RAQ: What are some resources for Once a Month Cooking?

I get asked this question a lot because I have done freezer cooking (or once a month cooking) for a few rounds over the past few years.  Each time, I get better at it and each time my family finds new favorites.

Some tips I’ve learned along the way would be to make sure whatever you’re making 2-6 family sized portions of is something your family will actually LIKE and EAT!  It’s just a humongous waste of time, effort, and ingredients if the family can’t stand the enchilada sauce or the recipe has too many veggies and your husband won’t touch it.  (Yeah, my husband is probably the pickiest veggie eater in the house.  He turns his nose up to them, pushes them to the side of his plate if he so much as sees a tic tac sized chunk of veggies, and demands to know where all the meat is.)  Tip: If your husband loves a meaty dish, don’t try making 4 veggie lasagnas to freeze.  *sigh*
Anyway, back to the resources.  I have a few favorite sites that I go to for recipes all the time.  Alternately you could always go to the library or Amazon and look for books such as these:

• Once-A-Month Cooking Family Favorites: More Great Recipes That Save You Time and Money from the Inventors of the Ultimate Do-Ahead Dinnertime Method
• Frozen Assets: Cook for a Day, Eat for a MonthFrozen Assets: Cook for a Day, Eat for a Month
• 30 Day Gourmet’s BIG Book of Freezer Cooking30 Day Gourmet’s BIG Book of Freezer Cooking
• Once-A-Month Cooking, Revised and Expanded: A Proven System for Spending Less Time in the Kitchen and Enjoying Delicious, Homemade Meals Every Day
• The Everything Meals For A Month Cookbook: Smart Recipes To Help You Plan Ahead, Save Time, And Stay On Budget (Everything: Cooking)
• The Freezer Cooking Manual from 30 Day Gourmet: A Month of Meals Made Easy
• Don’t Panic – Dinner’s in the Freezer: Great-Tasting Meals You Can Make Ahead
• Fix, Freeze, Feast: The Delicious, Money-Saving Way to Feed Your Family 

My Favorite Sites:
Once a Month Mom – She has tips, tricks, menu plans, and also great information about diet and baby food!
Money Saving Mom – In this guide, she walks you through how she prepares to feed her freezer.  Very helpful and great comments as well!
Dinner’s In the Freezer – Great recipes!
Real Food 4 Real People – Excellent tips, tricks, advice, and recipes for freezer cooking.
Food.com Cookbooks  – There are so many amazing people that have put together cookbooks of their favorite meals that they use in their Once a Month Cooking plans!  You can even search the recipes themselves for the tag “OAMC”.  To top it off, there’s a fabulous forum dedicated to budget cooking, oamc, and more.  I LOVE this place!!

A few tips of my own:

• Find out what will/won’t freeze well.
• Learn what flash freezing is and how and when to do it…. Trust me, you’ll be so much happier with your results if you learn this technique.  No more frozen clumps!
• Don’t feel like you literally have to make and freeze enough meals for a month.  A few extra meals or snacks here and there go a long way!
• Practice by just making one extra casserole or an extra batch of muffins and freeze them.  You’ll get hooked on how nice and easy it is to have these extras ready whenever you need them!
• Recreate some of your own convenience foods.  Making your own Egg McMuffins or mini bagel pizzas is SOOOO easy and freezes very well!
• Take advantage of the fact that you have control over how nutritious your ingredients are.  YES, you are making freezer food – but it is not laden with chemicals and preservatives like the scary boxed stuff at the store.
• Have fun!  Don’t get too stressed.  Expect to get hot in the kitchen and have a sore back and sore feet afterward.  Don’t feel guilty if you go out for dinner on the day you make your meals. 🙂