We are swapping our meals on Monday, May 4, at 11:30 here at my house. Make sure to bring a cooler, and all of your meals. Also, please mark your meals with what it is and the date.
Angie, Monica and Erika are each making 2 recipes with 3 meals each
Mandi and Kristen are each making 1 recipe with 4 meals each
We will all leave with the same number of meals we bring. Remember to post your recipes and cooking instructions on the blog.
I look forward to seeing you on Monday!
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Guidelines
1. You must try out your meals before making them for the masses. That means preparing it, freezing it and then thawing and cooking it to make sure that not only is it a good recipe, but it freezes well.
2. $15 should cover the cost of all of the ingredients for two meals, not including staple items like seasonings you have on hand. It should also cover the cost of extra items that your dish requires like uncooked rice or pasta, and additions to the food like sour cream or cheese that you add during cooking. It does not cover the cost of packaging supplies that you will use to freeze your dish such as plastic wrap, tin foil, ziplocks, or aluminum pans. You assume those costs.
3. Each meal should serve a family of 4-5. That would mean 4-5 (depending on size) chicken breasts or pork chops, or whatever.
4. These are meant to be main dishes, any sides are not necessary, people can cook up their own vegetables or whatever they like to go with their meal.
5. FYI, the following do not freeze well: potatoes (unless you use the ones already frozen), cream cheese, raw eggs, rice and some pasta. If your dish uses rice or pasta as a main element, you can try to cook it al dente, but it still usually comes out a bit mushy. Lasagna would be an exception. You can try playing around with those recipes and see if the rice or pasta could be added during cooking night.
6. Please use this blog to post not only your recipes, but the instructions on how to prepare your meals from frozen. That way all we have to do is log on to see what we need to do.
2. $15 should cover the cost of all of the ingredients for two meals, not including staple items like seasonings you have on hand. It should also cover the cost of extra items that your dish requires like uncooked rice or pasta, and additions to the food like sour cream or cheese that you add during cooking. It does not cover the cost of packaging supplies that you will use to freeze your dish such as plastic wrap, tin foil, ziplocks, or aluminum pans. You assume those costs.
3. Each meal should serve a family of 4-5. That would mean 4-5 (depending on size) chicken breasts or pork chops, or whatever.
4. These are meant to be main dishes, any sides are not necessary, people can cook up their own vegetables or whatever they like to go with their meal.
5. FYI, the following do not freeze well: potatoes (unless you use the ones already frozen), cream cheese, raw eggs, rice and some pasta. If your dish uses rice or pasta as a main element, you can try to cook it al dente, but it still usually comes out a bit mushy. Lasagna would be an exception. You can try playing around with those recipes and see if the rice or pasta could be added during cooking night.
6. Please use this blog to post not only your recipes, but the instructions on how to prepare your meals from frozen. That way all we have to do is log on to see what we need to do.
Beginning...
I have had visions of freezer meals these past few days and finally came up with an idea that would be win-win for me and a few friends. Many people have started Once A Month Cooking (OAMC) in an attempt to save money and cut down on time preparing meals. I really didn't want to spend a whole day shopping and then a whole day cooking 30 different meals for my family so I tried to think of some other options. When Entrees Made Easy was still in business I would go in and do a few meals every once in a while but they were a bit pricey and now they are gone. There are also freezer meal groups that get together and cook together, with the host in charge of buying $500-$600 worth of groceries and then having to divy up the food and collect people's money. That sounded like way too much work. So my compromise is that each lady who would like to participate cooks up 6 batches of two separate meals, cutting down on ingredients and time and brings them one day a month to exchange for the meals that everyone else had prepared. Doing it this way means that more people can participate because no matter how many people we have, we can just rotate the meals so everyone leaves with a different 12. And by setting a price limit of $15 for two meals, the price would be even across the board, so you will spend $90 making your 12 meals and so will everyone else. It sounds pretty good in theory, time will tell how it plays out in real life. I figure it's worth a try for 12 tasty dinners that I don't have to make!
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