I can hardly believe that Cortney and I did another cooking day. Except now I have an overflowing freezer to prove it so there is no denying. Folks, I think it is fair to say we here at Once A Month Mom have a problem. A good problem, but a problem none the less. We have TOO MUCH food. I think I might run a clearance sale on our entrees when we get back just so I can open the freezer without stuff falling out on me. What you are really looking for is the menu recap and helpful hints for navigating through this month’s menu. Here it is:
- Due to vacation circumstances (and lack of refrigerator and freezer space)my husband and I put together the pork chops when I arrived home from the grocery store with them. 48 pork chops is A LOT. It is enough for 6 pork chops per entree. I was thinking that this would be good for those men who like to eat an extra one but once we got them home I realized that 6 is way too many for us to eat at one sitting. So we packaged them into bags of 3 each. We figure if we have company than we will just defrost two packs. They look and smell really good though.
- The pizza-stuffed meatloaf looks and smells amazing. I made it tonight and shared it with another couple so that we didn’t have a bunch of leftovers in the refrigerator. I thought it was quite tasty.
- I waited to cut the ham until the day we were cooking because I had already done the pork chops (and honestly – don’t you think Cortney needs to a do a little work? I did. he he). I wish I hadn’t done that though. It took me forever to cut! So cube your ham beforehand.
- I would also mix the pasta salad in two large stockpots, or even 4 if you have them available. It is A LOT of pasta!
- We also decided that the Chicken Cordon Bleu would be better in deep dish pans. So you may want to take note. We didn’t have extra deep dishes but we did have extra regular 8×8 pans so I put the ham & hashbrown into 8 8×8’s instead of 4 deep dish. Yea that really helped the freezer space issue! *sigh*
- Other than that, all things went rather smoothly. My husband was watching my son at the house which I again, would NOT recommend. It is just too easy to get distracted.
- As for $$$, we spent $146.91 each, which is actually more than we spent the month we did seafood. HOWEVER, we made more meals (42) because of the pork chops and pasta salad making so much. So our per meal total was $3.49.
Hope you have a great OAMC experience this month and we look forward to hearing your stories.