Not so "once a month" cooking

I’m not even going to mention the fact that I haven’t blogged here in a while.  (Oops, I just did.)  I have come to accept the fact that I am an inconsistent blogger.  We all have our shortcomings.

A blogger friend of mine is doing the “500 month” on her blog--100 dollars per person for food for the entire month.  I have seriously considered joining her, but alas, this is not the month to do it.  I need to order both beef and salmon and place a large order to Azure as I am not sure how often I will be able to order from them when I start working part time.  Sooooo, we’ll try it next month.  I think.

School Lunches and Snacks :)

Here is what I’ve been up to lately.  I haven’t been blogging about food because I’ve been in the kitchen making food—a. lot. of. it.  And the kids started school.  And I’ve been painting while the hubby put together IKEA furniture for two kids rooms.  Which means I’ve been living in a black hole for the past month.

Over the summer  onceamonthmom.com has been our go-to for cooking and menu-planning.  For some reason effective summer menu planning escapes me, so it has been nice to have someone else kind of tell me what to do.  I also used their back-to-school mini menu to put some food in the freezer for school lunches, which the kids have been loving!  Variations of peanut butter, cream cheese, and tuna sandwiches/roll ups gets boring after a while.  I’ve been loving the daily simplicity of lunch-making, too.

Homemade Spaghetti-O's and Mac and Cheese

In this process of giving once a month cooking another shot, I have discovered some things about myself, which I will share with you for your reading pleasure:

1. I love making bread, chicken broth, breakfast items, school lunches, snacks for the freezer.

2. I am thrilled to make a double batch of whatever I’m making for dinner on occasion to put in the freezer as an “emergency” meal.

3. I hate once a month cooking, because somehow or another one day turns into three, and as much as I really do love to be in the kitchen and cook, I don’t want to live there all day every day.  (I’ve tried to break it down into a few recipes per week, and that hasn’t really worked out so well either.)  I also think I prefer using my favorite recipes and adding in one or two new ones per week.

That being said, I’m not gonna do the once a month thing.  I still like the website for the school lunches, and I’ve enjoyed a lot of their recipes.  I’m thinking I’ll still use them, just not for a whole day-long cooking session.  Maybe someone with a different personality type could do it in one day and be done and would love it.  And maybe I will end up using it in the future when I know a busy season is coming up, and I want to have some meals prepared in advance.  As for right now, I’m going to spend the rest of my day putting together the August meals as I have already bought all of the ingredients for them but I'm not even going to worry about doing the September cooking session.  Be on the look out for a new menu plan for September/October next week!