Once-a-Month Cooking Festival: Summer

Picture by rwkvisual

It's finally heating up out there! Since we don't have air conditioning, the last thing I want to do when it's nearly 100-degrees out is heat up my kitchen with the oven. So my crockpot is my trusty kitchen companion during these hot days. Sure, it still emits a little heat but not that much, and it uses less electricity than my oven. I've found this great cookbook (Fix-It and Forget-It Cookbook: Feasting with Your Slow Cooker), and I'm using it--so much so that my husband asked nicely if we could please stop trying new recipes and return to some of our usual meals!

Hot summer days mean I'm also plugging in my bread machine rather than preheating my oven. I was ready to bake bread yesterday morning, but it was already 80-degrees at 5AM! I decided to pass. So, while I prefer bread baked in the oven over the bread machine, I'll take a bread machine loaf.

Speaking of baking bread, a friend came over and taught me how to do it right. Not only did we bake loaves of bread, we also made hamburger buns, dinner rolls and flour tortillas. You can see the pictures here.

On that note, one of the girls staying with us for the summer is allergic to corn and all its derivatives. Do you know how many items contain corn syrup? A ton! Even things that would surprise you--like raisin bran cereal, Total, and more (I could only find two cereals that do not contain any corn syrup or corn flour: Oatmeal Squares and Wheat Chex).

While I am not in the camp that considers corn syrup evil, I do agree its consumption should be limited for health reasons. Regardless of my personal preferences, right now cutting out the corn syrup (and other corn products) is a necessity in our house as I cook for my family and our guests. Removing it from one's diet requires a bit of work, since it is in so many things these days, but it's not that hard. The secret lies in making most things from scratch (or finding the purest form in the store of what one wants to eat).

Other cooking notes, I turned several pounds of ground round into freezer meals for the family. I prepped a meatloaf and froze it, made two pans of porcupine balls (a recipe in our church cookbook), and made a master meat sauce that I froze in one and two cup portions and used for sloppy joes and pasta fagioli and have yet to use for burritos, mini-pizzas, and/or spaghetti. A few extra minutes of work on the front end saves me time later (and helps me keep my kitchen clean, which is always a good thing)! :)

Finally, on that note, I just want to reiterate the tip that when meats hit a great price, if you can afford it, buy a bunch! I'm so impressed with the number of recipes in Fix-It and Forget-It Cookbook: Feasting with Your Slow Cooker for various cuts of meat (ground beef, round steak, roasts, chicken breasts/drumsticks/thighs/wings, pork chops/roasts, etc. There are vegetarian dishes as well). It would be super easy to find a few recipes, prep them by adding the ingredients and the meat in a freezer bag, and then pull out dinner later to thaw and place in the slow cooker (or oven). Saves time and money!

If you have a kitchen tip you'd like to share, or a recipe you've made,or a bulk cooking experience you've had, please link to your post below. As a simple courtesy, please add a link somewhere in your post back to this post. Thanks!

Stretch Your Food Dollars and Save Time with Canned Produce

copyright Moms In Need of Mercy

Don’t get me wrong: nothing beats farm-fresh food. Raised in the Midwest, I earned many a dollar by picking green beans, tomatoes, and peppers at my grandparents’ farm in the summers. Nothing, absolutely nothing, is better than a bean straight off the stalk or a tomato ripe off the vine. My mouth waters just at the thought.

However…

Where we live now, ranches abound, but farms are few and far between. “Fresh” produce comes from—at the minimum—a state away. If I had to choose between rock-hard, “they will never ripen” peaches and a can of peaches (packed at their peak), I would choose the can hands-down, any day.

Here’s why:

Canned food has gotten a real bad rap in recent years. It’s been demonized as a lesser choice, only for the poorest among us. But that’s just not so.

It can be a healthy and affordable alternative when fresh is looking less than best. Canned fruits and vegetables are picked, and packed, at their peak. They’re packed in liquid, and, well, canned – much like one cans summer harvest at home (yes, I know home canning is healthier). They’re shipped in the cans, unlike “fresh” fruit that’s picked usually very under-ripe, and hauled cross-country on semi-trucks, losing more nutrients with every mile. (Frozen produce is another good alternative).

