Works for me wednesday – once a month cooking

October 28, 2009 at 8:22 am (random)

After lots of “let’s do this sometime soon”, I did it!

This past Saturday, my sister Staci, Amanda and I got together and took on the September Menu from Once A Month Mom.  The overall outcome:  I think we all agreed that as long as the food tastes good & heats up well then it was definitely a good thing!!! And so far I would have to say that the Once A Month Cooking from Once A Month Mom has “Worked for Me”! It was a long day.  It took a lot of planning.  BUT LOOK AT THE END RESULT!!!

Food, Food, and more Food

Have you ever seen so much food?!?

We were probably on the high end of everything.  It took us about 11hours & we spent a little over $300 (combined).  However it was our first time.  I would definitely imagine we could shave some time & money off that in the future.

A couple reasons, in my opinion (not trying to speak for ohAmanda or Simply Staci) that helped make this “Work for Me”:

The Extra Person – The way I understood everything, the Once A Month “guidelines” are really intended for 2 people.  However, we used three.  This helped us on time – although it took a long time, it no doubt would have taken a lot longer without that third person.   Amanda was “Person A”, Staci was “Person B” and I was the human dish washer!!  It’s not like you have time to run the dishes & I don’t know who in this world would have the amount of dishes & utensils needed to pull the day off, so an extra “human dish washer” worked out well.  It also helped with expenses.  When it was all said & done, I spent $116 for over 18 meals (plus about $15 on some Ziploc Freezer Bags & Baking Trays).  And I promise you we will not feel a shortage of food by splitting it among three people!!  For starters, the meals are designed for 2 families of four.  Amanda & I each have our husbands, a toddler & a one-year old … so in terms of “eating” our families aren’t considered “of four”.  My sister is single so between all that we have PLENTY of food!!!

Table/Counter Space – My kitchen is not huge by any means, but I would say that I definitely have a fair amount of counter space & it definitely helped.  I even brought up an extra 6′ folding table that I had & we got alot of use out of that.  By the end of the night we had food lining up around the floor & on the fireplace!!

The Food Processor – Amanda borrowed her Dad’s Cuisinart Processor.  Very early on we realized she should have borrowed her Dad too (he’s awesome in the kitchen!!), but since she forgot him the Processor would have to do … and it did!  Chicken, Apples, Pears, Veggies … chop, chop, chop!  Amanda also had her smaller prep one & it got used as well!

The Electric Griddle – My husband uses this all the time for big breakfast meals, but I’m not a huge fan … too much clean up for me:)  But we were flippin Silver Dollar Pear Pancakes like crazy woman (a whole other post all by itself) with that thing!  But it gave us alot more room to keep working on the stove.

The Whole Program – A Menu, Instructions, A Grocery List … how could that not work for me!! Sure, Montery Jack Cheese wasn’t on the grocery list(unless all three of us just looked over it every time) & we had to make a midnight run, but my goodness have you seen everything that is done for you!!   Tricia even checked in on us via Twitter to make sure we were ok … how sweet is that!!

It’s Already Done – I have so much food … AND it’s ready to eat (we’ve already enjoyed several items) or give away (I already gave two dishes to my parents because they watched the kiddos so I could pull the day off)!  And they loved both their meals!!

Ready & Waiting!

So, there’s lots more I could say about it and hopefully ohAmanda & Simply Staci will post on it soon too!  But for now that’s just a brief synopsis of our Once a Month Cooking Day & why it worked for me!

Thanks Once A Month Mom!!!!

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