The Once a Month Process.

Many once a month cooking plans have you making one batch of each meal to put into your freezer.  I generally prefer making large batches, that will last me a few months.  This takes more time at the outset.  I generally spend 4 to 5 days cooking the first time to stock the freezer, but I end up with about 65 dinners from 16 different recipes.  After I get the initial cooking done I make 2 to 5 meals once a month to keep the freezer going and add variety.  This takes me 1 to 2 days.  Whichever way you want to do your cooking, the macro can accommodate and make your lists.  Planning is key to successful once a month cooking.



1. Plan your meals

The first step is to plan the meals you want to make. I find it helpful to create categories to be filled with a certain number of recipes.  This helps me create a variety of meals and makes it easier to thinks of things to make.  So I might plan on making 4 chicken dishes, 4 soups, 4 casseroles and 4 miscellaneous.

Be sure to think about the amount of work required for each recipe.  Don't load up on time consuming recipes or you will find yourself tired, frustrated and out of time.  I generally pick one or two more time consuming things that I want to make (like meatballs or lasagna) and plan some easier, faster stuff to work around them.  Of course you can make things easier on yourself by picking all fast things.

Be realistic when deciding what to make both in regards to what you can manage to do now and what you will be willing to do when it's time to serve.  Before I started doing once a month cooking regularly I had some meatloaves in the freezer for months.  I realized that while the meatloaves were convenient they still required me to make mashed potatoes and vegetables.  I never cooked the meatloaf because it was just too much work for using a freezer meal.  I solved this by making a freezing mashed potatoes.  Once I only had to make a veggie the meatloaves got used in short order.  Be realistic with yourself.

2. Shopping and prep

Once you've decided what you want to make then enter all those recipes into the macro and run it.  Check your shopping list against what you already have at home then go pick up everything else you need.

Print the prep list and chop, shred and dice everything it calls for, checking them off as you go.  Don't worry about dividing things up by recipe yet, just put your diced up vegetables into containers or bags and pull from them as you cook later.

There are a few things that you should not cut in advance.  Things like potatoes and other foods that brown should be cut immediately before using.  I put these things on my prep list still to help me know what else I have to do, but skip over them during the prep phase.  I set up a small cutting board to use for these when I'm doing my actual cooking.

When you are prepping, set up your work station to make your prep as fast and efficient as possible.  Place your cutting board next to the sink and have a trash can near by so you don't have to move around a lot while prepping.  Place your cutting board on a damp kitchen towel to keep it from sliding around while you cut and make sure your knives are sharp.  If you have a food processor, make good use of it.

3. Cook and Freeze

After you have finished all your prep, start cooking.  Make sure you use safe food handling practices and cool your food properly.  Use durable, freezer safe containers to freeze your food.  Many people use Ziploc freezer bags and those are fine.  I have used Freezerware by Gladware and they work really well.  I am now using a food vacuum sealer.  If you do freezer cooking and decide you like it and want to stick with it, I highly recommend a vacuum sealer.  It saves a lot of space in freezer and prevents freezer burn.  Don't buy one until you've done freezer cooking for a few months and are sure that you want to continue.  They're expensive.

Make sure to properly label your food both with what it is and the date.  If you're anything like me you will be convinced that you will remember what things are and a month later you have no idea.  Don't label the top of the containers.  Label them on the sides so you can easily see what everything is without having to remove it from the freezer.  Label bags in the same corner and stack them so you can easily flip through the corners to find what you're looking for.  This will save you a lot of digging in the freezer later.

Print the meal plan sheet and record the number of each meal as you freeze it.  Keep this sheet in a convenient place to reference in the future.  Mark off meals as you eat them so you know what you have left in the freezer.