Today a friend from church came over and I helped her do her first OAMC adventure.  She was VERY organized (I thought) and she had everything written out in about 20 steps telling her exactly what she needed to do so it made it pretty easy for us.  I don’t feel like I did much.  I mainly just kept cleaning up the dishes.

She is a mom who works outside the home and she is hoping this will help her spend more time with her kids at night and also stop her from getting meals that are expensive at the last minute.  Sometimes I do say that I don’t use canned cream of chicken soup or other things, but if you are a mother with little time then, by all means, get the the canned soups and the pizza crusts in the refrigerator section.

So, if you haven’t tried it  yet, I am encouraging you to try it!  I also updated my pages tabs and added a “OAMC” tab.  And I listed some tips that work for me regarding freezer meals.  If you do this, please feel free to leave a comment and let me know what works for you as well!

Storing:

For storing the food I use:

Ziplock freezer gallon size bags for things like:

Soups

Sauces

Meat or poultry with marinades

Individually frozen calzones, muffins or other such items

I use foil lined pans for casseroles.  I line whatever size pan that I am using with foil (2 layers) and then I spray that with non-stick spray and put my casserole in that.  I flash freeze that and when it is almost completely frozen I take it out of the pan, wrap it up and label it and put it back in the freezer.  This saves on buying foil pans and using up all of your pans.

Flash freezing means to lay something out individually (usually on a cookies sheet) and put it in the freezer until it is almost frozen and then you put those into a Ziplock bag type of container.

Preparing:

When I am doing my big cooking day I always start the crock pot meals first.  I usually try to do a prep day ahead of time where I chop all of my veggies, make my pie crust, pizza dough and tortillas.  I cook all my hamburger meat and chicken.  This saves A LOT of time when you do your big cooking day.

I ALWAYS have a plan mapped out for my assembly day.  This makes the day go by much smoother.  You may not stick to it 100% but it really helps.  I try to see what recipes need the stove and which ones must be baked and plan accordingly.  You could even divide your recipes up as such – the “stove top” recipes, the “oven” recipes, the “crock pot” recipes, the “no cooking required” recipes such as marinades.

Cleaning:

I ALWAYS have a sink full of hot soapy water and I usually end up running my dishwasher at least 2 times.  I clean and wipe up spills as I go so that I am not looking at a nuclear disaster of a kitchen when I am done for the day.

For more kitchen tips please visit Tammy’s Recipes.  Also visit Tempt My Tummy Tuesday at Blessed with Grace.