My Once A Month Cooking (OAMC)

Saturday, April 9, 2011

donuts/muffins

Today was a baking day! I started out making donuts...8 dozen all total...plus that many donut holes. Then my husband talked me into making muffins. So about 4 pm I started on muffins. I made 1 batch of each of these: Black Cherry Sour Cream muffins; Mom's Zucchini Muffins; Lemon Poppyseed Muffins; Cadbury Creme Egg Muffins. Here it is 10 pm and I just took the last batch out of the oven. Hewwww I'm pooped! Now....hopefully our son will help eat any of the leftovers.

This has been a busy week, but this coming week is going to be just as busy if not more so. Last Tuesday, Rilynn had a soccer game, grandma took her to get a prize for getting a 100% on her spelling test and took her out for dinner. Thursday night we had the girls. Friday night I had puppet practice for a program that is coming up. Today I cooked. Tomorrow is church, so I'll load up the muffins and donuts and hopefully they will be gone! Tomorrow night we have our Life Group class, Marriage Oneness. Monday night I will do laundry! Tuesday night Rilynn has a music program. Thursday night we have the girls again. Friday night is puppet practice again. Saturday is puppet practice and Roy works. Sunday is church and our Puppet program that Amber is directing! All of that and working 8 hours a day for the police!

I will post pictures and recipes of the muffins and donuts this week. I'll let you know how they go over at church too.

For now, I'm going to bed and rest my poor tired feet.

Night night for now

Thursday, April 7, 2011

April 7, 2011

This is my weekend to make donuts/mini-muffins for church. I'm hoping that my donut cutter will arrive tomorrow, so I can make donut holes. My wrist has been bothering me this week, sitting here typing, it really hurts, so not sure how much I'm going to get done.   It is horrible to get old. Who said they are the golden years??? Where is the gold/???

I'm also going to make bread this weekend. Roy is low on bread and I need to make bread crumbs.   If I have time, I'm going to make some hamburger buns too. I need to post the recipe for them. I always made them when the kids were growing up and that is all we used for years. I think I'll try it again. Hope the wrist holds out!

Plus I want to make beef broth and can it. I like to have broth on hand to use in cooking and I sometimes saute/stirfry in broth rather than oil.

Now Sunday for lunch with the family...not sure what I'll prepare yet. Thinking of a roast and mashed potatoes and gravy, along with dinner rolls. But not sure....might be something a little lighter.

So I do have a busy weekend ahead. I'll keep you posted.

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.