Canned food is also often cheaper, pound for pound. But not always. Fresh, in season, fruits and vegetables on sale are usually the best buy. But when they’re pricey or looking “yucky,” you can find a fresh version…in a can.


My thoughts on canned food were revolutionized once and for all when nutritionist Ellyn Satter wrote in one of her books about the merits of canned food. She said that many cooks on tight budgets have been led to believe that purchasing a can or two of vegetables and fruits of the shelf is something they should be ashamed of—that when their budget improves, surely they should “upgrade” to the fresh produce department. Yet, for the reasons shared above, one need not be ashamed to fill one’s cart with canned goods. One is saving her family money and still feeding them healthfully. So grab a can with pride!

Now before you comment, let me recap my position:

1. Fresh is best—no doubt. But when farm-stand fresh is not available, and when “fresh” trucked in to the grocers looks less than desirable, I believe canned is a great alternative. I’ve had many a can peaches, pears, mandarin oranges, tropical fruit (with guava and papaya) that tastes more ripe than some of the fresh versions I’ve bought.

2. You need not feel ashamed if you round out your shopping cart with some canned fruits and veggies. You can find varieties that are packed in their own juice without added sugar.

3. As far as vegetables are concerned, you can buy the low sodium versions, if you want to. But don’t forget: we all need some sodium in our diets.

Buying canned or frozen food helps you stretch your grocery dollars and trips to the store. You can buy enough fresh produce for a week, and then round out the rest of your meal plan with canned or frozen produce. This way, you can shop every two weeks—saving time and money.

If you have a kitchen-shortcut or other cooking hint or recipe you'd like to share, please feel free to link up as part of our once-a-month cooking festival. As a courtesy, please link back to Moms In Need of Mercy.

linked to Works for Me Wednesday at We Are That Family and to Frugal Friday

Coffee Talk Thursday: Why I Share My Recipes

image by Muffet

It is not only Coffee Talk Thursday, it is also the first of the month, so that means it's our Once-A-Month Cooking Festival, where we celebrate all things food. Today I thought I'd share something I wrote for the foreword of our church cookbook. It explains why I believe the best recipes are meant to be shared.

Food nourishes our bodies, provides comfort, ministers to physical needs, and brings families and friends together. It allows us to fulfill God’s command to show hospitality, as we invite friends as well as strangers in for a meal; and provide food for the hungry, the sick, and those rejoicing over a new birth or grieving the loss of a loved one. It also offers a unique platform for artistic expression for those who love to cook and bake.

God designed us to enjoy food. Consider the vast diversity in color, texture, flavor, smell and shape—all for our delight. As the late Edith Schaeffer observed in her book, The Hidden Art of Homemaking, there is the smoothness of the green avocado, the grainy feel of a red strawberry, the crispness of the pink watermelon, the crunch of orange carrots, and much more.

Cooking should not be thought of as a drudgery but an art.” -- Edith Schaeffer

Finding delightful new recipes is a treasure. The most cherished are usually those which come from a good friend or family member. You know it’s tried-and-true, but it’s about so much more than the food itself: the recipe becomes sentimental as you consider all that the person means to you.

Sharing a favorite recipe with a friend connects families together, as you enjoy the same meal, separately in your own homes. By passing on cherished recipes, you send the message: “This recipe has ministered to my family. May it also delight yours.”
 
That's why I don't believe in keeping recipes a secret.
 
Do you share yours or are they family secrets? If so, could you explain the mindset behind that for those of us who don't think the same way?
 
If you have a kitchen tip or cooking hint you'd like to share, or even a recipe (wink) as part of our Once-A-Month cooking festival, please link up to your post. As a courtesy, please link back to momsinneedofmercy.com.
 
One final note, it wouldn't be right to talk about sharing my favorite recipes without sharing my favorite recipes. So I am giving away one copy of our church cookbook, filled with 700 recipes from around-the-world. I will post the winner next Thursday. Good luck! It's a great one!

