ONCE A MONTH COOKING!

HELLO! It is Saturday night and I just arrived home from cooking all day. 3 of my friends and I and my dd, Ariel cooked up a storm today. We made 120 meals total - 30 meals for each family to take home.

These are "MOST" (refrigerator items and a lot of meat not pictured!) of our groceries at the beginning of the day.

Some people asked how this worked and this is how we work it out -

1. A few weeks before hand we pick a cooking date and select 30 recipes. This month's recipes include: Taco Stuffed Shells, Tater Tot Casserole, Zesty Slow Cooker Chicken inBBQ, Stuffed Peppers, Slow Cooker Beef Stroganoff, Slow Cooker Chickenand DUmplings, Smothered Meatloaf, Stove Top BBQ Chicken, TacoSpaghetti, Lasagne, Marinated Pork tenderloin, Mary Pat's Chiecjen,Quick Cassoulet, Shredded French Dip, Sloppy Joes, Easy tunaCasserole, Fajitas, Roast, Garden Fresh Soup, Chili, Chicken a laKing, Chicken Pesto Paninis, Chicken Pot Pie, Chicken Tetrazzini,Crock Pot Saucy Pork Chops, Applebees Oriental Chicken Salad, BasicMeatballs, Beef Enchiladas, Cajun Chicken Strips, Cheeseburger Soup,Chicken & Corn Chowder.

2. We prepare the grocery list, breaking down amounts, etc.

3. watch for sales, and start shopping
4. A few days before, all of our husbands have a night out and do the BIG grocery shopping for things we need.

5. Each person does some prep work of chopping vegetables, cooking meat, etc. at home the day before cooking day.

This works great for Karen, she just had a baby six weeks ago. Doesn't she look great?

Melisa is so faithful. She ended up at the hospital at 2:30 a.m. with her mom, who is having health problems. Left the hospital around 6:30 to stop at home and come make meals with us. She is so faithful!

Ariel was such a trooper. She came to help us out since Karen and Betsy had to leave for a a few hours to attend a meeting.

Betsy is the FABULOUS host! She provided the home and helped organize this to make it all happen.

Here I am, looking kind of scary! LOL I did not sleep well, so just woke up showered and showed up to cook. By the end of the day, I had spaghetti sauce spilled all over my shirt!

COOKING DAY!!!! Bring all of your freezable cooking dishes, Ziploc bags, Ziploc containers etc., we are blessed because the SC Johnson Company (Johnson Wax) is here in Racine and they have an employee discount store for those wonderful freezer containers.

We start between 7:30-8 a.m. and cook and clean until we are finished. Each person takes a recipe and multiplies it as many times we have decided before hand.

This months groceries for our once a month cooking costed each family $218- AND we have 8 packages of frozen boneless, skinless chicken breasts and 4 turkeys (80 pounds) remaining to be cooked up for meals next month and several other groceries remaining! That means next months groceries will cost us less, because we will not need to buy any poultry.

Here are a few of our recipes... If you would like more, please let me know and I would be happy to share them.

Applebee's Oriental Chicken Salad
Makes 6 servings.
1 tablespoon honey
1 1/2 tablespoons white vinegar
4 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1/8 teaspoon sesame oil
1/3 cup chow mein noodles
1 tablespoon sliced almonds
chicken strips

Lettuce
Combine first 5 ingredients for dressing

Basic Meatballs
Makes 12 servings.
1 cup bread crumbs
1/2 cup whole milk
1/2 cup fresh parsley choped
2 tablespoons dried oregano
1 tablespoon kosher salt
2 teaspoons dried basil
1 pinch nutmeg
1 cup beef broth
3/4 cup parmesan cheese
1/2 cup beef broth
3 egg
1 tablespoon garlic minced
1 tablespoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
2 pounds ground chuck
Combine meat with mixture, stir through rally with fork. Oven
at 450. Golf ball size meatballs. Don't touch. Bake for 25
minutes. Keep juices for sauce.

Beef Enchiladas
Makes 8 servings.
1 pound taco meat
1 can kidney beans
1 1/2 cups corn (canned or frozen)
1 can Rotel drained
1 can diced tomato drained
1 can sliced black olives
10 flour tortilla
1 can enchilada sauce
2 cups cheddar cheese
Combine first 6 ingredients, along with 1/2 cup cheese. Put
about 1/2 cup of mixture onto each tortilla, roll up and place
seam side down in a greased 9X13 inch pan. Put any
remaining mixture over the top, pour the enchilada sauce on it
and then sprinkle on the remaining cheese. Bake at 350 for
about 30 minutes until bubbly and the cheese is melted.

Bombers
Makes 6 servings.
Italian sausage
Onion
Green pepper
spaghetti sauce
Bomber buns
Brown sausage. Combine with onion, green pepper and
sauce, cook on low in slow cooker.

Cajun Chicken Strips
Makes 4 servings.
1 tablespoon flour
1 teaspoon poultry seasoning
3/4 teaspoon garlic salt
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 1/2 pounds chicken breast cut into strips
2 tablespoons butter
In a large plastic bag, combine the first six ingredients. Add
chicken, one half at a time. Shake to coat. In a large skillet,
cook chicken in butter 8-10 minutes or until done.
Serving suggestions:
Over lettuce or salad w/ salsa
Tacos
Roll-ups

Now, I have 30 meals for the month and will be able to take my meals out of the freezer to defrost the night before. It really helps save time and eliminates the process of WHAT to make for dinner every night. The other great thing about this is you can freeze them in sizes that suit your family.

If you have any other questions, please let me know. I am posting this when I am quite tired, so I can look this over and see if I am missing anything when I have more energy!

Have a great night!