I’d love to say that I got all of my Once A Month Cooking done as planned, but things changed ~ adjustments were made. The main thing is that we have a freezer with lots of good eats, and we ate well during the process.
I learned that I only do true once a month cooking on a few meals. I lean towards doing once a month prep work and freezer cooking (making double/triple batches of things as I go along). Several of our regular meals are dump in the crockpot type meals, so getting the prep work done is basically getting the meal done. That works better for me, and it’s just easier for our schedule.
Our final meals/preparations for the freezer:
- 25 lbs of boneless skinless chicken breast, vacuum sealed – 1/2 w/seasoning, 1/2 w/o seasoning
- 10 lbs of ground turkey vacuum sealed in 1 lb portions
- 5 qt sized bags of gluten free granola (based on OAMM Crystal’s Lazy Granola recipe)
- 3 casserole dishes of gluten free baked mac ‘n cheese
- 1 casserole dish of gluten free pasta bake
- 3 gluten free pizza crusts
- 4 batches of gluten free waffles
- 2 bags of taco meat
- 1 mexican pasta bake
- 1 baked gluten free spaghetti
- 1 batch gluten free coffee cake
I had never made and then frozen gluten free pizza crusts, so I’m interested in seeing how those turn out when we heat them back up. I knew that the chicken ranch topping from the OAMM menu wouldn’t go over well here, so I just made the pizza crusts.
Since I buy in bulk for most of my baking ingredients as well as pasta, I don’t have a true breakdown of costs for my cooking this month. I spend roughly $70 on purchasing the meat. The granola was probably the most expensive thing to make since I need to purchase gluten free oats. It was still cheaper than purchasing store bought gluten free granola, and it’s delicious! I loved how easy it was to make. A good faith estimate on the cost of my version of the gluten free OAMM cooking challenge would be less than $200 once you add in all of the veggies for the meals. It would be more expensive if we didn’t buy in bulk and weren’t able to get some good deals on the ingredients for our meals.
From what I prepped and prepared, we’ll get around 50 lunches/dinners for our family and 44 individual breakfast servings.
This post is part of the OAMM Cookoff.
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Hi Heather,
Wow – how do you find the time to prepare all of that food? I’m impressed!
Have a wonderful week,
Blessings,
Jillian ♥
A little work now means less work later. My house is also a mess when I’m doing all of this.
Nice job doing a gluten free menu! It’s good to know that you can still save money do specialized diets.
Thanks. Gluten free is more expensive, but it doesn’t have to break the bank.
Hi Heather! I try to cook a few meals ahead on a Sunday afternoon to have for the week, just makes things easier! I will have to try the prep work too, great idea, I just looked over your other posts too & my mouth was watering!!! Have a great night, God Bless!
The prep work makes things go much easier and faster.
Great job! I really need to do some freezer meals and you have given me fresh inspiration.
I need to do some more freezer meals for all of the crazy days where we have soccer practice and church play practice.