The Verdict is In!

So today we ate only our frozen meals.  Breakfast was breakfast pizza, and it was a very small portion.  Lunch was the Cuban sandwich quesadilla (delicious!), which was also a small portion (one tortilla folded in half).  Dinner was turkey enchilada casserole, which was supposed to be 4 servings, but we ate the whole thing because we were starving.  The pizza was soggy from defrosting, but I'm sure if I put it in the toaster oven it would be fine.  The quesadillas were a bit soggy, but once I microwaved them they were fine (and I'm VERY picky about texture).  The casserole was perfect, and it was so nice to take about 5 minutes total preparing dinner. Not to mention less than 5 minutes of clean up. I forgot to mention, we had the sweet and spicy chicken stir fry for dinner last night, which I served over brown rice.  I added a little soy sauce, but it was fine.

My verdict so far about the once a month cooking: It's totally worth the planning and the day of cooking.  However, we will have to make our own menus and shopping lists to fit our appetites and taste buds.  We will be lucky to have 2 weeks of food from this menu, much less an entire month.

Some of you have asked about my weight loss.  I'm down about 18 pounds, which is great.  Over Spring Break I relaxed a bit too much and gained 6 pounds (you can imagine my reaction when I stepped on the scale), so I skipped weigh in that week.  The next week's weigh in I was down .2 lbs from the week before Spring Break (so I lost 6.2 lbs, but it only registered .2 overall, I hope that makes sense).  This week I lost another .2 pounds.  I believe we only have 2 more weeks until the final weigh in, so I'm hoping that my new meal plan and the nice weather will help me get over my hump and loose a few more pounds before the competition is over.  I don't want to get too confident, but we are currently in first place with a 4% lead over the team behind us.  So unless they go crazy and loose tons of weight or one of us goes off the deep end and gains a million pounds, we've won this thing.  It helps when the other members of your team have lost over 30 and even 40 pounds :)

Day of Cooking

Yesterday we cooked all of our meals from Once a Month Mom.  It definitely took a full day and our bodies hated us by the end, but none of the recipes were "hard."  It was easy to make and package, just a lot of work.  We did some chopping and prep the night before, and that combined with our work yesterday, minus breaks, equals about 7 hours of cooking.  14 man hours if you consider Chris and I were both working the whole time (except when I had to leave the kitchen to avoid puking from the smell of banana filling the room).

Everything fit in the freezer.  What you need to do is put the food in Ziplocs, then flatten it out as much as possible.  Our tiny side by side freezer fit everything with room to spare.

The labels are a must; with this much food in the freezer it's tough to remember everything you have.  They are quick to print out, and save tons of time with labeling.

The only bad thing about the meal plan is that it only allows for 8 breakfasts, 8 lunches, and 14 dinners.  She explains this in her blog, but we didn't read that until after we had cooked.  She says this is to allow for eating out.  That's a lot of eating out!!!! So basically, we only have enough food for about 2 weeks.  We are going to try it out, and if we like it then in 2 weeks we will just double up on everything and then have enough for a full month.  So, for example, we would type in 4 instead of 2 where it asks how many people you are cooking for.  Another thing we will do is make our own shopping list.  The grocery list and the recipes don't call for the same things.  For example, 2 medium carrots does not equal 4 cups.  Also, we like more meat in our meals than the recipes call for.  In addition, the recipes don't include side dishes or snacks, so that is an added expense and something that needs to be considered while planning out the month.  So, just like everything else in life, we will need to adjust the recipes and shopping lists to accommodate our needs.  But the basic concept is amazing, and we are super excited to eat all of the yummy foods!

I do want to add that everything we made looked and smelled delicious.  We tasted the egg rolls, waffles, and minestrone, and they were all yummy.  The hardest part of cooking was making a ton of food that we really wanted to eat, but weren't allowed to.  At least we have something to look forward to over the next couple of weeks!  We are excited to have different things to eat for breakfast and lunch, instead of cereal, sandwiches, and left overs all the time. 

Southwestern egg rolls, breakfast pizza, healthy breakfast cookies

I would definitely recommend trying this out if you are looking for a way to eat well and save time.  My advice is to take the time to make sure you have enough meals to cover the month, and to adjust the portions to fit your appetite.  Make sure you add in side dishes and snacks, and compare the shopping list to  the recipes so you don't have to run to the store in the middle of your day of cooking (like we did).  If you want to try this out, but have other questions or need some advice, let me know!

Once a Month Mom

There is one thing that has kept me from thinking that I can really keep my new healthy eating lifestyle, and that is the cost of food.  Since January, Chris and I have been spending AT LEAST $100 a week on groceries, usually closer to $150 and even getting as high as $200.  A Week.  For two people.  That's freaking ridiculous! Plus having to cook every night, which takes 1-2 hours, then cleaning up the kitchen.  It's a huge strain on time and money, and while I love eating natural, healthy foods, I really don't see it being possible to do in the long term, especially once we have kids.  That is why I was SO EXCITED to find the website onceamonthmom.com on Pinterest (Thanks Andi!!!).  It's a blog by a mom who had the same problems we've been having- she wants to feed her family wholesome homemade food, but doesn't have the time to prepare the meals every day.  Instead, she has created a system where you only cook ONCE A MONTH and freeze everything.  This includes  breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  She gives you printable recipe cards and a grocery list for everything you need, and you can adjust the number of people you are cooking for and it automatically adjusts the amounts.  She gives you directions for how to cook everything on your day of cooking in order to stay organized and maximize your time.  She tells you how to freeze your foods, and how to do it if you have a small freezer (like we do).  She even gives you printable labels to put on your meals that say what it is, how to thaw it, and how to cook/reheat it.  It is the most organized system I have ever seen for meal planning.  And all of the info and printables are FREE!!!!!!

So, we decided to do it.  My amazing husband printed everything we need and organized it into a binder, complete with page protectors so the recipes don't get food on them while we are cooking (he's so organized, according to my grandma, because he's a Capricorn).  We took our printed grocery list to the store, and not even using coupons or shopping for sales, we spent... are you ready... $183.16 on a month's worth of groceries.  I was so excited I think I weirded out the cashier, talking all high pitched about how much money we saved and jumping up and down a bit (I even got a little teary eyed, but that might have been from the sappy country song they were playing and my emotionalism (yes I made that up, and yes this is a parenthesis within a parenthesis, but this is my blog and I can do what I want!)).  That included buying freezer bags, 8x8 foil casserole dishes, a box of cereal, and some yogurt that wasn't on the list.  

Saturday we are going to cook.  I'll let you know how it goes.  My only concern is that the portions will be too small to fill us up, or it'll be gross.  But the recipes sound yummy, and we are supposed to eat smaller portions anyways, right?  If anything we can supplement with healthy snacks and side dishes.  But right now, if it works out as planned, we will be saving up to $500 a month, and 48 hours of cooking a month.  And that is totally worth the planning, the 2 hour shopping trip, and giving up a day for cooking.

P.S. We are doing the March 2012 Diet menu.  There were too many things we don't like on the April diet menu.  There are several menus, including vegetarian, dairy/gluten free, and even on for baby food.