What We're Eating This Month

a week or two ago, I did another big cookday similar to what I did in September where I cooked large amounts of a few basic foods, packaged them in single-meal portions and stuck them in the freezer. (Here is the link again to the whole plan.) Despite that, I have only dug into my freezer stash a few times since then and have been cooking a lot more one-offs as I call them (meals that I cook the same day we plan to eat it, how novel). But the food in the freezer is more of a security that if I don't make it to the grocery store or just plain don't feel creative enough to come up with a meal, I can easily reach into the freezer and find something delicious and quick to eat.

my freezer full of one- and two-cup
portions of meat, rice, roasted veggies
and simple tomato sauce.

Having meal-sized portions of pulled pork or baked chicken strips already cooked and ready in the freezer is much easier than having a full, uncooked pork loin in the freezer (which I also have) because of the amount of time it takes, or doesn't take, to have dinner on the table. On Saturday I made Brunswick Stew with Mister Man on my hip in the amount of time it took Deputy Handsome and Little Miss to run to the grocery store for a fresh loaf of artisan sourdough.
So now that I have cooked for the month a few times, doing both full make-ahead meals and building blocks, I'd say that my favorite way to have my freezer stocked is with a little bit of both! To have a blank canvas of cooked meat and sauce for some meals, but on other days when I can't even manage that, it's great to be able to pull out pre-made burrito filling, or dump a pre-measured bag of ingredients into the crockpot.

What We're Eating This Month

yes, that says Month up there! This week I'm cooking for the entire month of December. Last time I cooked for a month, I had a specific plan to make five building blocks that could be turned into 20 separate meals with the addition of some fresh ingredients. This time I wanted to make my own menu for dinners, plus include some lunches, breakfast and snacks into my cookday. Here are the dinners I plan to cook on Thursday:

• BBQ Turkey Meatballs and Turkey Parmesan Meatballs
• I have made both of these meals before and I am recruiting Deputy Handsome to roll the meatballs for me this time around
• we'll eat the Parmesan ones on rolls with marinara and melted provolone
• BBQ Meatballs will be served with potatoes and veggies
• Sesame Chicken and filling for Korean Beef Lettuce Wraps
• both from the Flat Belly Diet cookbook
• will be fully cooked and stored, ready to reheat
• plus five ready-to-cook crockpot meals
• three from the mama and baby love blog (look under the bulk/freezer tab)
• BBQ Chicken, Chicken and Cherries, Orange Chicken
• two from the six sisters blog (look under freezer meals)
• Taco Soup, Pizza Bake

These meals will be supplemented by pasta bolognese that I already have in my freezer. 

Here's the plan for the other food I plan to make for meals other than dinner:

• smoothies
• chop all the fruit so it's super easy to just throw everything in a blender
• Barley Risotto
• Deputy Handsome wouldn't touch this if I made it for dinner, but I think it sounds good so I'll eat it for lunches when he's at work
• Romesco Sauce
• From the Flat Belly Diet cookbook
• Last time I made this, I served it over chicken. Deputy Handsome didn't like it, but I thought it was so good. In the recipe notes, it says this makes a good dip for veggies, and I need to eat more veggies as afternoon snacks instead of chips/cookies/other crap. Having this dip already made will be yummy motivation.
• BBQ spiced Edamame
• never have eaten soybeans any way other than straight out of the pod, so this should be interesting!
• Cheesey Breakfast Muffins
• to grab and go on our way out the door to church, park playdates, etc.

new way of life

I am sold on this once-a-month cooking thing. The last few weeks have been pretty great as far as mealtime and time spent in the kitchen. Having the main protein already cooked means just throwing everything together at the last minute and since the veggies are also precooked we are eating a lot more vegetables than usual too, which isn't at all bad. Something I especially like is that since all the ingredients are stored in the freezer, if I wanted to cook a from-scratch meal one evening because I found a great cut of meat on clearance at the grocery store, or if we get invited out for dinner with friends, it is easy to be flexible because I'm not worried about food spoiling before we can use it all up (something I did worry about occasionally when cooking for the week and storing food in the fridge only). So this plan has the best of both worlds - structured, easy, fast, healthy meals when we need them with the fun of spontaneity thrown in there too. And, less time cooking each night, means more time for karaoke parties with Little Miss.

spatulas are way more fun as microphones

As a reminder, here is the meal plan I followed this month (it can also be found in the September 2011 issue of Every Day with Rachel Ray). We have about five meals left to go, counting tonight (rigatoni with squash and apples. sounds amazing.) and so far, all but one have been a hit. Deputy Handsome wasn't too fond of an egg-based dish that was heavy on the butternut squash and zilch on the bacon or any other kind of animal protein, so Little Miss and I enjoyed the extras for lunch the next day. There are definitely a few dishes we've eaten in the past few weeks that we would make again and I will probably use them to build a new month-of-meals plan with a few of my own favorite dishes thrown in the mix.

Now the Rachel Ray plan is only for weeknight dinners which worked out great for me because I enjoy spending time in my kitchen to make banana bread or cookies or to grill paninis for lunch but there is another resource out there called Once A Month Mom where you can find a monthly meal plan for all three meals a day, plus snacks, that you cook all in one day. I have used this website a few times to research recipes to build up my freezer stockpile but have never gone to this extreme of making ahead because, as I mentioned, I like the spontaneity of "hanging out" in my kitchen most days without the pressure of providing a full meal. But for those of you who don't have as much time at home and are looking to maximize family time in the evenings and streamline the morning rush, I suggest you check it out!

Success!

so, I did it. I cooked food that will feed us over the next month in one day. Well, really two days but only during the few hours of naptime so it totally could have been done in just one day if I wanted to. I made huge batches of tomato sauce and rice pilaf, cooked tons of chicken and pork shoulder and roasted an ovenfull of vegetables.

rice pilaf divided into one-cup portions

above: onions and bell peppers; below: butternut squash.
all doused with olive oil and seasoned
with salt, pepper and lots of garlic

Now everything is divided up and packed into my freezer just waiting to be turned into yummy, easy meals.
This couldn't have come at a better time. I am seriously getting the bug to knit again (must be a fall weather thing) and also Mister Man is ready to move on from rice cereal into vegetables and fruit and I plan to make all my own baby food for him like I did for Little Miss so I'm glad to have a bit of a reprieve from cooking whole meals from scratch for a few weeks.