Meal Assembly Watch

There might be a couple of talking points worth noting in this one.

Putting a nutritious home-cooked meal on the table at night poses a challenge for any mother. If you have a baby who happens to have a fussy period in the late afternoons, you face an even greater challenge. That’s why I was so thrilled to read about the concept of once-a-month cooking (OAMC) last year. OAMC involves buying groceries in bulk and cooking several batches of meals to freeze for later use. Buying in bulk can save a great deal of money, as can having a meal at the ready when you otherwise might have ordered take-out food. Cooking in batches saves time on daily meal planning, cooking and cleaning up!

Before you say, “I hate leftovers!” give OAMC a try! Many of the meals can be frozen uncooked and then defrosted and baked just as if they were made fresh that day.

At first I dipped my toe in the water by trying a few recipes like these that I found on the web. Then I ordered the book The Freezer Cooking Manual from 30 Day Gourmet: A Month of Meals Made Easy and found several recipes I liked. My mom agreed to help me spend four hours cooking about 16 meals at once. By the end we were exhausted and I soon realized that I would be better off cooking double or triple batches of whatever meal I was making each night for dinner. Now when I make Saucy Oven Pork Chops (one of my kids’ favorites from The Freezer Cooking Manual) I make one batch to cook that night and two more batches to freeze for later.

If you want to save even more time and effort, check out one of the OAMC shops popping up all over the place. Make a reservation if necessary, pay for 6 or 10 meals that generally serve six people each (most shops will let you split the meals into three-person servings although some will charge a slight fee), then go from station to station assembling the ingredients straight into a ziptop freezer bag or aluminum foil pan. In just two hours you can assemble two weeks’ worth of dinners–no shopping, no cooking and no cleaning up! Of course it costs a bit more to do it that way (anywhere from $8 to $22 dollars per meal depending on the shop and on how many servings you need) but it still ends up being cheaper than most restaurant meals. Keep in mind though that most freezer meals consist only of a main course and you will need to provide other side dishes such as vegetables or a salad on the day of the meal.

The other night I took a free Super Suppers 101 class. I met a couple of friends at the store at 6:30 p.m., enjoyed a glass of wine (how did I get to be 35 and never taste sangría before?), watched a demonstration and got to assemble a free meal to take home (I divided mine into two meals). If there isn’t a Super Suppers in your area, try Dream Dinners.

Read the article here:

Other Articles of Interest:

• Cooking in bulk saves batches of time
• Meal Assembly – The Next Big Thing in Food Franchises
• Are people thinking of buying into this franchise?
• Starved for time and a home-cooked meal – Publix offers help
• It’s all in the planning
• Variation on a theme
• Meal-prep firm targets dieters
• Much Ado About Nothing
• Is meal assembly cheaper than making meals at home?
• The better message: “Get into the kitchen and get your life back.”