Once a Month Cooking!

It's been many years since I heard a Focus on the Family broadcast about Once a Month Cooking. Mary Beth Lagerborg and Mimi Wilson were on the program talking about their new book and their cooking plan that would allow you to spend two days a month cooking enough meals to put in the freezer to last the month. It sounded like a pretty ambitious plan, but I thought I would give it a try.

As a homeschooling Stay at Home Mom of young children, it made sense to have dinner ready each day without having to drag out the food processor and tons of pots and pans to get dinner on the table. Not to mention cleaning it all up after the meal!

I bought the book, and set to work. It fit my personality to a T. I am a planner - a list maker - an organizer. I made my menu, and then my shopping list and a "to do" list, then I set to work.
First, I went grocery shopping and bought everything on my list. The next day, I got up early and got to work. I spent the day cooking, and I'm not going to kid you. It was a loooooong day! But also, very satisfying. The next day, I finished up the meals I had not gotten done the day before, and I actually DID have enough meals in the freezer to last for two weeks! (I started small and worked up to a month.)

That was back when we had two children and 4 servings worked for us. Now that #8 is on the way, I've adjusted all my recipes to serve 12. Yes, it takes two shoppers and two shopping carts now, but actually, it doesn't take any longer to make 12 servings than it does 4, so it still only takes two days!

What are the benefits?

1) It's much cheaper! Usually (though you still need to do the math) it's cheaper to buy larger packages or buy in bulk. When you are doing all the cooking at once, nothing is wasted and you can use the big bulk package in two days before it spoils. In the months when I am too busy to do OAMC, I can't believe how much more $$ we spend on groceries! When you are running to the market every day or two to buy ingredients for the next couple of meals, it gets VERY expensive (whether you are shopping for one or 10!)

2) It's a time saver! Since I am homeschooling five of my seven children, trying to work part time, busy with church activities and taking kids to youth group and Awana and Girl Scouts, etc. through the week, it just makes sense to find as many time savers as I can. Now, I simply look at the calendar on the fridge, see what's for dinner today, take it out of the freezer to thaw and go about my day. At dinner time, I simply follow the directions on the bag or dish for heating it up, and throw together a couple things to go with it.

3) It reduces cleaning time! Two days a month, I get out my food processor. I chop a whole bag of onions at one time, then I chop my green peppers, slice my celery and mushrooms, etc. Then I wash it out and put it away. As I finish a recipe, I wash out my pot and use it again for the next recipe. When I'm done for the month, everything is cleaned up and put away until the next month. During the month, my cleanup consists of whatever pot or dish I use to heat up the meal. That's it! No dragging everything out everyday and leaving a sink full of dishes to be washed after the meal! Yay!

4) It makes Mama happy and reduces stress! And when Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy! ;) It takes me about 10 minutes a day to get a meal on the table (not counting heating time). Otherwise, it can take me over an hour to get a meal ready. This leaves more time to rest, relax and hang out with the kids and hubby! I'm not asking Mike "Any ideas for dinner?", then making a mad dash for the store to buy ingredients. Instead, I am enjoying my time and doing the things I want to do.

I'm sure there are many more reasons, but these are enough for me. I HATE when I don't get it done. The months when it doesn't happen are so much more stressful and expensive than when we do!

Anyway, we've come a long way in our OAMC journey. I now teach classes at women's retreats about saving money at the grocery store and Once a month cooking.

I just finished my meals for the month and I mentioned it on Facebook. A couple of my friends are interested in what I do, so I told them I would blog about it. In the next few posts, I'll cover the process, my menu and some recipes. In the meantime, I highly recommend the book, Once a Month Cooking. Mimi and Mary Beth have a new version out and it's available everywhere. It covers the plan and gives several recipes that freeze well.

I hope this was helpful to someone. Stay tuned...

Back to School and Potty Training...

All the kids have been successfully enrolled in their Cyber classes for the Fall and we're just waiting for the boxes of books and supplies to come pouring in... It's like Christmas in August when that happens! You'd never think kids would be so excited over a Math Text Book, but it happens here!
I'll take some pictures for proof and post them here.