Once-a-Month Cooking Festival: Marinara Sauce

It's time again for our once-a-month cooking festival. While other bloggers are focusing on bulk cooking days right now, our festival is geared more toward everyday cooking--simple steps you can take to reduce your time in the kitchen throughout the month.

A few weeks ago, I made homemade marinara sauce for the first time ever. I absolutely love it! When I buy pasta sauce in the store, I prefer the Classico brand; I just think it tastes the best. I am so pleased to say that this recipe tastes very much like the Classico kind I pay nearly $3 for a jar. For $3, I made four jars worth!

Here's how:

1. I purchased a giant can of good-quality crushed tomatoes from Sam's Club. It was about $2.70.

2. I coarsely chopped about 1 cup of onion.
3. I minced a lot of garlic (the recipe calls for 4 T.; I think I used somewhere in the ballpark of 8 cloves)
4. Saute the onion and garlic in a lot of olive oil (the recipe calls for 3/4 c. but I used only enough to coat the bottom of the pan) in a large, heavy saucepan over medium heat until the onion is softened.
5. Add the tomatoes (be careful, they'll splatter!), 2 teaspoons salt (I used coarse salt), 1 tsp. pepper, and 1 T. oregano and 1 T. basil (If using fresh herbs, use 1/4 c. fresh oregano and 1/3 c. basil).
6. Simmer, partially covered, for 30 minutes or until very thick.

7. You can puree the mixture (working in batches) in a food processor or blender, and then return it to the saucepan, adding fresh herbs (if using them) and 1/2 tsp. additional salt. Continue to simmer, partially covered, for another 30 minutes or until as thick as you like. (I did not put mine in the blender; I prefer sauce a bit thicker).
8. Once I simmered it until my desired consistency (about an hour, I think), I poured it in empty spaghetti sauce jars I have been saving, leaving a few inches for the sauce to expand. I let the jars cool slightly and then put them in the freezer.
9. Next time I need pasta sauce, no more will I have to add it to the grocery list or watch for sales! I can just pull a jar out of my freezer, allow it to thaw (or thaw quickly by placing the jar in boiling water for a bit) and voila! 

I also wanted to point out a tip about freezing chicken nuggets, cookie dough already shaped, and more. I have been wondering for some time about how to prep nuggets and freeze them without the breading clumping together in the freezer. Laura shows us how. Simply lay everything out the way you want it on a baking sheet (lined with parchment paper or tin foil for easier cleanup), freeze it, then pop everything all together in a freezer bag, and it won't stick together but will be in the form you want!

This week, I'll be featuring some other great recipes from the book, Mad Hungry: Feeding Men and Boys. I absolutely love this book! So much more than just another cookbook--more like an excellent tutorial on feeding hungry boys and men. And here's the good news for you: I will be giving away a copy, courtesy of Artisan Press.

But before we get to that, what kitchen shortcuts are you celebrating that you can share with us for our once-a-month cooking festival? I'd love for you to link up a post you've written (past or present), or share in the comments section.

May your week start out with lots of mercy and grace!


Blessings,
Cheryl

Once-a-Month Cooking Festival: Take it in Mini-Bursts!

It’s time again for our once-a-month, once-a-month cooking festival. If you’re new to Moms in Need of Mercy, on the first of every month, we share any tips that help us speed up our time in the kitchen. You do not have to be a “once-a-month” cook to participate. A bulk cooking day requires much planning, and obviously lots of time. While it pays off with a well-stocked freezer, it can be stressful. A more manageable and less time-consuming approach is to take it in mini-bursts.
When you see a great sale on meat or poultry, buy several pounds—enough to last you until the sale runs again, usually about 6 weeks later. While you can split these up in freezer bags to cook later, take just a few more minutes to prep your meals right then. By doing this, you’ll have a meal you can grab from the freezer and pop in the crock-pot or oven on a busy day, or a night when you just don’t feel like cooking.

