After last month’s success, and the absence of Amy’s cooking partner, she asked if we could do the August menu too. My sister was also interested and I remember very clearly how useless and tired I was at 6 months pregnant cooking with Isaac, so I asked her to round our numbers to three. That meant a little more math for me and grocery purchasing but well worth the extra set of feet hands. I did most of the shopping at Aldi this month. I took my Kroger and Meijer shopping lists with me and compared prices. If the price was lower at Aldi I just bought it there. 80% of the products ended up coming from Aldi. I finished out my shopping at Meijer because I just couldn’t muster the energy for two grocers this week, in addition to Aldi. I was so excited running the numbers. I ran them several times because I didn’t believe what I saw. For 3 families of 4, we spent $218.11. That is $72.70 for each family and $2.53 an entree (we completed 86 entrees total. WOW – that is the lowest cost yet! Where you can go and find an entire meal for $2.53 for your family of 4? Well, apparently Once A Month Mom! The good news about all of that is that you that aren’t coupon clippers can still save money if you shop the bargain grocers like Aldi. You too can spend a fraction of the cost doing a once a month cooking (OAMC) day. Okay, enough bragging about the shopping. On to the cooking. Like I said, we added a person because of my pregnant state. Here are my lovely partners getting started: [youtube B-MMQVOnLAQ nolink] I had made the Homemade Pop Tarts, Hot Roast Beef Sandwiches, and Creamy Rigatoni with Chunky Tomato Vinaigrette ahead of time because I had a post to write, the roast wouldn’t fit in my refrigerator and I had tomatoes that were going to go bad. So that saved us a bit of labor on the day of cooking. Here are a few things we learned about the August OAMM Menu:
1. Hubby’s Favorite Casserole
Poor Amy was making this and had enough leftover sauce to make 3 more entrees! That is A LOT. Turns out that I calculated Tomato Soup wrong on the printable menus and the grocery list. It should NOT be 90 oz but 42 oz. Oops. Sorry. I have changed these amounts on both documents to reflect the correct amounts. Please make note if you are cooking soon.
2. Creamy Rigatoni with Chunky Tomato Vinaigrette
I had quite a bit of leftover Tomato Vinaigrette mixture left after assembling. It looked really yummy. You may want to cut back the amount of tomatoes by 3 cups. I am leaving it the way it is just in case you have room and want to use all of them. I decided to freeze the remaining mixture. I think it is going to make an EXCELLENT bruschetta mix. I am going to cook those up and post them soon. So stay tuned.
3. Baked Rigatoni
Amy was very skeptical about the white sauce for this recipe. She kept wanting to rush to put cornstarch in and thicken it up. LOL. I am including this bit of information because some of you might think the same thing. You are cooking it in a large batch so it will take longer to thicken up. Be patient, it will get there.
Here are a few tips and reminders:
- When cooking with your partner, DO NOT ask them if you are suppose to use ALL of one ingredient. Let’s say, Zucchini in the Chilaquile Casserole. They might just answer yes, without looking, and you go to make the Lemon Chicken with Veggies and realize there is no zucchini left. READ THE DIRECTIONS PEOPLE! 🙂 Sometimes even the ring leader doesn’t know what is happening. I say this with love, definitely not from experience. (cough, cough).
- Chopping vegetables and doing the suggested prep the night before definitely saves time, and sanity.
- Don’t be afraid to improvise. So you forgot to saute the vegetables before putting them into the Garden Chowder. No problem. I am sure that it won’t make a difference. In fact, Once A Month Mom may just change the menu cards to reflect this, it does save time.
- There are always solutions to your problems; keep your computer handy. We ran out of Chili Powder. How does that happen? I didn’t know it was even in the realm of possible. I always seem to have an enormous supply of it. Not today. So I did a little Google search and found an emergency substitute recipe. Nice.
- Have fun and laugh often. It is the key to your sanity and making it through the entire day.
I am going to confess, this will likely be my last full OAMM (OAMC) cooking day until next February (post baby). I will continue to make the menus for all of you and cook up some of the tasty treats for myself and my family. I just can’t hang for more than 3-4 hours without breaking down in exhaustion. I am so impressed with those of you that can do it late into your pregnancies. So, I will be looking for some of you that want to share your cooking stories.