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Once A Month Cooking: A Time- and Energy-Saving Approach for the Busy Family

© Bonny Albo

Once A Month Cooking (OAMC) is a program in which a family devises a meal plan, creates a shopping list, and cooks an entire month’s meals in one or two days. The meals are then frozen for use at a later date. Some families find "twice a month" or "weekly" cooking programs suit them better.

Benefits to Once a Month Cooking

Here are some of the benefits of cooking once a month.

• saves money on groceries - buy in bulk quantities and don't worry that food will spoil
• saves time - no more trips to the grocery store for a forgotten item or making evening dinners
• saves energy - "personal, appliance and auto," as stated on page one of the book.
• less food waste - take out what the family will eat that night and leave the rest in the freezer

How to Start Cooking Once a Month

Create a list of recipes that you and your family enjoy eating and that will freeze well. Some favorites include pizza, lasagna, pea soup, banana bread, chicken noodle soup, sweet & sour chicken, and beef stew. The best resource for this is the OAMC web page. 

After creating a tentative recipe list, pencil in which days to serve these meals. Take into account which days will allow for more preparation time, and which will just need to be heat-and-serve nights. 

Make sure there is also enough freezer space to store all the ready-made meals. Freezer bags and tin foil help tremendously when working with a small freezer. Freeze the meal in the container that it will be reheated in, then remove it from the container and place it into a freezer bag.

Since the grocery shopping can be a very long excursion the first time around, take a list and shop a few days before the actual cooking will take place. For tips on how to organize the cooking day, see the OAMC web page.

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