Adventures in Once a Month / Freezer Cooking

In an attempt to force myself to cook daily, lower calories and tighten the budget I've been trying different methods of "Once A Month Cooking". This is where you go grocery shopping once a month, come home and prepare individual meals in freezer bags, casserole dishes and other holders to label and freeze. These meals are then ready to be taken out and cooked by your meal plan for the month. This eliminates the need for a 30 minute prep when your kids have stolen your will to live much less chop onions and smash garlic cloves.

I've tried different websites claiming to hold all of your recipes and then collate a shopping list. None of them did it right. OK, none of them did it MY way. So after much trial and error I found my way.

So, this is just my meal plan. It's color-coded by week from Wednesday to Wednesday. This is because I go produce shopping at Sprouts every week and Wednesdays are Double-Ad Day. (I'm cheap.) I'll get into the shopping stuff on a later post.

I started going by a system. Sundays are Roast Day, Mondays are Slow Cooker Days, Tuesday is Mediterranean Night, Wednesday is Italian Night, Thursday is Fajita Night, Friday is Steak Night. On Saturdays, I will actually cook something not out of the freezer just to give myself a little nudge.

Here I go. I will post recipes and pictures. I'll fill you in on the shopping process. I'll let you know if we're sticking to it and if it's making a difference in our wallet and my Weight Watchers Points.