Let me illustrate what you can do in a mini-cooking-burst. When boneless, skinless chicken breasts were on sale for $1.79/lb (which is a great price in our area), I bought about 15 pounds. I trimmed them; cut some up for chicken fajitas, seasoned them, and browned them (slightly under full doneness, since I will be reheating them to serve). Then I froze the seasoned chicken strips. When I want to make fajitas, all I have to do is pull out the bag, add them to the skillet and warm them.

I also found a recipe I wanted to try for Chicken Durango. It’s quite easy. Here it is:

½ c. butter, melted

Juice of 2 lemons

1 tsp. garlic salt

1 T. paprika

1 T. oregano

Salt and pepper to taste

4 chicken breasts, split (I used boneless, skinless breasts)

Mix together all ingredients except chicken. Marinate chicken in sauce for 3 to 4 hours. Place chicken in baking dish, skin side up (if using split breasts) and bake uncovered for 45 minutes or until done at 325 degrees.

Another easy recipe is to take however many chicken breasts you want for a meal (I used 5 or 6), place them in a freezer bag, add a can of cream of mushroom soup, a half can of milk (measured in the empty soup can), a packet of onion soup mix, some beef bouillon granules, and any other seasonings you’d like (maybe a little onion or garlic powder). Then, once thawed, you can simply put this in your crock-pot and serve it over rice or noodles.

Finally, I froze a few chicken breasts just plain to have on hand for when I find a chicken recipe I want to make.
Doing this mini-burst of freezer cooking was super easy, and it’s nice to know I have some meals all ready-to-go. Be looking for recipes that you can assemble and freeze with no cooking required (until serving day), like the Chicken Durango one I shared. This way, when a certain kind of meat goes on sale, you’ll already have some ideas for how you’ll put that in your freezer. Or you can buy the meat, and skim through your cookbooks when you get home.

Cooking like this also saves a lot of money. When you buy a large quantity at a low price-point, you’ll have all the chicken, for example, you need until the next sale. Had I not bought a lot of chicken when I did, I would have needed to buy it at full-price (or a less-than-great sale) if I wanted meals with chicken between sales.

Have a tip you’d love to share or any meals you’ve stashed in your freezer? I’d love for you to link up and share!

And a reminder—our next once-a-month cooking festival will be right here on March 1st!

Once-a-Month Cooking Festival: Cooking Clubs and Co-Ops

More hands make lighter work. It's as true in the kitchen as it is in other areas of life. By sharing food preparation with others, you are blessed and you bless others!

One way to lighten your load when it comes to cooking and cleaning up is to get some friends together and start a cooking co-op. Essentially, you and 2-3 friends with like-sized families who live nearby would get together and discuss meals you like. One night a week you would cook 2-3 times more food than your immediate family needs that night. You would then deliver the extras to your friends (pre-cooked or prepped and ready to cook). Then the other two or three nights, your friends bring you the food!

To make this work, you and your friends will need to figure out what the meals will include: are you providing just a main dish or a complete meal (salad or other veggie, bread, dessert)? Also hash out meal delivery times, cost goals for meals, nutritional considerations, and a schedule of who's bringing what when. You don't have to aim for every week--maybe start with once-a-month and work up from there if it's working for all of you. You will also need to purchase containers your friends can use to bring your food to you--a large 9x13" pan, for example.

Another idea is to form a group of friends and begin a cooking club. Here you would meet one day a month, perhaps at your church kitchen if you can use it and it's large enough, and cook several meals for participants to take home and freeze. Each person would be assigned a dish to make and assemble for all the participants. So let's say I'm in charge of chicken parmesan. I would buy all the ingredients and make up five pans of it (if we had 5 people). I disperse the pans and go home with four other dishes.

