Ooookay. Some have you requested to see what that twenty-five meal cooking extravaganza looks like. Word of warning…it’s messy. But really fun and cheap and the best productive mid-week mama get together EVER.
It starts a week or so before when I plan all the meals. Then I compile a shopping list and send it to another mama who does allll the shopping. Bless her heart. She brings it over to my house and my fridge is ridiculously packed with food I can’t eat for a few days. This month I offered to do all the prep (lots of chopping, prebaking some things…it’s not too bad) – but if it involves preparing raw meat, I ask for help and someone comes and picks up what I refuse to do.
Then on the night, they come over after everyone makes dinner for their own families and we get cracking. This month it only took us TWO hours and $45 each to make twenty-five meals. Last month it was about THREE hours and $35.
We basically run around the kitchen laughing, gabbing our faces off, making a mess, forcing our husbands to do bedtime duty, and at the end of it, we all take home five meals. Win, win, win.
Look how this works out. One person is doing dishes, and the rest of us are talking. Notice I’m not doing dishes. Win again. (Thanks Stephanie!)
Since we finished so early this time, we had an hour (or two…) to sit around on the couch drinking wine and talking about gardening and our kids after we (Stephanie) cleaned up. Major wiiiin.
Looks like a blast! Wow you have a great open kitchen, so beautiful.
Thanks! I do love my kitchen…it’s pretty much the reason we bought our house. Priorities.
So fun and useful! I want to come! And yes, I want your kitchen too. Mine is like a broom closet.
Like that little broom closet reading nook you pinned the other day? Because I realllly want that.
Ummmm this looks like an incredible idea!
Ummm this looks like such a good idea! And fun!
Cleanest kitchen EVER!! I want to move in w/ you. I promise I’ll help stir when we’re baking.
That sounds like a good deal…
That sounds like the best idea ever!! I need to find some friends willing to do this! haha
Um, I love your KITCHEN!
My Aunt Peggy lives in Lubango, Angola is seems to be the single busiest and most popular social lite that exists in Africa…and she’s had “cooking day” where all the month’s meals get prepared in one day since she’s lived there (30 + years) and it works really well for her…I am going to send her this post because she needs some “fun” ideas, though….I think it’s become a bit mundane for her!
All the month’s meals?!! Holy cow. What a champion.
seriously, she’s crunk. although she’d say: “Oh, it’s nothing.” She plays piano at every flippin’ event in their town (not much music to be found there in Angola) and host missionaries, doctors, wanna-be-doctors, etc. ALL OF THE TIME…plus she makes fresh bread daily (what else would she do if her “cooking” time is spent one day out of every month) and caters to her hospital-running-surgeon-husband’s dealings/administration as well..oh yes…that aunt peggy
What.a.lady.
Love and we extra love seeing Meeker and Baby and the park while Ben practiced lax! I did this with 2 other moms….we did crockpot meals 2 times a week….they would drop their crocks on my front porch the night b4 and I would cook a meal for all 3 of us and we rotated! I also did the 30 day cook nights too! Fun!
So funny you saw Meeker!! Love that crock pot idea, too!
i. love. your. kitchen. whenever i grow up and get married and buy a house (which is hopefully SOON – hint hint boyfriend) it must have a fabulous kitchen.
PS do you guys fully cook all your make-ahead meals so you just re-heat them? or are some (like pasta dishes) not cooked yet? Just curious… there are only two of us living here, but I still like this idea. I work 12-hour shifts, so when I am working multiple days in a row cooking is just not an option. Usually I make a big batch of something-or-other and eat leftovers, but it would be nice to have more variety on those nights!
We don’t cook everything…like pasta dishes. Also, we made (assembled) hamburgers and bbq pork, but didn’t cook them. We write all the directions on the dishes that we freeze them in, so when the day comes, we just thaw and cook.
I hope I haven’t missed a post about this but I have always wanted to try this….how did you go about planning, splitting up cost, keeping the chaos to a minimum! Details please!!!!
