This is not a Cooking Blog but...

This is certainly not supposed to be a cooking blog! However, I see that my last post (almost a month ago) was all about my first try at once a month cooking and this post is going to be about my second attempt at it. 

I wish there had been some posts in between...but you see life gets in the way and that's why I am absolutely in love with this new way of cooking! Yes, it's a ton of work. Yes, it takes a lot of planning.  Yes, it eats up an ENTIRE day.  Yes, it is tiring.  BUT, the work is worth it.  The planning can save money on the food bill.  The time that I spent in the kitchen yesterday was busy and went by quickly thanks to some great company! And it is tiring, but it is a satisfying tired that ends with a fully stocked freezer and the most sound and restful sleep of the month! 

Some things I learned:

 I wish I had a double sink! It would make clean up a little smoother I think!  It's hard to cook and clean when the sink is being utilized for cooking and cleaning at the same time.

I feel really blessed to have paired up with Janene. I quickly realize that she and I have the perfect temperaments to work together well.  We are able to compromise and we are both easy going enough that when we run into a snag we agree on a course of action quickly and keep moving.  We know each other well enough to feel comfortable around each other, but not so well that we have nothing to talk about. It's been fun getting to know each other better. 

I am going to start a journal about our cooking day and how well my family enjoys the recipes we make.  Maybe one month we can compile our family favorites and cook them all again!

We had music playing for a good bit of the day, when the Steeler game wasn't on in the background and it was fun making our play lists and sharing our musical tastes together too!

So what did we cook this month??

For Breakfast: Homemade Applesauce--SO much better than the stuff that comes in jars!

Maple Oat Scones (tea anyone?).

Green Chili Egg Muffins--so messy! My husband reports that they taste wonderful after about a minute in the microwave, but that the muffin liner kind of sticks to them.

For Lunch: Pizza Muffins--these smell like pizza flavored Combos! But they have a slightly sweet taste to them. Dipped in pizza sauce they will be a good mid-day treat.

BBQ Baked Potatoes--they seem like they will taste good!

Beef Stew--a heartier version than last month I think.

And Black Bean and Salsa Quesadillas--Yummy!

For Dinner: Pepperoncini Beef Sammy's,

Pizza Casserole,

Eggplant Parm (really looking forward to this one!)

Shepherd's Pie--this isn't something I would typically make, so I'm interested to see how it goes over in our house!

Cream Cheese Chicken--looks simple and tasty. 

Crock pot Chipotle Lime Black bean Soup---this has a KICK!

We had four crock pots going at once!

Mexican Baked Penne

and Chicken Lasagna Roll ups!

 You can find the site we use to find grocery lists, recipes and instructions right HERE. 

 We started at around 9:15am took a short break for lunch and dinner and we were cleaning up by 7:30pm.  I hope to shave more time off this cooking day next month!  I am so grateful to Janene for pairing up with me!  Dinner is no sweat now!!!

Dinner is Done.

For the entire month. 

What would possess someone to cook a month's worth of meals in one day? I became possessed by the idea of freeing up that dreaded dinner hour.  I became possessed with the idea of not having to rack my brain for dinner ideas and scurry around the kitchen trying to make a dinner that should take an hour fit into the 45 minutes that I actually could spare to get it on the table. 

I found the answer months ago when a friend introduced me to OAMM and I remember putting out a feeler on Face book about it.  I think some people where intrigued, but no one took the bait.  That is until one day last month when I got an unexpected message from Janene asking if I had been serious about my interest in giving it a try.

I had to think about it for oh....two seconds before I wrote back to say that I wanted to do it. I kind of thought it would be hard work.  But I also thought the rewards could be worth the effort and then some. My biggest concern was figuring out how to keep four kids occupied!

Cooking once a month is a good thing for the following reasons: 

You don't have to think about what's for dinner.

You don't have to mess around with mixing and pulling out ingredients and rummaging through cookbooks all early afternoon. Every. Single. Day. Of. The. Week.

You can feel confident that when handing the keys to the kitchen over to someone else, they can do better than pulling a prepackaged pizza from the freezer.

When you've had a busy day it is as easy as preheating the oven and popping in a pan.

If you prepare in the month prior to cooking, you can save money by shopping sales and using coupons!  We cooked our whole menu for less than $150 a piece and from that we each got 16 dinners, 8 lunches, 6 breakfasts (the breakfasts I have been using as grab and go, so it actually seems like more than 6!) That means feeding my family of 6 costs a little less than $5/meal.

'Twas the night before our Big Cooking Day!

These are as delicious as they look!

I was so nervous about these bags leaking! It was tough dividing our White Chicken Chili, Beef Stew, and Chili into those bags!

I cannot wait to dig into the black beans and rice. They smelled REALLY Good while cooking.

I think I'm in love with my Food Processor. It was SO under utilized before our big cooking day and WOW. I am in awe at that thing! Those perfect cheese shreds from the black beans and rice dish?  Under 2 seconds using this baby.

This was during the last third of our cooking day and LOOK! We are still smiling!

And the kids stayed out of our hair for the most part!

Some of our meals packaged and ready for the freezer!

I can't wait until next month!

Thanks, Janene!

The Magic of the Seashell: One Mom's Triumph.