Making a co-op work successfully requires these ingredients:

• a large enough kitchen for everyone to work (or do it separately at home and deliver the dishes, but it's more fun to work together!)
• discussion and planning about what meals to make, how much everyone wants to spend, etc. (Save your receipts for ingredients; everyone can split the cost).
• a morning (or another 4-hour chunk of time) for everyone to work. Participants need to be committed to this and not back out at the last minute (of course there are exceptions, but if you're planning a cooking day and buy 10 pounds of chicken, and everyone cancels, it will definitely curb the enthusiasm).
• Uplifting conversation and good attitudes while you work!
• pans for everyone's food to go into, tin foil, and boxes to hold your meals on the way home

Making and baking extra foods takes time. Time is a commodity that is a limited resource--there is only so much of it a day. If you need to use more time to accomplish more baking than usual, you will have to come to terms with the fact that there will be less time that day for other things, like laundry (that's probably why I'm so backed up there but that's another post!). Trying to do it all won't work. I think that's what I finally realized. Making it work requires a great attitude about why you're doing the extra baking and cooking and an understanding and acceptance that, for those days, you will slack on other things.

I would love for you to share any kitchen-shortcuts you've found. Either link up with a post or share in the comments section! I'd also love to know if you've ever tried a cooking co-op or club and what your experience with it has been. Any additional hints to make it successful?

Would Someone Please Get Me Out of the Kitchen?!

this just speaks to me!

Is it just me, or do you feel like you are in the kitchen all the time? If you're not making something, you're cleaning it up, and then a small 2-legged creature under 42" whom we shall endearingly call a child ;) is in the kitchen again, rummaging around for something to feed his growing body.

With the holidays here and no extended family in town, feeding my family falls solely on me. I enjoy it, really I do. But sometimes preparing all these meals and snacks, plus extra baking for Christmas, gets quite overwhelming. For some mercy and advice in this area, I emailed Marybeth--a Southern cook who keeps quite busy feeding her family of 8.

Here is part of what I wrote:

I am reflecting on how to help next year's Christmas run smoother, mainly regarding all the food prep. We did not have any family in town, so it was just us (five of us, my three boys are under 5 so that in itself is busy!). I wanted to (and tried to) finish baking for neighbors (saving it for Dec. 23 and 24 was not the best idea). I planned to make appetizers for Christmas Eve dinner, and ham, cranberry fluff, hashbrown potato casserole from scratch (as in making my own hashbrowns), cherry cream pie, glazed baby carrots, and rolls. We had a sausage/pepper/cheese pie and Maple Apple nut bread for breakfast (which I did make the night before). Long story short, there was a lot of food prep and cooking; many, many dishes; and I found myself spending more time than I would have liked in the kitchen (and getting quite stressed about getting it all done and still enjoying time relaxing with my family).

I wanted to ask you--since you've been cooking and hosting longer than I--for your best tips on getting it all done and getting it done smoothly. I've heard for food safety, it is not a good idea to keep a dish longer than 3 days in the refrigerator, so it's a little tricky to make too many things too many days ahead of time. But how do you prepare your menu and prevent a major overhaul day in the kitchen?

If you were solely responsible for all the Christmas cooking, setting the table and cleaning up, what principles would you follow?

Preparing all the food takes a lot of time and hard work obviously! What tips have you found to get it done joyfully, and manage to also enjoy quality time with your family (instead of segregating yourself to the kitchen for several hours at a time)?

Here's what Marybeth said in response:
Cheryl, unfortunately I have no good tips for that... I find myself in the kitchen an awful lot during the days leading up to Christmas too! I think as women there is just no way around it. I try to take comfort in the knowledge that my kids will not remember all the gifts they got but they will remember my traditional foods I made year after year.


I would say simplify your menu some-- you don't have to have all those side dishes. On Christmas Eve we had meatball stew that I made that morning and put in the crockpot, some Sister Schubert's rolls and a brownie trifle that I made that afternoon. Everyone raved about the food and it was very simple to come home from church and serve quickly. So that's something to think about-- not doing so much and searching out simple alternatives. We did not do a meal on Christmas day-- we did do a big breakfast of egg casserole and cinnamon rolls. The rest of the day was leftover stew and some pasta I had made on the 23rd. The kids knew I was not cooking and was going to enjoy my day!!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Good advice!
All this brings me to the reminder of the once-a-month cooking festival right here on the 1st of every month. This month we'll be looking at ways to help get ourselves out of the kitchen for at least a few hours every day. :) We'll consider cooking co-ops: how do you start one, how do they work, and we'll also talk about ways to streamline holiday hosting. If you have any great tips, please let me know (ahem, Jodi!).

