I'm doing research on how to best approach making casseroles and meals in advance and then freezing them to help reduce our eating-out expense for those times when I'm just lazy, rather than the times when we actually want to eat out. I have found that there's an acronym for a form this type of activity: OAMC. It stands for Once a Month Cooking. It seems like a great idea, though you have to be very organized and it seems, based on initial research, that it's best to attempt this bit-by-bit until you build up enough recipes that you know your family will like before attempting to freeze 30-days worth of meals at once.
My plan right now is to attempt to do the Chicken and Fall Vegetable Pot Pie recipe, which is a lot of work but tastes delicious, and attempt to freeze some individual portions of it. My plan is to make individual pot pies in the shape of mini bread loaves using a pan I bought a while back with 6 mini-loaf shapes. All instructions say to freeze in individual portions rather than large portions due to the freezing and thawing times involved. This works well for us since I don't intend to do freezing on a daily basis - just for weekend meals. It may be smarter to start with a recipe they recommend, however, I know we both like this recipe, so I figure what have I got to lose. Worst case scenario is that we'll have this for dinner tomorrow night and the remaining portions will not freeze well and a lesson will be learned. The biggest risk is the 1/2 cup of whipping cream, but most sites indicate that small portions of cream mixed in with recipes do OK.
I think I will also do some Chicken Cashew Chili. Last time we frozen some HUGE portion of it and this has two problems: thawing time and the cashews were mushy. This time I will freeze individual portions and put instructions on the outside to add cashews after thawing and reheating (as a reminder). I highly recommend this recipe to anyone who is looking for a good, not-to-spicy but flavorful chili recipe. It's excellent. From 82 reviews, 94% would make this recipe again. I don't typically like chili, but this has some great flavor.
Hey M--
ReplyDeleteJason and I have tried OAMC. Our last cooking weekend was last September, I think, and we are still eating the stuff. I just can't eat the same four dishes for an entire month, and some nights we'd rather just have sandwiches and a salad or whatever. Still, it was very worthwhile--the stuff is still coming in handy. If I do it over I might not cook all weekend but might just get in the habit of making quadruple quantities when I make a dish we like and freeze the rest of it. We also figured out that some things were better than others. We personally have liked the meat sauces and taco fillings because then its just a matter of making pasta or whatever so the time is minimal but it still seems fresh, as opposed to some of the casserole type things which weren't that great thawed. We also made a chicken tortilla soup which is really easy, super healthy, and froze great if you want the recipe. I have several of the OAMC cookbooks if you want my reviews of any ofthem. I think we will try to get back into that pre-baby.