As you know, Cortney and I did our February OAMC BIG DAY last Thursday. I had grand plans of taking lots of great pictures and posting about it right after but the exhaustion overcame. I really didn’t get nearly as many pictures as I would have liked and then when I went to write the post, this is what came out! Now, that I have some distance on the day and a clearer head I am ready to write about our day, complete with some helpful hints! Cortney and I started at 12:30 pm. There are two wonderful ladies in our area, Melissa and Tami, who will be starting Once A Month Cooking BIG DAYS of their own this next week and we have arranged a bit of a baby swap. They watched our 3 children while we cooked and we will be watching theirs next week while they cook! (Just so you get a perspective on their adventure, they had a 2mo, 6mo, 7mo, 8mo and a 2yo!) For this reason we made it so that they only had all of the kids from lunch until dinner when daddy’s picked the kiddos up for us! So with the kids at the “sitters” we were ready to begin. Here are some of our tales and advice from the day: [singlepic=61,320,240,,left]
Hint #1 – Get some Pampered Chef Kitchen Shears!
The instructions mention cooking the chicken overnight and if you want chopping the vegetables the night before. We had a free turkey from Griggstown Quail Farm so I cooked it the day before and deboned and chopped the turkey meat the night before. If you are doing just boneless chicken breasts (my new method of choice) I would definitely suggest getting yourself a pair of Pampered Chef Kitchen Shears. They are only $16.50 and they save your hands when you are cutting 16 cups of meat!
Hint #2 – Food processors aren’t for everything!
This bit of advice comes from Emily at Mommin’ It Up! I will have to devote a whole post to this advice. . .coming soon! [singlepic=65,320,240,,right]
Hint #3 – Set all of your ingredients out the night before
When getting ready for an OAMC BIG DAY I always set up a table just outside my kitchen (in my living room). On top of the table I put ALL of the non-parishable ingredients on the table. I just grab the grocery list and go down the list laying things out. Under the table I put all of the pans, measuring cups, containers, Ziploc’s and equipment that we might need for the day. This way I don’t have to go around looking for things the day of the cooking AND I don’t have to keep telling my partner where to find things. The answer is ALWAYS: “Did you look on the table?”
Hint #4 – Follow the directions
Cortney mistakenly thought that I had the entire process memorized (I wrote it, i didn’t memorize it). She kept asking me “What do I do next?” I was stupid and actually answered her without looking at the directions myself! DUH! Needless to say we cooked up all of the meat, saved the 1 lb sausage for the burritos and proceeded with making spaghetti sauce. Fifteen minutes later when I went to make the taco soup and asked “Where is my hamburger?” Cortney replied “Oh, the hamburger that is in the spaghetti sauce? I thought it looked a bit thick!” Giggle, giggle. So needless to say we spent the next 1o minutes straining beef from the spaghetti sauce and adding it to the taco soup. Should be an interesting version of taco soup! So try to stick the the directions as much as possible! I think we switched back and forth between person A & B a few times, but we still made sure we were following things in order! [singlepic=72,320,240,,right]
Hint #5 – Thaw the blueberries!
I did the whole flash freezing the blueberries and the mushroom slices throughout the month when we bought them. I thought it would be best to just add the frozen blueberries without thawing them, after all there wasn’t too much room left in my refrigerator anyway. WRONG! When Cortney dumped added the blueberries into the already full batter bowl we she ended up with a blueberry ball, as you can see! Made it a bit tricky to add the batter to the waffle iron. [singlepic=80,320,240,,left]
Hint #6 – Label and Stack
I make sure that we have some Sharpies laying around always. It is important to label everything with the name of the product and the date that you made/froze it. Just in case it gets lost in your freezer and you find it a year from now! I also purchase baking racks ($1/2) at the Dollar Tree for assistance in stacking our dishes. With things still not frozen solid, they can get “mushy” if you stack them too high. Next thing you know you have sauce all over your freezer. Putting a baking rack in between helps stabilize the dish and prevent oozing.
Hint #7 – Wait to send packages home with your OAMC partner
Since we are cooking at my house we put all of the items in my freezer until they have frozen solid. Usually about 24 hours. This saves on the dripping of sauces and dishes when your partner travels home at the end of your cooking day. Of course, if you have smaller freezer this may not be possible. However, this is one of the reasons that I host our OAM Cooking BIG DAY.
Hint #8 – ALWAYS laugh at yourself and have fun!
To say Cortney and I cook a little differently is a mild understatement! Cortney is (let’s see how should I say this) a “dribbler”. I will likely be finding blueberry waffle mix in my kitchen for months to come. (Probably because I stink at cleaning too). I am not a “dribbler” but I am sure Cortney can give me some title when she gets around to writing a post from her end of the spectrum (hint, hint). At any rate, we laughed A LOT about her dribbling. We laughed about my messing up the taco soup. We laughed at just about everything. It is the best thing about having an OAMC partner. In fact, it is the only way to do it if you ask me. So my best advice to you is pick an OAMC partner that you can laugh with (and at is helpful too)!
5 Comments
Join the discussionI thought about this after we talked Saturday night regarding the blueberries. We didn’t add them to the batter, I sprinkled them into the waffle iron after I poured the batter for each batch, so in that case, the frozen would have worked.
Thanks for pointing out my idiocy, Tricia!:)
No problem! Anytime! Don’t worry I won’t call you out in the actual post. But your twitters had me rolling!
Just curious- how many 9×9 pans do you use each month? Do you use glas, metal, silicone, etc? Do you keep the meal frozen in the pan, or do you remove it once it’s frozen?
There are some more details listed in a questions post that will help with the types of pans that we use. The number varies by menu. If you look at the grocery list for that month’s menu it will indicate how many of each size pan you need.