Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Freezer Cooking

This month I thought I'd try my hand at Freezer Cooking, also know as OAMC (Once A Month Cooking). I have every meal planned for the month, breakfast, lunch and supper. We have done this before and find it to save money and sanity! All five of us are here for every meal so cooking is a huge chore in this house, especially with three growing boys! I allow one breakfast a week to be cold cereal or instant oatmeal and one meal per week is allowed to be eating out or perhaps a take-n-bake pizza brought home and cooked. We have breakfast and one big meal on Sunday and then it's popcorn in the evening. Other than that, it's three squares a day!
I feel like I have done pretty well with getting some good food prepared and in the freezer. Some of it is just cooked hamburger, sausage or taco meat. We will pull this out and use it for spaghetti, homemade pizza, biscuits and gravy, tacos, etc. I have 4 breakfast casseroles, some pancakes to pop in the toaster, breakfast burritos, 4 dozen biscuits, a yummy chicken enchilada dish, a couple of different hamburger casseroles and some banana bread.
We are trying to eat out of our pantry and cut our grocery bill substantially. Of course, we raise our own pork and beef and thanks to Chris and Dan we have plenty of deer. Next year we hope to put a couple of lambs in the freezer as well. I do buy chicken and the occasional package of hot dogs. I like to buy bologna in bulk. We slice it and freeze it and I also make bologna salad. This is especially nice in the summer when we are busy working outside or need to take a lunch to the field.
Please leave me a comment if you have any recipes you would like to share or tips on OAMC and menu planning! :)

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