Once a Month Cooking

Everyone knows that as far as the media is concerned, life in America as we know it will soon come to a fiery end with the way inflation is rising and oil prices are skyrocketing. I am guilty of scouring Yahoo Financial News every morning and I can pretty much tell you how the stock market ended up at the close of every day. It's a blessing, and a curse.

Some days I feel grateful to be aware of what's happening around the country and other days I wish I could be oblivious. I'm no expert. But I do understand that the responsible thing to do for my family right now is to make sure that we get our priorities in order and we stay on top of the economic conditions around us.

I'm working on developing a monthly meal schedule as well as creating meals in advance when I get the chance. Once a month some women from church and I get together and create freeze-ahead meals. Usually we have a choice of three or four dishes and we bring our own meat for those dishes. One of us provides the non-meat ingredients and we all get together with our kids and chat and make food. Then we split the cost and re-pay who ever purchased it.

This makes sense for us on so many levels. We get to take advantage of a lower price through bulk purchases, we make food that beats a Stouffer's defrost meal any day of the week, and it gives us a few days break from cooking every month. This month I made two of each dish: Heavenly Chicken (a chicken and ham casserole with white sauce and spinach); Cheesy Corn Casserole (corn, cheese/egg mixture, topped with a ground turkey tomato sauce); and pizza roll ups (bread dough rolled out with cheese and herbs and ground turkey rolled up, sliced, and baked on the sides). They looked delicious. And the pizza roll-ups TASTED even better.

Being a wife is more than just raising kids and cleaning and being incredibly awesome; it's really being a money manager too. I've always liked working with numbers and surprisingly being a mom gives me a great outlet for it. I have a fantastic(-ly confusing to anyone but me) spreadsheet that details all our ins and outs so that Joel and I can do what is best with what we have.

I am grateful that we have opportunities around us where we can prepare ourselves for whatever lies ahead. I am faithful that life as we know it won't end, this may be just a wake up call to those that needed one. I could so easily jump on my soapbox about corporate big-wigs and the robbery of the middle-class but I'll leave it out for now.

But if any of you have wondered about once a month cooking - it's definitely worth a try. I love having the option of popping something in the oven if I need to. It's also awesome to get together with great friends and make delicious food.