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Every evening, all around the world, the same dilemma faces
many homemakers. What can be prepared for tonight's dinner with a minimum of
fuss that will be filling and nutritious?
With a little forward planning, you can have a month of meals waiting in the
freezer, ready to be thawed and heated. All you need to do is add simple
side dishes or a salad.
This approach is known as Once-A-Month Cooking (or OAMC for short). The
basic principle is that you take your family's own favorite meals, adapt
them for freezing, and then spend a couple of days a month doing all your
cooking.
OAMC saves in many ways. It takes very little more time or energy to make,
say, four meals of lasagne at one time than it takes to make one. But it
would take a lot more to make one meal
of lasagne on each of four different days.
You can take advantage both of specials at the market and of gluts in the
garden. You can improve the health of your family by not relying on pre-made
ingredients or on fast food.
I don't recommend you try new recipes for Once-A-Month Cooking. It would be
terrible for your family to have to eat four meals of a dish they don't
like, and nothing will put them off the
idea of OAMC faster. Adapt your family's favorites and you can't go wrong.
If you want to try something new, make it on a small scale first and make
sure it is a hit.
The actual OAMC process is spread over three days, once a month. Let's look
at it in a little more detail.
Day One - Preparation and planning
The first day of my OAMC, I go to the shops. I check what is on special, and
what is in season. I take note of what does not look good, too. I come home
and check what is in the garden that
is in peak condition to be used. This is my research phase.
Next, I clean out and defrost the freezer. I keep a written inventory of
what I have in the freezer, and this clean-out helps me to check the
inventory is up-to-date.
While the freezer is defrosting, I check my family's calendar for the next
month and count how many dinners I would like to freeze. Then, with the
knowledge I gained from my research earlier, I make up a list of what I will
cook, and how many meals of each.
The next step is to make up a shopping list, broken up according to where I
will be buying each food item. The last stage is to make myself lists
showing what I will need to do to prepare and
cook the food.
Day Two - Shopping and Chopping Day
The next day is broken up into two distinct phases. I like to get to the
shopping centre early in the day while it is still not too busy. I buy all
the food I will need, making sure to keep perishable items like meat cool by
putting them in a cooler bag as soon as they are purchased.
After coming home and unpacking, I can start the second phase of this day.
This is when I peel and chop all my vegetables except onion and garlic (they
smell if cut too early), and trim and dice the meat. This is all stored in
the refrigerator overnight.
The last job for Day Two is to freeze any meals that will not require
further cooking. For example, I like to make Fish Parcels. This is where I
place a boneless fillet of fish on a square of aluminum foil and top it
with a little butter, lemon juice, herbs, garlic, chili (or whatever
flavorings I like at
the time). The fish is wrapped in the foil and frozen. To cook it, I simply
place the fish parcels straight from the freezer into a pre-heated oven. I
add frozen garlic bread to the oven to
heat at the same time, and prepare a simple salad.
Other ideas for meals that can be frozen without being cooked first include
marinated chicken wings, lamb chops in marinade, hamburger patties, and so
on.
Day Three - Cooking Day
The third day of the OAMC is the big one. But it is made much easier by
having so much of the preparation work done the day before.
I start the day by cutting up all my onions and garlic and browning them.
Then I brown all my meats. I can do several different kinds of meat
simultaneously to save time, but I do them in small batches to avoid
over-crowding the pans.
The next step depends on what you are making. Many dishes are fully cooked
before being frozen, so they must be assembled and cooked. Others are only
partially cooked, and are perhaps
properly cooked in a crock-pot (slow cooker) after thawing.
But whatever you are cooking, it all goes into labeled containers in the
refrigerator to thoroughly cool before being frozen. I use rigid plastic
containers, because I have been doing this for years and have bought a few
at a time. A cheaper alternative is to use food-quality plastic bags to line
a foil
or plastic box. The bag is popped out of the box after it is frozen, so the
box can be used again.
Using the meals
Once you have your freezer full of dinners, you will find there very little
effort required to cook up some pasta to go with the frozen Bolognese Sauce,
or some rice to have with the Beef Curry. Since I put tomorrow night's
dinner in the refrigerator to thaw each evening, there is little left to do
but re-heat the main course. A salad fresh from the garden is a great
accompaniment to any meal and quick to prepare.
Some people might be concerned about the possible loss of so much food in
the event of a power failure. The trick is to keep your freezer as full as
possible. It doesn't have to be full of food - I put soda bottles half-full
of water in the empty spaces. The idea is that the more frozen volume there
is in the freezer, as opposed to air pockets, the longer it will take for
the contents to thaw if the power goes off. This approach also makes the
freezer work more efficiently, since it will turn on
and off less often.
In summary, by concentrating your time and effort (and mess!) into a big
cooking session once a month, you can have a freezer full of your family's
favorite meals. This will give you more
time, save you money, and give you peace of mind that your family can eat a
proper meal every evening.
Christine has written a course on OAMC. This is available at
her web site
http://www.geckogully.com/oamc or write for more
details to Gecko Gully, PO Box 1201, Werribee Plaza, Victoria
3030, Australia.
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