Menu Plan Monday – Two Week Plan Part 2

Yes, I know it’s Wednesday – lets ignore that fact OK. Thanks

I wanted to follow up last weeks post with a bit more info from our most recent (Friday) cooking session.

This was our finalized menu plan for the two weeks worth of prep:

Classic Foil Packets

Balsamic Roasted Chicken Thighs

Texas 2 Step Soup

Crock Pot Rotisserie-Style Chicken

Macaroni and Beef

Chicken and Pasta in Pesto

Crock Pot Cashew Chicken

Fall Pork Chops

Black Beans and Brown Rice (V)

Tex-Mex Shepherds Pie (V)

Tacos (V)

Pizza

Fried Rice

Bolognese Sauce

So after shopping and everything, we gathered at Erin’s house ready to get started.

Groceries are unpacked

Step one is always veggie prep – anything that needs cut, chopped, diced, sliced, or pre-cooked is added to a master list which is generated mostly from the shopping list and recipes:

Once that is figured out, the prep list is placed in a common area and we both dig in with whoever needs to happen.

Random tip: put the onions that need to be diced or minced in a vitamin with some water pulse a couple quick times and you’ve got your onions done!

Once everything is prepped the recipes start getting put together assembly line style.  Unfortunately once this “real” work started my picture taking stopped.  Essentially most of our items get frozen in ziplock bags.  Anything that can be precooked is, anything that can be premixed is, casseroles that need to be layered get put together right in our casserole dishes and frozen that way so all we have to do is thaw and cook.  Our main goal is to do as MUCH as we POSSIBLY can on this one day so that when the time comes to actually feed our family almost everything is done.  We may have to cook some pasta, we may have to dump bags of ingredients into the crock-pot or rewarm things in the oven, but for the most part everything is ready to go.  We’ve even pre-cooked rice and frozen it for things like the fried rice and the black bean and brown rice dishes.

As we finish each dish – they are placed into their freezer dishes (gallon sized bags mostly) labeled with a family name so we know who’s is who’s and the dish then they go in the freezer until they are all divided up and I take mine home.

That’s really it.  It takes us all day (I think we cooked for 12 to 14 hours this week) but I’ll happily sacrifice one day twice a week in the company of a good friend to feed my family healthy home cooked meals with little to no effort the rest of those two weeks.

Be on the look out – in March my menu plans will feature plant based meals or meals that can be adjusted easily to be plant based.  With lent right around the corner, and my husbands cholesterol results in, it’s been decided that we will be removing animal products from our meals for the month of march and following a whole foods plant based diet like the E2 diet, Happy Herbivore, and a bit of the Daniel Fast.  Erin’s family (to my knowledge) will not be joining us on our meat free March so meals will still have the ability to include dairy, eggs, and meat as well for all my omnivore friends. 🙂

Menu Plan Monday – a two week plan, and another Plan to Eat review.

 

You may remember back in July, I shared that I had started to use the site Plan To Eat for my menu planning.

Well, I still am and I still love it.  Since October though something even cooler has been happening, and I’ve been meaning to post about it and obviously I still haven’t.

See, I have this awesome friend – Erin.  In september my awesome friend, and her awesome family moved into a new house after being in a state of unrest and unsettled for nearly a year as they sold their home, started building a new house, ended up backing out of the home they were building because of complications, and then found this house and moved in.  Their awesome new house has an amazing kitchen.  Anyone see where this is going?

no?

Well, since October we’ve been getting together every two weeks after pay day (both our husbands work for the same company, so they have the same pay schedule which is handy) and cook enough meals to feed our family for the following two weeks.  It’s been AWESOME.

Our family at least has cut back on spending, and going out to eat over all, and when we are finished each time Erin and I both feel accomplished!  This friday is cooking day, so with any luck I’ll remember to take some pictures and I can show you how we’ve been doing the cooking.  For now though I’m going to tell you how I’ve been planning meals for two weeks at a time.

It all starts on Plan To Eat.  I go through all my recipes and pick out approximately 14 that will become our dinners for the following weeks.  If Erin has anything she or her family are wanting either she sends me a recipe and I import it, or we do some googling to find a recipe that will work (or that we think will work) and import that.