Abby has decided (with some patient prodding) that she is a "big dirl" and ready to be done with diapers. The arrangement is that she gets 1 gummy bear for #1, and 2 gummy bears for #2. lol
She's doing very well. Now maybe we'll get a break from diapers, at least until December! :)

Now we just have to work on the modesty issue. She's so happy about being a big girl that she feels the need to share the news with everyone she sees. She pulls her dress up and says, "See my unnerware?" :) SOME day, we'll get them all raised! (Maybe!)

Name Poll, Barf Bugs and the stuff of life

First off, thanks to all of you who voted in the Baby Name Poll. We have decided to combine two of the middle names on the list to come up with the name for our baby. :) And we'll tell you what that name is when she is born! LOL (Sorry)

THE EVIL BARF BUG!

Life has been interesting here lately. One Wednesday morning a few weeks ago, I was doing laundry, and suddenly felt very sick to my stomach. I was sick (and it wasn't morning sickness!) All that day I was weak and dizzy and felt miserable.

That night, our oldest son was up all night throwing up and - well, experiencing other gastrointestinal ailments. The next day he had a high fever and was in bed all day.

A couple days later, our youngest daughter started throwing up. She couldn't even keep down a sip of water or ice chips. Then the fever came and the diarrhea lasted two weeks!

My friend Kelli, and two of her sons arrived by plane from Texas a couple days later. We felt so bad that they were breathing our air, but we couldn't avoid the inevitable!

Then, there was a lull. No one else got sick. We decided to risk taking our friends to Niagara Falls on Friday. We pulled in the parking lot, got out of the van and Son #2 threw up in the parking lot! He had a fever, and I was so thankful they sell Children's Tylenol in the gift shop (it was an arm and a leg, but it was there!)

We got through the day and had fun (except for the diaper blow outs from the lingering bug... I only had to buy new clothes once! ;)

We hadn't eaten dinner, so decided to stop in Hamburg, NY on the way home to eat at Applebee's. No sooner had we been seated, that Kelli's baby was sick - all over her! (If you've never been pregnant and been thrown up on, you have no idea how horrible this is!) She was so nauseated from the smell that she was nearly sick herself. Mike left and took her and her baby and our youngest who was asleep at this point, to go find a Walmart to buy new clothes, while I stayed with 7 kids at Applebee's. Did you know that not ALL Walmarts are open 24 hours? Not even the 2 they were able to find! (It was a long ride home!)

Her little one was sick all night and over the next several days while various of our other kids started getting various symptoms of this bug (which we had by then determined was a Rotavirus or some such - not a typical 24 hour bug!)

We are now into the 3rd week of this and there are still lingering symptoms... UGH!

Kelli went home and it's going through her family as well. What a mess!

BACK TO SCHOOL - ALREADY?

In the meantime, we've been busy getting ready for our new school year. The kids are whining, "Where'd the Summer go? It CAN'T be time to start school already!", but there is an air of excitement as I bring home school supplies and they put them on the shelves in the school closet. We've decided to take a break from K12 this year and we're doing a year of Calvert to see how it goes.

I will be teaching 1st, 4th, 8th and 10th grade this year and as of December, I will have a newborn and 2 preschoolers to take care of as well! K12 is so time intensive that we just felt we needed to do something different this year. We'll reassess at the end of the year and see where we'll go in the future.

Yesterday, I bought each of the kids their own milk crate (in their own color) to keep their school books and supplies in. They fit nicely under the church pew at the dining room table, so they can have easy access to them as needed.

Our two oldest will be doing Virtual Classroom and will be at their own desks, but I'll be spending more time with the 1st and 4th graders at the dining room table.

Sorry this post is so long, but it's been awhile since I posted anything.

In other news, we are facing the hottest weekend we've had so far this Summer (it's 84 already today) and very muggy. We're in the midst of hay bailing - you have to make hay when the sun shines.

Stay tuned for the next chapter in "the stuff of life"... :)