Happy New Year and see you January 1st!

Once-A-Month Cooking Festival: Snack Time

The appetite of a growing child knows no end. The more active children are, the more calories they burn, and the more often they need to refuel; consequently, the more often we need to feed their hungry tummies. For me, it often seems like I just finish cleaning up one meal, when there my boys are, in the kitchen, wanting something to eat again. If we could make a whole bunch of healthy snacks ahead of time so they were all ready to go when we needed them, this would be a great source of mercy in our lives!

Recently, I heard Jonni McCoy, author of Miserly Moms, talking on Focus on the Family about making homemade snacks. She said she often made tons of cookie dough at one time, and then froze what she didn't need right then. That way, you would already have everything ready to pop a pan of cookies in the oven (if your kids won't die from hunger within the 12 minutes they're baking!). :) There are plenty of recipes for healthy cookies out there. I love oatmeal apricot cookies. Apricots are a great source of Vitamin-A, and you probably know all about the health benefits of oatmeal already. :)

You could make up dry muffin mixes ahead of time in a large quantity and store them in Ziploc baggies. One very versatile mix I've found (courtesy of University of WY Cooperative Extension Service) is this Master Mix recipe:

4 c. enriched flour

3-3/4 c. whole-wheat flour

1/4 c. baking powder

3 T. sugar

1 T. iodized salt
1-1/3 c. nonfat dry milk powder

1 c. canola oil

-In a large bowl, combine dry ingredients. Drizzle oil over mixture, cut in with pastry blender, fork or fingers until it resembles coarse cornmeal. Store in covered container in refrigerator.  Keeps about 3 months.

You can use it to make breadsticks, muffins, pancakes, cobblers, tortillas and much more in a cinch.
For breadsticks:
1 c. mix
1/2 c. flour
3/4 c. water
Mix dry ingredients. Add water to form dough. Knead 12 times. Shape into pencil like strands, 1/2" thick. Cut into three inch lengths (or whatever you want.) Roll in sesame seeds if desired. Bake on ungreased cookie sheet at 400-degrees F for 20 minutes or until brown.

For muffins:
3 c. + 2 T. Master Mix
3 T. sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 c. water
Combine mix and water. Blend egg and water, add to mix. Stir gently until dry ingredients are moistened. Fill well-greased muffin pans 2/3 way full. 400-degree F for 20 minutes. Makes 1 dozen (a little bland but not too bad).

Pancakes (this is a great recipe)
2 c. mix
1-1/4 water or milk
1 egg, beaten
For waffles: simply add 1 T. oil

Berry Cobbler (sooooo good!)
3 c. berries (frozen mixed berries, thawed are great)
1/2 c. sugar
1 egg, well beaten
1-1/2 c. master mix
1/4 c. sugar
2 T. canola oil
1/2 c. water
Combine berries, sugar and egg in a greased baking dish or 8 x 8 pan. Combine mix, sugar, oil and water in mixing bowl. Spread over berries. 400- for 30 minutes.

Peanut Butter Refrigerator Cookies
2 c. mix
3/4 c. sugar
1-3/4 c. peanut butter
2 eggs, beaten
3 T. water
1 t. vanilla
Combine mix and sugar. With fork, blend in rest of ingredients. Shape dough into two logs about 1-1/2 inches in diameter. Wrap logs in waxed paper and refrigerate until firm or until needed. Cut into slices 1/4" thick and place on ungreased cookie sheet. 375 for 10-12 minutes. 3-4 dozen cookies.


What snacks do you like to make in large quantities?

I'd love for you to share your own ideas about this topic, or any other about bulk steps to ease meal-prep!
(Having some problems getting the link widget...for now, go ahead and use the comment section, and I'll keep trying to get it to work).