Ahhg…it’s kind of a long process. I just find recipes, make a list of 5x their ingredients, then ONE person shops, we divide the cost by five, and just write her a check. I will do a post on that when we do it next month!
Wow, you ladies are impressive!!! I love love love this idea, but it sounds so overwhelming at the same time – and I’m not even a mama yet!
Honestly, it’s more fun/chaotic than overwhelming.
This is such a smart idea! I so want to do something like this with my friends, though my kitchen can’t fit more than one person at a time
I think I’m going to make your pretzel toffee this weekend; I’m so excited!
We used to have a kitchen like that…we bought our current house for no other reason than I flipped for the big open kitchen. Enjoy the toffee!
1. I LOVE your kitchen!!! So jealous of it, it’s so open and spacious!!
2. Awesome idea about the meals, I really need to set something like that up.
It’s such a money AND time saver – I wasn’t sure at first, but it’s so practical and fun!
Looks like you ladies had so much fun doing it. And you have a great kitchen to do it in with the island and the table nearby.
Nice kitchen by the way! You should do a house tour post
The rest of our house isn’t nearly as much fun as the kitchen…you saw the most important part of the house.
That’s so fun! I think I want to do this with some of my friends!
Or come be my friend…
That is so neat!! What a great way to save money, do what you love, and spend time with friends!
I’m so doing this with my group of homeschool friends!! Such a great idea!
Your kitchen looks so social! I love that!
I have the Green Eyes Monster shouting, no yelling in my ear over your kitchen!! Swapsies please?!
Hah, you are welcome anytime!
I just cannot believe you guys pulled that off in TWO HOURS. Thank the Lord though because there was WINE TO BE HAD, PEOPLE.
Amen.
You are some motivated ladies! I love the idea of this, too- and let’s be honest, I’m sure it would work equally well for my single friends and I. Except, instead of discussing gardening and babies, we’d talk about our dating mishaps.
That actually sounds way more entertaining…can I join your group? Just to listen?
This is such a good idea and looks so fun! It’s sad that I don’t even have enough girlfriends nearby to do this with though. It’s like all my friends live near each other and then there’s me…5 hours away. Grrr.
Wahhh, I was like that too. Until I had a baby then I met tons of other mamas with babies. I think that’s probably your best solution…
Oh, how fun! It looks so yummy…Especially since I slept through dinner tonight. Jet-lag from being at Mom and Dad’s for 5 days and baking bread non-stop to load up their freezer with their new favorite bread…thanks to you and the 12-hour artisan bread that I make for my family every weekend now! Hugs, Katie!
I have some rising on my counter right now…hope you had a good spring break, Julie!
That’s pretty much the best idea EVER.
I love your kitchen!!! Beautiful!
I’ve been waiting for this post! I am going to bring it up to some of my local gals…I think it would be a TON of fun!
BTW…I would DIE for your kitchen. I’m not kidding.
This is such a fun idea! Perfect for crazy weeks with young kids and their schedules:) I’d lost you for a while.. I’ve switched to email notification and noticed I hadn’t seen you for a while, duh… I’ve added you to my hotmail account so back on-line:) xo Smidge
Yay! Glad…
your kitchen is amazing
You will be in it sooooooon. I’ll let you do all the cooking if you really want to.
[...] grilled salad. Meeker grilled bbq pork (from make ahead meal night!) and it was actually really [...]
My friends and I are starting the same thing. Instead of doing all Crockpot meals like we had originally chatted about I’d love to do something more like this. I am not a huge fan of the Crockpot because it sucks all the color out of everything. I’m a very visual eater.
Although, I am pregnant right now and would still eat Mexican food if it were all green. Can you share those recipes?
Hey! Thanks for your comment, I’m sorry it has taken me SO long to respond! I have the recipes we used in a book that one of my co-cookers has, and I will get some together and email you asap! Sorry again for the delay
Hi McKenzi,
I finally got that book back with the Make Ahead Meals in it. Here is a linkto the document. We’ve used most of those and also some from this site .
Enjoy! Katie
[...] meal started out as a freezer make ahead meal. It was originally called Vegetable Soup with [...]