The Plan: Part One- Meals

This part took some thinking. How to change a good idea into a full freezer? Here we go:

Step One: I made a list with a blank space for each day of the month.

1. _________________
2. _________________
3. _________________
etc.

Step 2: I looked for recipes. The Hubs despises casseroles, so that hacked off about half of the recipes in line. For each recipe I considered the following:

1. Does it sound good? Is it really going to reheat well?
2. Will it make enough for at least one dinner with leftovers for lunch the next day?
3. Is there pork involved?

If the recipe answered "yes" to all of these questions, it made the cut. (Note: not all of them involve pork- that was an extra credit question. The Hubs loves him some pig...) I picked 14 recipes that met my criteria and wrote them down next to #s 1-14 on my list.

Step 3: I asked each recipe how many servings it made (I had to guess with almost all of them). If it would make 2 dinners, I wrote it down on the list again. If it would make 3 dinners, I wrote it down 2 more times. I did this until #s 1-31 were filled. Then I rearranged everything so that all the meals were grouped together.

Step 4:Next I copied all of the recipes into the same Word document and after each one I typed the following three questions: How many servings did this really make? Is it a keeper? Did you make any changes? (I rarely, if ever, make a recipe exactly as it is written. Usually I remember what I did, but since I will be cooking 15 dishes in the same day I figured I'd better keep track.)

Here are the recipes I chose:

Cranberry Chicken - 2 dinners* plus lunch leftovers (hereafter "PLL")
Zesty Pineapple Chicken - 1 dinner PLL (I will doubling all "1 dinner" recipes, hereafter, "x2")
Chinese Honey Ginger Chicken - 2 dinners PLL
Lime Pepper Chicken - 2 dinners PLL
Sweet and Sour Pork - 1 dinner PLL (x2)
Chicken Chow Mein - 1 dinner maybe PLL if we're lucky (x2)
Rotini - 3 dinners PLL
Cheddar Cheese Soup - 3 dinners PLL
Creamy Lemon Chicken - 2 dinners PLL
Spaghetti (sauce only) - 1 dinner PLL (makes 2 batches of sauce) (x2)
Chili - 3 dinners PLL
Sweet Onion Pork Chops - 1 dinner PLL (x2)
Beef and Broccoli - 2 dinners PLL
Bacon Wrapped Chicken - 1 dinner (no PLL. This one made the cut on merits of deliciousness.) (x2)

*# of dinners is based on 2 people dining. Remember to adjust accordingly.

The recipes that make only 1 dinner PLL, I will make 2 batches of. So my meal plan looks something like this:

1. Cranberry Chicken
2. Cranberry Chicken
3. Zesty Pineapple Chicken
4. Zesty Pineapple Chicken
5. Chinese Honey Ginger Chicken
6. Chinese Honey Ginger Chicken
7. Lime Pepper Chicken
8. Lime Pepper Chicken
9. Sweet and Sour Pork
10. Sweet and Sour Pork
11. Chicken Chow Mein
12. Chicken Chow Mein
13. Rotini
14. Rotini
15. Rotini
16. Cheddar Cheese Soup
17. Cheddar Cheese Soup
18. Cheddar Cheese Soup
19. Creamy Lemon Chicken
20. Creamy Lemon Chicken
21. Spaghetti
22. Spaghetti
23. Chili
24. Chili
25. Chili
26. Sweet Onion Pork Chops
27. Sweet Onion Pork Chops
28. Beef and Broccoli
29. Beef and Broccoli
30. Bacon Wrapped Chicken
31. Bacon Wrapped Chicken

I'm not going to assign specific meals to specific days. Since they all have to be taken out of the freezer about 24 hours before they're eaten, I figured we could choose each day what we want to eat tomorrow.

Is that horribly confusing to anyone else? Yeah, I thought so. Put that brain to work (yes, I'll wait.... ready now? Ok.) and join me in my foray into Once-A-Month Cooking.