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Last week Chris and I decided to partake in some "nesting" before the baby arrived. We made sure the bags were packed, cameras charged, house cleaned, and freezer stocked just in case the little one decided to make an appearance sometime soon (which doesn't seem to be the case - getting impatient!). I found a website dedicated to the art of "once a month cooking" and I decided to give it a try and drag Chris along for the ride.

The site is Once a Month Mom. An amazing lady plans and posts her menus, recipes, and shopping lists for these once a month adventures in the kitchen - I don't think I'd even have an ounce of energy to do it without her direction. For the month of August, she had fifteen different recipes posted - we decided to trim it down a bit for our first attempt and only make nine of them. However, many of the recipes were enough for more than one meal, so they should last us quite some time.

After four hours in the kitchen, my sous chef and I had a stocked freezer that looked like this:


You'll notice that we also have a lot of pre-portioned veggies such as zucchini, onions, celery, etc that can easily be added to any meal instead of having to take the time to prepare these items that we don't regularly have on hand. Additionally, that delicious pink concoction to the right is my egg-free homemade ice cream which I will be sharing the recipe for later this week. As of last night, the container is now empty!

Thanks to Once a Month Mom, Chris and I now have the following meals at our disposal for all of those nights when we're just too tired to cook after the baby arrives:


Thus far we've tried the Garden Chowder as well as Roast Beef Sandwiches with a homemade Au Jus (and using the left over beef to make yummy Beef Taco Salads). Tonight we're trying the King Ranch Chicken. I have to say that it was kind of fun cooking all of these meals together, and I foresee this being something we continue to do in the future (provided that Chris is willing!). It makes it a lot easier to shop, cook and plan meals when doing it all at once. Plus, I only spent $45 for all of the groceries to make these meals, which evens out to $3 per meal (some recipes made more than one pan) which is pretty darn good in my book. After a long day we can just thaw, pop in the oven and enjoy!