More OAMC (once a month cooking)

So, I tried it again! This time, chicken was on sale at my favorite store - Fresh & Easy. Ground beef was on sale again at Albertson's, so I grabbed some of that, too.

The menu for the month looks like this:

2 Baja Chicken
1 Herbed Chicken (we used this with onions and ranch dressing on a pizza!)
3 Baked Chicken - dark meats
2 Mojito Lime Chicken
2 Chipotle Chicken
2 Southwest Chicken
6 Cooked Ground Beef bags
2 Sausage bags (6 sausages in each bag)
3 4-packs of burgers ready to cook

This was a lot more fun! While wandering through Albertson's, I came across a great deal on packaged marinade mixes - 2/$1. I was pleased to find that they call for TWO pounds of chicken instead of just one. I bought 4! At Fresh & Easy, I found their grill packs marked down by half. These have 4 burgers, 4 sausages, 4 chicken legs and 4 chicken thighs. I bought 3 of these. All tolled, I spent $120 (and saved $118!! I love sales) and made 23 meals.




Shopping and cooking took me a grand total of 5 hours, this time around. I started by cooking up the ground beef the same way I had last time. While that cooked, I repacked the sausages into 2 quart ziptop bags, the burgers went into 3 different bags and the dark meat chicken went into gallon bags - 4 legs and 4 thighs made up 3 bags. These went into the freezer uncooked. The ground beef came off the stove and into the colander. After cooling, I bagged the crumbles into 6 quart bags and tossed those into the freezer. The chicken dishes were the worst part. I hate touching raw chicken. HATE IT. I went about my chicken prep, though, cutting it all into 1 inch cubes. I measured it out, 2 pounds at a time, into gallon ziptop bags. Into each bag I put a marinade pack and the ingredients that were called for - water, oil and vinegar for some of them. After mixing them well in the bags, I tossed those into the freezer. They cook up really well after they thaw. These are separated into 2 meals after cooking. The second half can be refrozen, once it's cooked, and used for a second meal, later in the month. The final pound of chicken was boiled with some yummy herbs and frozen in a quart ziptop bag. The cooking water, of course, was kept for chicken stock.

There you have it- another month or so of meals for our family of 6!