A couple of years ago a friend and I decided to learn how to do the bulk cooking thing. We looked at Once a Month Cooking, read several cookbooks on the subject, and also referred to the 30DayGourmet site. Early attempts included a long day of cooking together and resulted in a lot of casseroles in the freezer. Basically we’d cook the entire casseroles, cook them, and then freeze. A record month saw us making 4 or 5 different recipes, usually 2 or 3 batches of each.
It didn’t take me long to get really sick of casseroles, especially the same ones every week. Cooking days were pretty tiring, and we started looking for better solutions. We spent time poring over recipe sites trying to find ones that could be doubled and frozen that our families would like. A lot of effort went into making the plan work but ultimately we weren’t happy.
Don’t get me wrong. The bulk cooking plans are great. I think a larger group that two families helps, possibly structuring cooking days differently and finding a wider variety of recipes may have been helpful as well.
After several months of trying, we stumbled across the Mega Menu Mailer over at Saving Dinner. This plan was a different take on bulk cooking, mainly because there’s very little cooking. The basic plan is to assemble the ingredients for a group of recipes, prepare as needed (chop or dice the vegetables), then measure into freezer bags, label, and freeze. When mealtime rolls around, you simply thaw and cook. The time saver is in the prep work.
The Saving Dinner site has several freezer plans. The mega plans consist of 20 recipes and there are quite a few smaller plans in groups of 5. The fives are handy because they’re organized by main ingredient (chicken, fish, beef, etc) so you can pick and choose. A shopping list is included with the plan, along with detailed instructions for chopping the veggies and meat in advance. Each recipe has assembly instructions side-by-side with cooking instructions. Suggestions for rounding out each recipe to make a meal are also part of the plan.
My friend and I have gotten comfortable enough with the recipes and plans that it’s common to pick and choose our favorites to make our own lists each month. I love being able to just grab something from the freezer without worrying about whether I have all the ingredients on hand. Bagging the meals means that they use very little freezer space. When we started my friend had only the small freezer above her refrigerator but was able to get 16-18 meals in and still have room for plenty more.
In addition to saving time, the meal plans save money. Planning a bit ahead means that I can purchase ingredients on sale and the plans themselves range in price from $2.95 to $11.90. The meals usually consist of a meat with vegetables, spices, and occasionally a sauce. People on special diets can easily adapt the recipes; for example I can see where it would be easy to be gluten-free or organic with little to no hassle on this plan.
So what do you think? Do you do any kind of bulk cooking? Share with the group!
by AmyL
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5 responses so far ↓
InTheFastLane // Sep 2, 2008 at 11:46 am
I don’t, but that sounds very appealing. Especially when we are in the throes of sports schedules. I think I like the idea of having all the ingredients ready to go rather than the whole meal.
Nan // Sep 2, 2008 at 4:36 pm
I love. LUUUURVE! My slow cooker for making life easy, but I do freeze stuff like lasagne: Why make only one when you can make two and freeze one? also, beans and stew are good things to make extra of and freeze some. I hope there will be plenty of comments here, I await everyone’s ideas with bated breath…
Megin Hatch // Sep 2, 2008 at 7:23 pm
I have gotten terribly out of the cooking habit. Well, of course I’ve been cooking, but it’s consisted of corn and veggies from the farm stand and grilled something or other.
But we are approaching cooking season! Soups and stews and chili and roasted chicken… mmmm… Those soupy things are a natural for freezing- and I usually buy a bigger chicken than I need and follow up with chicken casserole of some kind or tacos or quesadillas.
Im with Nan- more ideas!~
Anita B // Sep 2, 2008 at 8:06 pm
I’ve tried cooking once a month, but have also gotten tired of casseroles. I look forward to test driving this new site-thanks!
AmyL // Sep 3, 2008 at 3:45 pm
InTheFastLane, it’s great. And your food is cooked once instead of twice. Having a bunch of them on hand means I can make up my mind what to eat on the fly too. Ideally you take the meal out the day before and thaw overnight in the refrigerator. I’ve learned that I can pull many of the recipes out an hour or two before mealtime, throw in the skillet and cook until done.
That’s one of the great adaptations of the plan. Many of the recipes call for grilling and discarding the sauce that your meat is in. I prefer to dump it all in the skillet and cook on medium until done. The result is a stronger flavor which suits my family. I have friends who eat very bland and prefer the original directions.
Nan, I have never mastered crock pot cooking. There are a few recipes that do well in mine, but most of what I’ve run across turns out to be quite heavy or fattening. Perhaps I need to do more research.
There are crock pot recipes in the Saving Dinner plan; it is a wonderful feeling to turn that thing on and know that dinner is done at 10am!
Megin this is where I reveal a dark and awful secret: I dislike soup. Can you believe that?? It’s true! One serving, at a restaurant or someone’s home made is great. After that I won’t touch leftovers. I hate soup from cans, and as a result I almost never serve it. I think my kids have been offered soup less than ten times in their lives, thanks to my mother-in-law. I’m trying to improve in this area, but have a loooong way to go.
Anita, I get so bored with food! Do you get bored? I can do a recipe a few months in a row, then I need a break from it for a while. I think the once a month would really work if you had a large enough group of committed members whose cooking you trust. Lots of requirements there, eh? I hope you love the new ideas! Once you’ve done it a few times you’ll find it’s easy to adapt most recipes to the plan and get them prepared ahead. Nan’s tactic of doubling and freezing is a great one as well.
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