Once-a-Month, Once-a-Month Cooking Festival Almost Here!

Last month, we kicked off the once-a-month, once-a-month cooking festival here at Moms In Need of Mercy, where we shared any tips we've learned about how to streamline meal prep. I appreciated reading your ideas and insight! I would love for you to share again!

So our next installment of the once-a-month cooking fest will be Tuesday, December 1st. I would love for you to write a post about anything you do now so that you can have meals or snacks ready to go when you need them later. Then come back Tuesday and link up! (You can use an old post too if you want).

I think I'll focus on snacks in bulk quantities this time around. I'm looking forward to hearing your ideas too!

Once-a-Month, Once-a-Month Cooking Festival--It's Here!

We have to do it, we may even like to do it, but do we really want to do it three times a day, every single day of the week? We're talking about cooking, in case you haven't guessed! What if there was a time-saving solution, where freshly prepared (and then frozen) meals appeared on our tables with little effort on our parts (after the intial prep work)? There is such a solution!

Welcome to the Moms In Need of Mercy once-a-month, once-a-month cooking festival! This is a place where we can share our kitchen shortcuts to cut down on meal prep throughout the week. You don’t have to be a once-a-month cook to participate in this festival. As I mentioned before, I’m certainly not (but maybe some of you will inspire me to be!). Please post any helpful hints you’ve found so that you don’t have to slave in the kitchen, making a meal from scratch every night of the week (unless you really want to!).

So let’s talk about the mercy that is available for mealtime—bulk cooking!

To kick things off, I thought I would share some information about the various approaches to freezer cooking. I’ve excerpted this from the thorough guide, The Freezer Cooking Manual from 30 Day Gourmet: A Month of Meals Made Easy. Here we go!

Three Ways to Freezer Cook:

1) Cook by protein or “what’s on sale” approach
**I think this would be me!

Rather than planning a cooking day once a month, they wait to see what’s on sale and buy up a lot of one meat type . Cooks who follow this plan say that they save lots of money and it’s much more manageable. If chicken is on a great sale, they might buy 50 pounds of it. 10 pounds can be boiled and diced for use in casserole-type recipes. Another 20 pounds can be put into marinade and frozen to cook on the grill. The last 10 pounds can be made into nuggets, patties, or other pre-cooked recipes that will make for quick “last minute” meals.

2) Cook in mini-sessions

Being a successful freezer cook doesn’t mean putting 100+ entrees into your freezer in a day. It means doing what works for you and your family. Mini-sesions are the way to go for lots of cooks. It could mean cooking every night for a week but making three of each; one to eat that night and two to put in the freezer….For some, a mini-session means limiting the recipes to what they can accomplish in 3-4 hours…There’s nothing better than success to keep you motivated!

3) Cook BIG!
Cooking big can mean anything from 30 entrees in one day to 120 entrees over a weekend to anything in between…We were surprised to find out that it didn’t take us twice as long to assemble twice as many entrees. The trick, we realized, was making multiples of recipes…Again, just do whatever works best for you. Don’t feel like you have to cook BIG to really be a freezer cook. Anytime you do a little planning ahead and put anything in the freezer, you’re “doing it.”

Again, the above information from The Freezer Cooking Manual from 30 Day Gourmet: A Month of Meals Made Easy.

So what approach did you most identify with? Have you used this system for years or are you new to it? Does it appeal to you? Why or why not?
The more participation, the merrier! We can all learn from each other’s tips! So here’s what you can do:

• Leave a comment
• Link to a post (new or old) you’ve written about bulk cooking (a baking day, a meat marathon, putting up produce; it all counts!)
• Please leave a link in your post back to this particular post. This way, your readers can know where to find a master list of helpful hints, economic ideas and other kitchen shortcuts. 
• I think that’s it! See how easy it is? Now please come join the fun! Have a great day and happy cooking! I look forward to reading your ideas. :)

 Oh...almost forgot--the once-a-month cooking festival will be right here the first of every month. So next time will be Tuesday, December 1st!