Once-A-Month-Cooking!! Such a blessing!!

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Tired of wondering what's for dinner every night? With Once-A-Month Cooking, a day for shopping and a day for cooking will produce meals for your family for an entire month. This comprehensive cookbook offers recipes and tips for time management and organization guaranteed to save you time, energy and money and take the guesswork out of meal planning.

You can check out the book HERE :

I heard about this book a few weeks ago on Christian radio, and felt God leading me to look into it further for.."such a time as this." I have known people who have done this, but we have never tried it ourselves for one reason or another. I came home that afternoon and told Glenn about it and he surprised me by ordering the book for me online! Thank you Glenn!

 So after reading the book, we decided on cooking cycle A, which is 30 days worth of family favorite recipes that are tried and true. They provide the shopping list, and the menu plan and also all of the recipes, and lots of suggestions, too! We took the shopping list, compared it with what we had on hand, and then on Tuesday night Glenn, Elisha and I headed out to Market Basket and the Dollar Tree, armed with coupons and our calculator, and "stocked up!", as you can see below!

 So below are photos of the fridge and the freezer with all of the food added that we got Tuesday night. Elisha asked if she could be my kitchen helper for this adventure and she was such a blessing!

So...we started on Wednesday morning at 10:30. Below is our before photo! We look pretty excited and perky, if I do say so myself!

 The book is really good. It spells out exactly what to do, in what order, and it's very efficient in how they recommend you do it!

Here is peek at our completed shopping list! Very detailed and great!

 Let the cooking begin!

 The first thing they have you do is all of the processing of the food. Slicing, dicing, etc! This actually they say is the most time consuming part!

 So here we are at 12:25--2 hours later, and we are ready for our first recipe! It was a double batch of homemade spaghetti sauce, half of which goes in a freezer bag for a spaghetti night, and the other half goes for stuffed shells! (A family favorite of ours!)

 Whoo--hoo! Here are the stuffed shells done and ready to be put in the freezer!

 Our next yummy recipe was sausage and spinach pie! This one looks really yummy!

 It's now 2:25 and we are all done with sausage recipes and are moving on to chicken! (first we'll take our lunch break! The first time we sat down since 10:30!!

 Grace did an awesome job keeping the "littles" busy with activities while Elisha and I worked!

 Okay..so it's 4:05 and we have 8 meals in the freezer and only 22 to go! Yikes!

 One of the hardest challenges was what to do with Rosie! Grace did some pre-school lessons with her, which she LOVED!!

 We actually did dishes about 8 times yesterday! Both dishwasher and by hand! It was good to clean up as we went!

 Okay..it's 5:20 and our sink is clean, and we are ready to keep going! Nothing makes me feel good in the kitchen and energizes me like a happy clean sink! We chose the Picadillo Chicken Pizza for our supper that night (a recipe we made!). We'll serve it when Madelyn gets home from work at about 7:15 or so, so we still have some time to work!

 So the natives were getting restless as we like to say, and so Grace took them to the office and they watched some old Woody Woodpecker videos on you tube! Lots of laughing for sure! This was good for about an hour!

 Okay...so it's 6:35 and we are over half done our meals! Yeah!!!!

 Take a peek at our pizza! We served it with cauliflower with cheese sauce! It's on a sour dough crust that I made, and so it even fits with THM!!! Yeah!

Okay...it's 8:00 and supper is done, and we've cleaned up. Now onto the rest of the recipes. We think we had about 8 recipes to go at this point!!

Okay...now it's 9:30 and we are on the home stretch with only 5 meals to go!

 Okay...we are done!!! Praise the Lord! It's 11:00 and we put the last meal, a minestrone soup in the freezer! Yippee!

 It was such a blessing as we were able to exclusively use our freezer that is part of our fridge upstairs! Everything fit just like they said it would!

 And here we are...the tired but ever so industrious crew! Boy was I ready for bed! But....

My day did NOT end there. I decided to do up the last of the dishes, start the dishwasher, and tidy up the kitchen and write thank you notes to everyone for all of their help that would be waiting for them when they woke up this morning!

What time did my day start today?? 5:45 for family bible time! It's now 3:41 and I'm doing great! What's on the menu for tonight?? Cranberry pork chops, garden vegetable medley, couscous, and oreo balls for dessert!

Will this save us money and time?? Oh yes! The total cost of all of the food and supplies for the 30 meals was $330.00!! So that works out to be 11.00 a meal, and so just a bit over 1.00 per person! Awesome! Also, if anyone needs a meal, or someone gets sick, or even when we head to Bulgaria for our first trip, we'll be ready! Yeah!!! In the book they even said that when someone is having a baby, they give her the recipes and have her pick her 10 favorite meals and they make them for her! What a blessing and a gift of encouragement!

So...if you are in the neighborhood, stop by for dinner some time soon! We'll be ready for you! 

P.S.--Glenn said this morning at family Bible time..."Mary, you remind me of the Proverbs 31 woman. Always at work to bless her family, always putting your family first!" Oh my...what a wonderful compliment coming from my Mr. Steady!! Thank you Glenn! I love you!

A wife of noble character who can find?
    She is worth far more than rubies.
¹¹ Her husband has full confidence in her
    and lacks nothing of value.
¹² She brings him good, not harm,
    all the days of her life.
¹³ She selects wool and flax
    and works with eager hands.
¹⁴ She is like the merchant ships,
    bringing her food from afar.
¹⁵ She gets up while it is still night;
    she provides food for her family
    and portions for her female servants.
¹⁶ She considers a field and buys it;
    out of her earnings she plants a vineyard.
¹⁷ She sets about her work vigorously;
    her arms are strong for her tasks.
¹⁸ She sees that her trading is profitable,
    and her lamp does not go out at night.
¹⁹ In her hand she holds the distaff
    and grasps the spindle with her fingers.
²⁰ She opens her arms to the poor
    and extends her hands to the needy.
²¹ When it snows, she has no fear for her household;
    for all of them are clothed in scarlet.
²² She makes coverings for her bed;
    she is clothed in fine linen and purple.
²³ Her husband is respected at the city gate,
    where he takes his seat among the elders of the land.
²⁴ She makes linen garments and sells them,
    and supplies the merchants with sashes.
²⁵ She is clothed with strength and dignity;
    she can laugh at the days to come.
²⁶ She speaks with wisdom,
    and faithful instruction is on her tongue.
²⁷ She watches over the affairs of her household
    and does not eat the bread of idleness.
²⁸ Her children arise and call her blessed;
    her husband also, and he praises her:
²⁹ “Many women do noble things,
    but you surpass them all.”
³⁰ Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting;
    but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.
³¹ Honor her for all that her hands have done,
    and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.