OAMM member Matt and his wife Jenee both work full time, but freezer cooking together one weekend a month gives them back their evenings with their son.
How long have you been once a month cooking? How did you discover OAMM?
At this point, we have completed two months of OAMM. Matt learned about OAMM from a co-worker who signed up for it because she and her husband were doing Crossfit and Paleo so the OAMM Paleo menu was a huge timesaver for them. She she cut her grocery bill in half by using OAMM and buying everything from Costco. Matt brought the idea home to Jenee who was very skeptical.
Jenee: “How could we POSSIBLY cook an entire month worth of meals in one day?”
Matt: “My friend swears it works. She said you just buy all the stuff, follow the instructions, and somehow, when the day is over, you have all these meals labeled and ready to go for the whole month.”
What circumstance pushed you to give once a month cooking a try? How has choosing to OAMC benefitted you and your family?
We have a 1 year old son, and we both work. Most evenings, we would get home and making dinner was a total afterthought. “Oh yeah. We need to make dinner…” So after a few weeks in a row of trying to creatively invent meals based on whatever we had available in the house (and prepare said meals with a 1 year old hanging from Jenee’s leg), we decided we needed something different.
Also, after our son was born, both our grocery bill and our ordering out bill increased substantially, mostly due to lack of planning. So OAMM seemed like a Godsend. Also, Matt has Celiac Disease so knowing OAMM offered not one, but two gluten free menus (the Paleo version and the Gluten/Dairy Free version) made it a home run. OAMM is saving us a ton of time in the evenings, allowing us to spend more time with our son, and we have really managed to get the grocery bill under control. Our local delivery Thai place isn’t too happy with the change though. We now order from them less than once/month instead of once/week.
What is your favorite OAMM recipe (or menu or resource)?
Matt loves the 15 Minute Meatza (freezer version for members). We even cheat and make a few batches of this outside the regular OAMM schedule, and it has become a “go to” comfort food dish for friends.
Our big kitchen table is our staging area when we prep/cool down meals. You also see our recipe binder.
Give us a brief introduction to your kitchen.
Our kitchen is fairly standard, but we do have this enormous Paula Deen “gathering table.” It’s a perfect place to put all the meals that are done with cooking but are not yet ready for the freezer. A huge table is really helpful so the kitchen can be used exclusively for prep and cooking. The table is used for cooling, bagging, labeling, etc.
What is the number one tip that you would give to a first timer?
Queue up a bunch of podcasts you have been meaning to listen to and get those going in the background while you cook. Cooking in silence can feel a bit tedious and gets tiring after a while. We like to get smarter while we cook.
Tell us about a time when you experienced an OAMC or cooking fail.
The first time we did OAMM, we were pretty terrible at following directions so we ended up making 3 total trips to the grocery store. On our second OAMM try, we only had to make two trips. For the next one, we’re pretty sure we will nail it!
Do you involve other people when you OAMC?
Since we have a 1 year old, we try to involve the grandparents in the process (mainly to watch our son while we do the cooking). The grandparents get a lot of one-on-one time on cooking day!
How is OAMC hard? How does it make your life easy?
It is certainly hard to commit a weekend to shopping, chopping, and cooking. However, it is totally worth it when we can just get home from work and heat up a meal without thinking about it. Since our son goes to bed at 7pm, every single minute with him after work is incredibly valuable to us, and OAMM gives us at least an extra 30-60 minutes each night to spend with him. Although people initially look at us a bit funny when we tell them our plans for the weekend on a OAMM weekend, there is always a lot of curiosity, and we know of at least two other couples who have signed up for the service after we told them about our experience. OAMM provides one of those rare services that help you get more of your evening time “back” from the perpetually growing number of things that want to take it away.
Matt and Jenee celebrate with ice cream after a big cooking day!