One of my favorite things about Plan To Eat, is that from the recipes you plan, it automatically creates a shopping list from the recipes!

So, I take that list and review what I have on hand in my pantry, and what I need to get – anything that needs to be purchased gets added to my master grocery list (I have a downloaded version of this list that I have edited over the years to reflect how and where I shop).

So, we do our own shopping, buy what we need, and then spend an entire day cooking while our four girls run around, play, and generally create the chaos kids are known for all over the house.

 

After we are done cooking, both our families hang out, spend the evening together, and then we all crash at their house.  When our food comes home with us the next day, I put it in our deep freezer.  Here’s my favorite part and it’s taken me a while to figure out.  Once I put everything in the freezer I have to keep track of what’s in there, and have the recipes handy for anything that needs liquid (broth, water) added before cooking since we don’t add those before freezing them.  This is what I’ve come up with:

 

I added a place on my freezer where I write down whats in there (the black lines are in sharpie so they don’t come off, everything else is dry erase and comes off easily).  I hang the recipes with a magnetic clip right there next to the list for easy finding (I move and file them once the meals are cooked, so only meals that are in the freezer are hanging in that recipe group).  When I take a meal out of the freezer to thaw in the fridge (it takes about two days in our fridge to thaw them, so there are always two out at a time, one for the day of, and one for the next day) I put a little mark next to the list so I know what’s out to cook.

So, now you can see our menu plan for the week – tonight we are having Martini Beef-less Tips over Lemon Pepper Pearl Couscous, and tomorrow we are having Baked Ziti.

The best part of cooking together is that we both get to try things we may not have otherwise tired.  We are learning to adapt recipes for their omnivore family and our more leaning toward herbivore family so that everyone still gets their dietary preference, as well as we are figuring out how to adjust recipe sizes since I’m only feeding 2 adults and 1 child and Erin is feeding 2 adults and 3 kids.

My favorite part though is the camaraderie of another mom in the kitchen, our families spending time together, and the memories we are making.

 

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OAMC Plan for June

I’m hoping to get my OAMC for June done tomorrow, or Thursday at the latest so I’ve spent the evening preparing my head and my kitchen.  Every single pot and pan is clean, dishwasher is running, I’m about to rearrange things to have maximum space available on my counters and be ready to go first thing in the morning.

 

I’ve made my list:

 

 

This time I organized it by type rather than food group as I’m trying to do a lot more vegetarian cooking this month which means hopefully I can prep for more than just dinners on my cooking day which is what I’ve focused on in the past.

 

I also made a prep list of all the veggies and things that need chopped as well as anything I could cook ahead of time, or that needs to be cooked ahead of time.

 

 

This way I can start my morning off doing all the prep work/chopping in one go and then be done with those utensils and free up the space.

 

Excited to try lots of new recipes, foods, and techniques this month – hope things are yummy and the family approves. 🙂

How I organize for OAMC

This is my second month making an attempt at doing all my cooking for the month in one big go.  This time I’ll be doing it on Friday of this week.  There are a couple big things I do ahead of time in order to feel the most organized and the most prepared before I even go into my kitchen.

1) I have to have a menu planned out.  Even if all I’m going to cook are family favorites that I’ve made a million times before, I have to have them all written down and organized to make sure that a) I’ve got enough meals planned to cover all the days in the month I need to cook for and b) that I also don’t have too many things planned or I know that they won’t get done and then I’ll feel upset about it.

2. I take that menu and translate it into a list of what meals I need to make in different categories.  I work through one category at a time on cooking day so that I’m only dealing with one set of main ingredients at a time – especially great when it comes to raw meat products.

3. Print and copy.  I track down all the recipes I need, usually onto my Pinterest Menu Plan board, but also from cookbooks and things.  Then I either print or make a copy of each recipe.  These recipes are then sorted into the categories represented on the list.  I use these to cook from obviously, but then I also include the copy in the freezer bag as I’m putting the meal in the freezer, that way when I take it out, all the directions for any other cooking I need to do is right there.  I don’t have to go look it up or track down the recipe – it makes it so much easier.

 

 

Those are my basic steps in prep work outside the kitchen.  I’ll follow up later with how I actually work in the kitchen, but I wanted to start here because good prep work is the foundation to success I think.

 

Happy Wednesday!

Courtney