My Once A Month Cooking (OAMC): August 14, 2011

Sunday, August 14, 2011

August 14, 2011

This past weekend was my high school reunion. It was so good to see my classmates after all these years. Goodland High School Class of 1974! Can hardly believe it has been 37 years! Seems like only yesterday we were walking through the halls of Goodland High School together!

After my class get together, I worked in my garden for awhile. I picked a rather large batch of cucumbers and a good crop of zucchini. I put some of the cucumbers in a crock filled with brine for a start of 14 day sweet pickles. My family just adores them! I don't like sweet pickles. I sliced some up for sour cream and cucumbers.

Today the our daughter and granddaughters and their Dad and a good friend and her children were here for lunch. Wasn't much to it, grilled hamburgers and cheddar brats, cucumbers and chips and homemade Salsa that Mary brought. Roy went to WalMart and bought a cake.....it is Michelle's (Mary's daughter) birthday tomorrow. We wanted to surprise her and didn't have time to bake a cake. Wasn't aware until church. Feel bad that it wasn't homemade, but "grandpa" thought enough of her to at least let her have a "Paula Deen Lemon" Cake.

After the kids all left and Roy went to work, I worked on the zucchini. I shredded it and bagged it in 2 cup ziplock baggies. Got a total of 6 quarts. Then I worked on my rhubarb. I washed, chopped and bagged 6 quarts of it. I also worked on getting some beef broth made. I will get to finish it up tomorrow night. It will be nice to have those jars of beef broth this winter and jars of canned beef for quick stews and beef and noodles!

I will post pictures of all this and the recipes later.

All for now

Deb

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Introduction

Have you ever felt overwhelmed by deciding what to prepare for a meal? I know I have. Many times. Especially our evening meal when our three children were growing up. Then one day I stumbled across a program called "Once A Month Cooking" (OAMC) and thought I'd give it a try. It was a lifesaver and I loved it. I did it for years, from the time my youngest was in preschool until he was in the 8th grade. I don't remember why I quit, just that I did. When I was doing the OAMC back then I prepared a lot of full, complete meals and froze them, entree, side, and dessert. The only thing I had to actually prepare for the meal was the vegetable or the potatoes. For those of you not familiar with the OAMC program, I will try to explain it to you here. This blog is to try to help you see what it takes, how to do itm give you ideas and how much fun you can actually have. OAMC is the ultimate do-ahead dinner preparation technique. The secret of the OAMC technique is that you cook all your dinner main dishes for a month (or two weeks or even a week) in one day, freeze them, and enjoy eating tasty food, every night without the hassle of lengthy meal preparation. In this blog, I will try to provide the menu we use, shopping lists and recipes. You do not have to have organizational skills, nor do you have to be a good cook to successfully accomplish OAMC. What you need to expect and plan to is: Take a longer-than usual shopping trip, preferably the day or night before your cooking day. Spend the bulk of your month's food budget on this shopping trip (saving money over the course of the month) Cook with a partner or two or three, like I do, for maximum fun and efficiency. Cook half a day for a two week cycle, a full day for a month cycle. Love the freedom and possibilities this will bring to mealtimes. Enjoy family building times around the table and like us, the time we cook together. Take the stress out of having company for dinner I suggest for the first few time you do the OAMC to try to do the two week cycle. Then when you get the feel of the "system" advance on the full month if that is what you want and have room for the food. Also in this blog I will frequently give you suggestions of what to serve with a certain recipe. Please feel free to email me with any suggestions and question syou might have. Even leave a comment here on the blog.