I told you on Friday that Bobby and I were going to attempt part of the March menu available from the once-a-month-cooking geniuses at Once a Month Mom. The menu contained 15 great recipes which really do make up an ENTIRE month’s worth of meals! To do the whole menu, you need about 8 kid-free hours with a cooking partner. Because of the busy-ness of spring that has already sprung, Bobby and I didn’t have a whole day to devote to OAMC, so we picked our six favorite recipes from the menu and set aside two blocks of time on Saturday – in the morning, my parents came and got the kids at 9. I made a small start getting organized, and after Bobby got home from his Bible Study at 10 a.m., we got to work! Since we were just cooking for one family instead of two (if you cook with a partner and stick with the original menu you’ll have enough meals for both families), I adjusted the recipes according to how many servings we wanted to make of each meal. In our morning session, we made Raspberry Chicken (3 meals), Orange Marmalade Pork Chops/Salmon (4 meals – the recipe called for salmon but I don’t like fish, so we made one meal of salmon for Bobby and the other three we made with pork chops), pizza roll-ups (6 meals) and chocolate-raspberry pancakes (3 meals). We finished up by 12:30, ate lunch, and got ready to go to Sammy’s first birthday party, where we picked up the kiddos. Here are some photos from our morning cooking session, where we made 16 meals!
The marinade for our raspberry chicken. Yum!
Orange marmalade pork chops ready to go in the freezer:
Pizza roll-ups, before & after baking. They smelled and looked so good we wanted to eat them right then & there!
Bobby manned the griddle and cooked our chocolate chip-rapsberry pancakes:
We had originally planned to do 3 recipes in our morning session and 3 in the evening, but everything went so smoothly in the morning that we got four recipes done!! Woohoo! So that night after the kids went to bed, we started on the Baked Chicken Fingers and Mandarin Orange Chicken. We made 3 meals of each, and it only took us about an additional 2 hours of cooking and clean-up!
Here are our finished chicken fingers. We had these for lunch today after church and they were really yummy!
And here’s our Mandarin Orange Chicken, ready to go in the freezer:
All in all, we cooked 22 meals in about 5 hours, including clean-up. And since I only spent about $70 on all the groceries for this endeavor, that means our meals cost us $3.18 each. Pretty darn good for 10 dinners, 9 lunches, and 3 breakfasts! And I can’t even imagine how much time I am going to save this month since I won’t be cooking nearly as often!
Bobby and I had such a great time cooking together. I don’t know if all married couples could stand to do this together, but Bobby is a MUCH better person that I am, which enabled us to have a successful & peaceful cooking day. 🙂 We still loved each other at the end of all that! Here we are about 11:00 at night, after we finished cooking.
We really LOVED the once-a-month cooking experience, and we hope to be able to do the FULL menu and FULL cooking day in April! There is a really yummy menu from Once A Month Mom here and lots of things on sale for it this which, which Tricia posted about here. So get a partner, get a plan, and get once-a-month cooking! Tricia and Cortney have all the resources you need at Once a Month Mom including printable menus, grocery lists, and grocery store sale match-ups.
(I also submitted this post to I am Blissfully Domestic! Head over there and check out all the great posts!)
Great job! We need to get t-shirts!!
Jenny-
Great Job!!! I think Shane and I need to try doing this. Some of those meals you made look really yummy! Can I have the recipes for the Rasberry chicken, orange marmelade pork, pizza roll ups and the chicken fingers? Just shoot me an email when you get a free moment, no hurry. Or just tell me where to find the recipes! Thanks 🙂
Good job! You two are so cute! I love your bright kitchen too!
Whew! Crisis averted! 🙂 Glad it all turned out great, I knew it would. Glad you and your husband can do it together. You are better than me. 😉
I think I totally would kill John, or he me, if we tried to cook together in our kitchen. I am not a patient person in the kitchen, and he is easily frustrated, which would be a bad combo. I’m intrigued to try freezing at least a few meals though. I never thought about just doing some of the menu before. In my mind, OAMM seemed like an all-or-nothing kind of thing. Thanks for putting a different spin on it.
Nancy Walters always cautioned us on such activities with our husbands if we wanted to enjoy our marriages back in the days of old Sunday School classes. I would still heed her suggestion of never wallpapering with Bobby, no matter how awesome you think he is.
i’m gonna try to talk my friend into doing this with me in april. it sounds fabulous. we’ve done super suppers and enjoyed the extra time it gave us with our families all month. but ss is $$$$$$$$. this plan sounds much more frugal. me likey.
Cool! Everything looks good!
I had planed to do some OAMC this weekend too…but after my regular grocery trip I had no more freezer space. As soon as I have room in there I’m going to give a few recipes a go. With my limited space it may be more Once A Week Cooking, but that would still help!
This is impressive! My kids would love those pizza rolls. I have that Pampered Chef pan that your chicken is on. Guess I should use that thing for more. Nice savings, Savings Ninja!
I’m just gonna say it….awwwwww, how sweet! You know what they say…those who cook together…eat together?? LOL
But, I may be the only one who will say this to you – if I didn’t have my kids, I’d be cooking something, but it wouldn’t be in the kitchen 🙂 hahahaha!!
Mwuah!
I’m glad you survived! And those pizza roll-ups look soooo good!
I am a huge fan of cooking in bulk. I tend to spend 2 hours preparing 6 meals. I haven’t tried 15. Way to go!! And I love the stone…it is a major staple in my kitchen.
would love to have some of those recipes if located somewhere can you tell me where or could you share?
Wow, great job! Love the picture of you and the hubby after all was said and done.
Some of those meal titles sound delicious. I may have to OAM cook and scale the recipe down for a meal for 1. I really want to try the Raspberry Chicken!!!!
Way to go! You will love that raspberry chicken. Marty cooked it on the grill this weekend and it was amazing. I never would have thought to marinade with raspberry.
I am loving OAMM cooking – I am lucky to have Amy as my partner. Next month both husbands are joining the fun!
Hello, i just found your website today and the the OAMC idea. where can i get the recipe for the orange chicken and rice? it looks so good. thanks for all your tips