I bought the book, "Once a Month Cooking" by Mimi Wilson and Mary Beth Lagerborg, and completed one month of cooking yesterday. Here is how it breaks down:
-Wednesday: I looked over the book and got the general idea of what needed to be done. Made a plan.
-Thursday: Shopping, part 1. It took about 1.5 hours.
-Friday: Shopping, part 2. 1.5 hours, pre-prep: 2 hours.
-Saturday: 12 hours making 27 meals, all different (3 ham dishes, 10 chicken, 12 beef dishes, 1 fish, 1 vegetarian)
Total grocery bill: $350.00 (food for the meals only)
Three loads of dish washing during cooking day…
It was a great experience and something I’d do again, but I would want an extra freezer. I was able to fit it all in my current fridge freezer, but I had to take everything out and re-organize about three times to make it fit. I will probably do twice a month cooking next month and see if it does not tax the freezer as much.
During the process, I kept wondering if it was worth it, and there were times I was tired during the cooking day, but having a freezer full of meals feels really good. Yes, it was worth the effort.
Good for you. I bulk cook about six days throught the month to fill my freezer with a months worth of goodies.
I've never done a twelve hour stretch. Alot of prep work has to go into cooking large amounts of food. You have pulled it off well.
I posted about my latest cook day. You can find pictures of all that I made under the topic "cook day" on my sidebar.
BTW, my website is
http://proverbswife.blogspot.com
That's awesome that your grocery bill was only $350 and you only have to cook once per month! Are the meals yummy?
I have never done true once-a-month-cooking. I don't think I'd have the energy and I know I wouldn't have the patience! I do enjoy cooking up several batches of different things from time to time (muffins, pancakes, waffles, mashed potatoes, twice baked potatoes) and freezing those plus my hubby makes huge batches of homemade soup, chili, and spaghetti that we freeze.