Okay...a little background first: I don't like to cook anymore. I used to--before I had kids. I am NOT the mom who doubles as a short order cook, meaning I don't cook something for my husband and me and something else for the kids. The most I will do is change up what we are having in degrees if I know that one or another doesn't like it. For example, when I am making soft tacos I will take a few of the soft taco shells and whip up some quesadillas for the girls because they turn their nose up at tacos.

They turn their nose up to a lot of things. I hear a lot of Ew gross! or I don't like this or Do I HAVE to eat this? And nightly the dinner table becomes a boardroom bargaining table:

Just take three bites, Me or Jim.
How about two? The kids.

If I drink all of my milk do I have to finish dinner? The kids.
If you don't eat, there will be no snack tonight! Us.

Sometimes for some reason when suggesting bites, my middle daughter, Ava will come back with a higher number than we originally posed:
Two bites, Ave.
How about FIVE? She asks
OKAY!? At 4 years old the concept of numbers is just beginning to develop for her and we do take advantage of that.

Gone are the days when my husband would wolf down a meal and ask for seconds. Good dinner, Hon! He'd say between bites. Now, all I have to do is look around the table to see how successful my meal is. My husband, wonderful man that he is, will always finish his plate...even choke down a few veggies so that he can be a good example. But if I fish for a compliment, like say aloud Yum....I think that was a good dinner. He'll give me a look, and then I watch his eyes rest for a second on each of my girls half finished plates. It was good, Babe. He'll reassure me. Yeah, right! Sigh. This is why I hate to cook anymore.

The only thing that keeps me going is knowing that someday my kids will be like me: trying new things and actually liking to eat. But for now, their fairly new taste buds can't take much more flavor than the tang of ketchup, the creaminess of ranch dressing, the puckering of dill pickly-ness, and the smooth velvety-ness of cheese. Yes, it seems my kids will only eat condiments.

Until now....

I think we've found a little trick to getting them to eat:

Yesterday, while on the couch watching the news, the clock sped along coldly to the dinner hour. The daily dreaded question arrived. Ava perched herself at the top of the steps with her little head over the rail and asked. What's for dinner? I don't know why they ask this question every day, they are NEVER happy with the answer...and my misery begins before dinner even hits the table.

Tonight I had a feeling that my answer might be well received:

Well, We are having Seashells. Me
Seashells? Her
Yes, seashells. Me
Real seashells? Her
Yes, real seashells...stuffed with scallops and shrimp. Me

I mumbled the last part. It didn't matter. Ava raced upstairs.
JORDIE, She shouted, WE'RE HAVING SEASHELLS FOR DINNER!
Little running footsteps upstairs.
Jordan appears.
Are we having seashells for dinner? She asks
Yes. Me
Real seashells?
Yes.
Oh, I thought maybe the noodle kind?
Nope, real seashells. Come and look.

Wide eyed, my three little dolls stood with faces pressed to the oven door. I can't see them...
I opened the door and there they were! Immediately the girls jumped up and down and round and round.

We're having SEASHELLS for dinner! Real Seashells!!!!!

I have never seen my girls this excited to get to the table. All three of them. I looked at my husband. We'll see, I said. He peeked in the oven, We'll see, He said... He didn't seem convinced.

So earlier that day at the grocery store, I found a sale in the frozen food section in the fish department. As I pulled the BOGO stuffed scallops out of the market freezer, my hand felt a magical tingle. What IS this? I thought. It looked like a lump, much like a crab cake, sitting on top of a perfect half shell--A beautiful scallop shell to be exact. 9 shells in a package, and I could get two for a very cheap price. I'll take them! I thought. Pop'em in the oven for 30 minutes and voila! Dinner. Easy. Maybe not delicious--they looked OKAY...I knew I MIGHT get points for the shell and so I decided to use that to my advantage.

This product exceeded my expectations. As I brought the piping hot shells to the table, a girly chorus of OOOOH! AAAAAH! rose up. We barely got through the prayer without them picking from the shells like the little birds they are.

The talk of dinner that night was all about the seashells and each child picked their shell clean of the meat (or whatever it actually was) nestled inside the shell. To me, it tasted like a not so yummy version of a crab cake...but whatever! I noticed them also eating the side dishes. What is going on here??

I could not stop laughing. I could barely eat my own dinner because I was laughing and laughing and laughing. Now this is that silent, I don't want anyone to see me laughing kind of laugh that if you ever experienced it, you know is very difficult to stop. Tears began to well from my eyes. I covered my face in a dish towel, my body shaking. Every comment from my children raving about these "seashells" brought on a new wave of body wracking laughter. I could not believe it! The stuff did not taste great, but the magic of the seashells was working! I laughed straight through the dinner hour. I laughed in disbelief. I laughed in happiness. I laughed at the true absurdity of it all.

My husband looked at me knowingly. We need to serve ALL of our dinners on seashells! Can you imagine it?

What's for dinner?
Spaghetti, on a seashell.

What's for dinner?
Steak, on a seashell.

What's for dinner?
Chicken, on a seashell.

I think I could even serve tacos to them...if they were on a seashell.

Anyway, I wanted to share my first triumphant dinner experience in months with all of you!

My husband DID painstakingly hand wash the shells and give them to the girls for "a collection." They are now tucked safely into a decorative box that holds Jordan's treasures. I might sneak them out the next time I'm serving something that I know they hate.

Maybe there's some magic left in them!