will generate a shopping list for me. How cool is THAT?!You can size the recipe up or down so if you wanted to double it, it will do the "thinking" for you. There's a little bit of a learning curve for the software but, honestly, it's really wonderful and has helped me purge PILES of recipes that I've wanted to try. Another bonus, it comes LOADED with SEVERAL cookbooks (I have, however, taken time here and there to go in and delete the recipes from those cookbooks that I KNOW we would never eat or that I would never make. Why take up the memory with something you won't use?) It's easy to import and export recipes electronically into the program as well and the BEST feature (to me) is that I'm not having to pay a monthly fee like some of the other menu sites on the net. I pay ONE FEE to purchase the software and it's MINE forever!

So, while I think being able to do that on my software is a great thing -- it's not practical for me to do today while having a 5 year old on Spring Break. I think that's a project for 2am with a nursing baby.

Moving right along. Now that I have a list of our regular meals, I can work into this rotation the meals from the books that I want to try. If you'll remember, I purchased the following books: Once A Month Cooking, Don't Panic - Dinner's in the Freezer, Fix, Freeze, Feast, Frozen Assets - Cook for a day and Eat for a Month, and Dream Dinners. Each of them has their own style and method for pulling off a OAMC session. I can see how my style wouldn't fit with one method provided but the book itself is still full of great ideas, tips and recipes. So, I'm still muddling my way through them all.

Once A Month Cooking - Part A

So, I got my new books in and have been reading bits and pieces of them as time allowed to try to make my master plan up for my first attempt at Once a Month Cooking (OAMC) in hopes of having home-cooked, nutritious meals ready for when Mr. He-Who-Has-No-Name arrives next month.

The one constant that I'm learning from these books is that you HAVE to have a plan. The fear I have is that if I just take all these random recipes that they are giving in their books, I'm going to wind up with a freezer full of meals, that no one will eat. Thus, adjustments HAVE to be made.

I have a regular rotation of meals in my repertoire that my family enjoys. Why fix something that isn't broken? Therefore, what I've decided to do is to (hopefully) create a master list (THIS TIME) of MOSTLY family favorites (I'll have enough on my plate with a newborn and no patience to deal with picky eaters, I fear) and I will try to incorporate about 1/3 new recipes that SEEM like they would be palatable for my family.

I'm going to pick and choose a few recipes from each book I think and then I will post my master list back here when I've got it finalized.

One thing I don't want to do is to pick like 6 meals and make 3 of each. I really don't want to eat spaghetti more than once or twice a month and that goes with most of the meals. I really DO enjoy variety in my diet. I think my trouble will be in finding really good sides to go with each. If I'm preparing meat entrees (for the most part) I will still need to have a good selection and variety of sides on hand to go with them.

So... for now, the planning is still underway... I'm hoping to do a stop at Costco today for a huge selection of meat and maybe some produce to freeze and then steam or incorporate into meals. We shall see. Otherwise, Costco will definitely be tomorrow because this week is MY WEEK to cook! It's now or never baby!

--To Be Continued Later This Evening --