I am so excited, we just bought a chest freezer and I did my first bulk cooking session the past two days. I have a month's worth of meals done that will require very little of me on a daily basis, this will be such a tremendous help. My menu isn't extensive and varied this time because I didn't want to overwhelm myself, but here's what I made..

chicken divan
spaghetti sauce
meatloaf
shredded chicken for tacos and enchiladas
stuffed potato shells
turkey for sandwiches
calzones turkey/broc/cheese, chick/marinara/cheese, bbq chick/cheese
bbq beef
meatballs and sauce for sandwiches
pizza dough (I'm making it today)

I'm going to do a baking day on Sunday to make pancakes, waffles, sour cream choc. chip muffins, banana bread if I can get Avery to stop eating the bananas...lol, and cookie dough to be frozen.

It feels so good to be organized and have a menu planned, thanks for letting me share.

Wow! I am so jealous. Want to come cook for me? I really like the idea of oamc, and I have a freezer, I just can't seem to do it. I think it seems kind of overwhelming. I know it would make my life soooo much easier, what do you store all your food in? Where do you get all your recipes? I wanna oamc!

LOL...sure, I'll come to Missouri once a month :) I always liked the idea of OAMC, but thought it would be too overwhelming and difficult to do with three kids under five. I checked some books out from the library (Frozen Assets, Frozen Assets; Lite and Easy and Once a Month Cooking) and just sat down and read through them. I took a couple of recipes from Frozen Assets, then adapted my own recipes that I know my family enjoys. I thought it might be easier and less stressful to break it up into a couple of days and it worked out perfectly. My DH is off Thurs/Fri so I started on Wednesday afternoon with my spaghetti sauce. After the kids went to bed, I did a bunch more recipes and DH helped with the cleanup. The next night I did the rest of the cooking. It was alot of work, but nothing in comparison to the time and effort that will be saved on a daily basis, especially with a baby who has no tolerance for 5:00 p.m. cooking...lol. We had tacos last night and all I had to do was cut up the lettuce and tomato! There were only four dishes to wash too :) DH was leary of the idea, but he walked in toward the end of my first session and said that he was sold on the concept. He actually commented about how this will help us stay within our food budget and is so excited to have yummy food to take for lunch. No more 6:30 pm burger runs for us!!

If you do an internet search for OAMC, you should find lots of sites with recipes. I have just been browsing here and there when I have time, but the best advice that I've gotten so far is to not try too many new recipes. Just think about what your family already enjoys and double/triple/quadruple those recipes.

I forgot to mention that I ended up putting everything in freezer bags. This allows me to freeze things flat which saves space, freezes faster and thaws more quickly.

Thanks for the great advice mama! I promise I will start working on it - sometime soon. Meaning I will probably procrastinate and never get it done. Actually - I have checked out the internet, and am going to start working on it later this spring - right now things are kind of hectic - but I vow to at least make double batches of everything I make, and then freeze that - That's an improvement right?