As I was scrolling through Pinterest yesterday, I came across a few pins for meal plan menus from once a month mom.  They are a series of menu plans that allow you to cook a whole month of meals in one day to store in your freezer.  I once went to a “meal assembly” franchise like  Dream Dinners, My Girlfriend’s Kitchen, and Let’s Dish, but I don’t really need or want to pay the mark-up to have someone else prep all the ingredients for me.  There are six different menus available each month- traditional, whole foods, diet, vegetarian, gluten/dairy-free, and baby food.  I am going to attempt to make the diet freezer menu this week as we are back in diet-mode in our house and it looks pretty delicious!

I am heading to the grocery store this afternoon to stock up on ingredients with the pre-made grocery list for the meal plan.  I love how everything is linked up in Excel…so fun to see Excel being put to good use outside of financial spreadsheets.  Along with the printable grocery list, there are  recipe cards for each meal, instructions with detailed steps on how to cook all the meals in one day, and my favorite item- printable labels for freezer bags with heating instructions and nutritional information.

After I’m done cooking, I should have 6-10 breakfasts, 8 lunches, and 16 dinner for two people.  While this is not enough for an entire month of meals, the plan takes into account that you will periodically be getting take-out, eating out, or preparing a meal fresh that night.  You can however make enough for the full month if you double the recipes accordingly.

I am hoping to get the prep work done tonight (it’s recommended that you do the chopping and a small amount of prep work the night before.)   I’m not sure I will be able to do the full day of cooking in one day as Baby T requires a lot of attention and would be jumping off my kitchen table if I left him unchecked all day.  I’m also slightly concerned about the amount of freezer space I have, but I think I can make a lot more room with some organization and removing the ice gel packs that are taking up about a quarter of the space.  I am hoping this will make evenings less of scramble to get baby fed and dinner on the table.

I am hoping to make the baby/toddler menu once we use up our current stockpile of baby meals in the freezer.

Have you ever made a huge amount of meals in one day?  What was your strategy in planning all the meals?

 

 

 

This post is linked at: