However, it is feasible to do your own menu. You can make it as simple or as complex as you would like. And really, if you are just doing it for yourself, there really is not a need to do a lot of the conversions and equivalents if you don’t want to.

In future months, I will be providing a linky each month for those of you to link up if you have created your own OAMC (once a month cooking, batch cooking, bulk cooking, power cooking or freezer cooking) menus. I know many of you are starting the endeavor of creating your own from your family favorites  or to meet the needs of family members with allergies and I am sure other readers would LOVE to have extra resources to utilize. So keep on the lookout for that menu roundup each month.

Menu Template

Once A Month Mom Recipe/Menu Template

The only piece or resource that I use that I didn’t provide to you was the Once A Month Mom Recipe Menu Template. This is the document where I type in the recipes that we will be using for our cooking day. This is not necessary for the everyday cook but can come in handy if you are wanting to adapt the recipes into an easy to read resource.

Please feel free to follow the duplicating instructions and make it your own!

Conclusion

I hope that you have enjoyed this series and found it helpful. If you find that you have additional questions you would like me to address please leave a comment or send me an email. I *think* that I have covered everything but there are always things that I haven’t thought about since I have been dong these cooking days and menus for some time.

I have heard from many of you that this has been helpful and I am grateful! Good luck creating your own menus.

Please feel free to direct questions in the comment section below. However, keep in mind that this is a multi-part series. Please review previous posts for answers before submitting questions and review upcoming topics to see if your question will be answered shortly. Thank you.

Previous “Create Your Own Menu” Posts:

• Part 1 – Overview & Assessing Needs
• Part 2 – Researching Sales Items
• Part 3 – Planning Recipes
• Part 4 – Finding Recipes
• Part 5 – Selecting Recipes
• Part 6 – Evaluating Quantity
• Part 7 -  Creating a Grocery List
• Part 8 – Creating Instructions
• Part 9 – Substitutions & Equivalents
• Part 10 – Creating Labels

**Don’t forget this months ongoing contests in celebration of the Once A Month Mom Blogiversary! There are great prizes to be won!

• Once A Month Mom & Dole Menu Contest – Don’t forget to vote in the right side margin DAILY between February 19th and 26th for your favorite of the menus – A, B, or C!
• Once A Month Mom Cook Off

Creating Labels

1. Once A Month Mom Labels Template

Once A Month Mom Labels

I have created an OAMM Labels Template to make this process even easier. You simply need to open this document and proceed with the following steps for creating your own set of labels.

2. Recipe Title

Highlight the “Recipe Title” and begin typing your own recipe title.

3. Instructions

Highlight the word “instructions” and begin typing in the instructions for how to proceed to prepare the dish on the serving day. Make sure to include thawing directions, whether foil needs to be on or off, temperature for baking/slow cooking and duration.

4. Date

If you know your date of cooking you can fill that in at this time as well.

5. Copy & Paste

Once I have completed one label I simply highlight all of the changed fields and paste them into the additional labels that I will need. I make enough labels for the meals I will create plus an extra in case something happens and I need another one or one gets ruined. You can decide what you need.

6. Print Labels

These labels are designed to be printed on Avery 8163 or equivalent. Readers who didn’t have labels available suggested just printing them on paper and taping them onto meals. They do stick even when in the freezer, but ONLY if you stick them on before the containers get cold. I *might* know this from experience.

Congratulations! You are OFFICIALLY complete with creating your menu! Doesn’t it feel good?

Please feel free to direct questions in the comment section below. However, keep in mind that this is a multi-part series. Please review previous posts for answers before submitting questions and review upcoming topics to see if your question will be answered shortly. Thank you.

Previous “Create Your Own Menu” Posts:

• Part 1 – Overview & Assessing Needs
• Part 2 – Researching Sales Items
• Part 3 – Planning Recipes
• Part 4 – Finding Recipes
• Part 5 – Selecting Recipes
• Part 6 – Evaluating Quantity
• Part 7 -  Creating a Grocery List
• Part 8 – Creating Instructions
• Part 9 – Substitutions & Equivalents

Future “Create Your Own Menu” Posts:

• Part 11 – Bringing It All Together

Not all recipes are created equally. Or at least not written equally. Meaning, some recipes will give you the number of onions needed, others will give you the number of cups of diced onions needed.

In a typical Once A Month Mom menu I have to go back and forth between recipes and resources to figure out the correct amounts. I also make adjustments so that on the recipe cards the ingredients are listed by cup while on the grocery list I indicate the number of items needed. For example, onions. In the recipe I will list the number of cups but on the grocery list it states the number of onions or the approximate pounds needed. I do this because when you are grocery shopping you need to know how many to buy. Then, once they are cut up you need to know how many cups are needed. If you get to a recipe and it calls for 2 medium onions and you have chopped 10 onions it is difficult to decide how much at that point.

This is the reason that many of you sometimes end up with too much or too little of one product or another. It really is an estimation game. If I am indicating that you need 5 lbs of medium onions and your onions are large you will likely end up with too many. I think chicken is the most difficult to judge. As chicken breast portions vary by vendor and store this is the one that I find the most variance on. I do my best and you will have to also when you are planning your menus.

Here is the process that I take:

Substitutions & Equivalents

1. Get to know your resources

There are lots of resources out here but these are the ones that I use on a regular basis. I encourage you to use these as you are creating your menu. If there are others that you have utilized I also encourage you to share those with others in the comments section below. This is by no means an exhaustive list.

• Gourmet Sleuth – This site just got a face lift and I am LOVING it! It is where I frequent the most for substitutions, equivalents, conversions and better understanding of a product.
• About.com – This site has an alphabetical listing of ingredients so that you can figure the conversions, equivalents and/or substitutions. I use this site as a comparison to Gourmet Sleuth or if I can’t find it on Gourmet Sleuth.
• Barilla – How To Measure Pasta – Pasta is tricky to me. So is rice. This site gives you uncooked ounces and cup yields. This is important when trying to figure out how much pasta to buy versus how much pasta it yields for the recipe. On the grocery list you will want to list dry ounces, on the recipe cards cups. I also use this site when I am changing the type of pasta in a recipe to make sure that I am purchasing enough.
• Recipetips.com – This site has several different sets of information but I use it most often to figure rice equivalents. Again, the grocery list needs to list the ounces/pounds needed to purchase while the recipe card of ingredients needs to list the uncooked or cooked yields in cups.
• Kitchenlite iPhone Application – I have an iPhone, sorry for those of you that don’t. And honestly, I don’t think I could live without this application! I use it every single month. I can type in the number of Tablespoons and it will tell me the number or teaspoons, cups, ounces, etc. It is easy to use and saves me tons of time when creating my menus. I think that you can get the same functionality out of Gourmet Sleuth’s Conversion Calculator if you don’t have an iPhone.

2. Go through ingredients on each recipe card

I go one by one through my recipe cards looking at ingredients. If the product is listed as a whole item, like 1 onion, I write down the equivalent in cups. You have to do conversions most often for produce, meats and canned items.

If it lists cans of something without ounces I figure up how many ounces is in a typical can of that particular product (each product is different) and write down the indicated ounces. When we go to the grocery list it is just easier to see the total amount of ounces needed instead of number of cans. One reason being that some people buy at super stores in bulk and this helps them to know the total ounces they will need.

Occasionally, you will also have to figure out how many teaspoons, Tablespoons or cups of a product equal the ounces of that product. For example, when you are grocery shopping you need to know how many cups of flour or ounces of mustard you will be needing. The cups or Tablespoons really isn’t going to help you much unless you are really good at conversions on the spot (I definitely am not). See the above list of resources for figuring these measurements out.

2. Substitutions

I then go through and see if I need to do any substitutions. For example, if a recipe calls for a vegetable medley but doesn’t indicate which vegetables I will see which vegetables I am already using and include those vegetables in the medley opposed to having us purchase additional types of vegetables.

There are often times when a recipe calls for a wine or other substance that might not readily be available to readers. At these times I will look at the substitutions charts to see if there is another ingredient we could substitute in it’s place.

And there are sometimes when we have a like ingredient that I substitute in a recipe for ease of use. One example of this is that several recipes on the February 2010 OAMM Menu included Canola Oil. I therefore changed all the recipes to be Canola oil so that we weren’t using several different types of oil. Another ingredient that I often do this for is pasta. It is just easier to have to boil the same types of pasta all together than in separate batches.

Used with permission Flickr Creative Commons, photo by deartistzwei

3. Equivalents

Back when we were evaluating quantity we had to multiply the ingredient list. When you did so, you may have found that you now need 14 Tablespoons of an ingredient. You could spend all of your time measuring that out on your cooking day or  you can simply figure out how many cups it will be.

4. Update Your Grocery List

As I am writing in the measurements for the ingredients that I will need on our grocery list I make sure to take careful notes on the recipe cards and on the grocery list as to the indicated amount to purchase versus the measurement needed on the cooking day. You can save yourself some time if you figure out substitutions and equivalents BEFORE creating your grocery list. But do whatever works best for you. That is the key.

Overview Questions – Substitutions & Equivalents

1. Which resources will you be needing for this menu?

2. Have you gone through EACH recipe card and indicated measurement on the ingredient list but purchasing amount on the grocery list?

3. Are there recipes that would be easier if I figured out the equivalent amount of a larger measurement?

4. Have I gone through my grocery list one last time to make sure that I have the indicated product amount needed?

Please feel free to direct questions in the comment section below. However, keep in mind that this is a multi-part series. Please review previous posts for answers before submitting questions and review upcoming topics to see if your question will be answered shortly. Thank you.

Previous “Create Your Own Menu” Posts:

• Part 1 – Overview & Assessing Needs
• Part 2 – Researching Sales Items
• Part 3 – Planning Recipes
• Part 4 – Finding Recipes
• Part 5 – Selecting Recipes
• Part 6 – Evaluating Quantity
• Part 7 -  Creating a Grocery List
• Part 8 – Creating Instructions

Future “Create Your Own Menu” Posts:

• Part 10 – Creating Labels
• Part 11 – Bringing It All Together

**Don’t forget this months ongoing contests in celebration of the Once A Month Mom Blogiversary! There are great prizes to be won!

• Once A Month Mom & Dole Menu Contest
• Once A Month Mom Cook Off

**And the Flirty Apron Giveaway going on through 2/15.

This process takes a lot of organizing and reorganizing. I spend a lot of my time shuffling recipes into categories and then reshuffling to figure out what is left. Here is how I proceed:

Creating Instructions

Once A Month Mom Instructions Template

As you place the recipes into the OAMM Instructions Template, make sure that you then take that recipe and set it aside. You want to make sure that you aren’t including that recipe in the instructions multiple times.

1. Print the OAMM Instructions Template

I have created an OAMM Instructions Template for you to utilize when writing out your personal instructions for creating a once a month cooking menu. This template will not “fit” with every menu plan but it is definitely a great starting point for building your menu.

2. Separate recipes by meat product

I start out separating my printed recipes into the different meat types. I do this because one of the first things that I need to do is figure out which meats can be pre-frozen, which meats need to be cooked the night before our cooking day, and which items need to be thawed for our cooking day.

Once I have them separated by meat I fill in the number of pounds of each meat that can be pre-frozen. What I mean by this is that you can purchase it earlier in the month, freeze  it, thaw it and then use it on your cooking day. The rule of thumb here is that if it is going to be cooked on your cooking day then it can be pre-frozen. If it is not being cooked on your cooking day you can not pre-freeze it, it must be fresh.

The exception to the above rule would be if you can freeze the meat in needed portions. For example if you are doing pork roasts and it is a “dump” recipe where you will need 4 1.5 pound portions of pork loin. You can place the 1.5 pound portions in zippered freezer bags and simply add the remaining ingredients on your cooking day without thawing the meat.

Fill in the upper part of the OAMM Instructions Template with these items. Chicken and ground beef can be cooked overnight in the slow cooker to save time and resources on your cooking day.

3. Separate out baking recipes

After I have decided what needs to happen to meats I start by looking at the tasks for Person B. On my menus I always have person B doing all of the baking items. The reason I do this is so that one person is utilizing the oven. I have found on my own cooking days when both people are trying to use the oven it is a bit of a catastrophe. It just gets too confusing. I also find that there is usually a partner that prefers baking tasks to cooking task. Maybe you can weigh in on that, do you find that to be true with your cooking partner?

Sour Cream Banana Muffins (February 2009 Menu)

So Person B is stuck with the baking. After I have separated my baking recipes out (remember, I don’t do more than three) I then put them in order by what temperature they need to bake. I usually begin with the lowest temperature first and then proceed upwards. The reasons for this are that it is easier and more energy efficient to increase the temperature as the day progresses than to cool the oven off for lower temperature items later. So an example would be that I would start with recipes that are baked at 350 degrees and end with the recipe that bake at 400 degrees.

I fill in the directions utilizing the slots for Person B on my OAMM Instructions Template. Here are a few of the steps I find it important to include:

• Mix and ready for oven the Recipe. Bake for X minutes.
• When Recipe are done, place them on wire rack for cooling or transfer to a cool cookie sheet for flash freezing. Increase oven temperature to 375 degrees.
• While Recipe are baking, prepare Recipe and ready for oven.

As you place the recipes into the OAMM Instructions Template, make sure that you then take that recipe and set it aside.

4. Separate out slow cooker recipes

Crockpot Ham & Green Beans

Now I go through and find which recipes need to be cooked in the slow cooker on your cooking day. Once you find those, place those under person A, right after the chopping instructions. (I keep the chopping instructions for person A in case the partners don’t do them until that day. However, it is HIGHLY recommended to do them the night before. At least those that are able to be done.) Person A will be doing mostly cooking. Again, this is to keep both partners from overlapping kitchen space and duties.

Person A then assembles and gets any slow cookers recipes going.

5. Separate recipes by meat type, again!

The first time we separated the recipes by meat we did it for the purpose of knowing which ones to cook, thaw or pre-freeze. This time we are looking at them to determine the best cooking plan. Note: some of your meat recipes may be in the baking or slow cooker category and might be on your OAMM Instructions Template. These recipes should be in the “done” pile and not worried about.

So we have our recipes in piles by meats (or veggies). When possible I like to cook dishes in the following order:

1. Vegetarian
2. Cooked Meats
3. Raw Beef
4. Raw Pork
5. Raw Chicken

The reasoning for this? This is the order of least contamination. Meaning that raw meats, especially chicken have the tendency to cause the most problems when it comes to contamination of food by bacteria. I want to make sure that my dishes are as healthy and “safe” as possible. Now this order doesn’t always work for me but I try to utilize it as often as possible.

As you are placing the recipes in the instructions sheet for Person A, make sure that you are also taking into consideration approximate time to assemble a meal in comparison to the task(s) that Person B will be doing at the same time. Just something to consider.

I like to keep like meats together when possible. For instance, on the February 2010 OAMM Menu there are two beef recipes that are being cooked, Easy Taco Bake and Sloppy Joes. I have Person A doing these at about the same time. That way they are only working with cooked beef and not with cooked beef and raw chicken at the same time.

Leave “dump” recipes until the end right now. “Dump” recipes are those that require no cooking at the stove, only assembly at this point. They are called “dump” because you mix them up or just dump them into a bag or casserole dish and freeze them.

6. Separate out dump recipes

At this point you should only have “dump” recipes left. I save these to the end because after 8+ hours in the kitchen I need some things that I can do off my feet and that don’t require much brain power. Whether Person A or Person B completes them is entirely up to who seems to have the heavier work load for the day and “should” be done by this time.

I assign them to a person based on meat type again. For instance, I usually have one person handling pork “dump” recipes while the other is handling chicken. Again, I am trying to not cause cross-contamination of foods.

7. Time to fill in the chopping order

Not sure if you have ever noticed it but at the top of the instructions for chopping it says, “In the indicated order for most efficiency.” Yes, I go through and figure out which chopped vegetables/meats/grains are going to be needed in which order. I do this so that if a partner team is not chopping until that day they are being the most efficient they can be by chopping the needed items first.

How do I figure this out? Well, I go through my instructions for the day and put the recipes in order by what comes first on the instructions. I proceed to the end putting recipes in their logical cooking order. Once I have completed this task, I go through them and see which items need to be chopped and I fill out the “Ingredients that need CHOPPED” section.

As for the conversions, you will  have to wait until the next Create Your Own Menu post for how I figure those. And how do you know what works well in a food processor and what doesn’t? You look at my posts on using a food processor! And if you still need help answering that question do a Swagbucks search. If you still aren’t sure, email me.

Congratulations!

Like I said, writing the instructions is one of the most complex parts of Creating Your Own Menu. It may take you some time. You may find that it doesn’t work as well as you wanted it to either. Give yourself some time to get into the rhythm of creating instructions. After a few menus you will start to recognize what works and what doesn’t.

If there are questions on writing instructions that you don’t think that I covered, please ask them in the comments section. I do find there are times that I try to explain something and I forget parts because I do it so often.

**And don’t forget the two great contests going on this month (February 2010) to celebrate the Once A Month Blogiversary. Put your “Create Your Own Menu” knowledge to work in the Once A Month Mom & DOLE Frozen Fruit Menu Contest or enter the Once A Month Mom Cook Off. Great prizes and cash can be won!

And as always, please feel free to direct questions in the comment section below. However, keep in mind that this is a multi-part series. Please review previous posts for answers before submitting questions and review upcoming topics to see if your question will be answered shortly. Thank you.

Previous “Create Your Own Menu” Posts:

• Part 1 – Overview & Assessing Needs
• Part 2 – Researching Sales Items
• Part 3 – Planning Recipes
• Part 4 – Finding Recipes
• Part 5 – Selecting Recipes
• Part 6 – Evaluating Quantity
• Part 7 -  Creating a Grocery List

Future “Create Your Own Menu” Posts:

• Part 9 – Substitutions & Equivalents
• Part 10 – Creating Labels
• Part 11 – Bringing It All Together

Creating a Grocery List

1. Start with your printed recipes

In the last step, we printed out our recipes, indicated how we were increasing quantities and did the math. This is an important step in the process. Remember how I asked you to number each of the recipes as well? If you have yet to do that, do it now.

2. Print the Master Grocery List

I start by printing this Master Grocery List Template. (You can import this into Excel or other spreadsheet if you find that to be easier). This one is blank. You may end up needing more or less lines on your grocery sheet, but don’t worry about that right now.

3. Work numerically through your recipes

Start with recipe #1 and fill in the ingredient name under the applicable category. Then, to the RIGHT of the ingredient name, write the amount that you need. Be certain to indicate the measurement amount as well (t, T, C, oz, lbs, etc). I do this to the right because as you go through recipes you will find that there may be 5-10 recipes that all include that ingredient and you will have to add them all up in the end. I do all of this with paper and pencil, I find that easier. If I run out of lines in a category I simply make up a new column to the right and continue on. I will adjust the lines eventually.

At this stage I do not worry about ingredients that are indicated in different measurements. In a later step we will deal with conversions. For now, just write down the indicated amount on the recipe.

As you have completed the listing of the ingredients on your Master Grocery List Template, make sure to put a check mark or some symbol that will help you to remember which recipes you have already listed. This is where the numbering system also comes in handy. I move through my recipes numerically so that I don’t miss or double count a recipe.

4. Alphabetize

I now go through each section and alphabetize the ingredients. This is not absolutely necessary but helps save me time when I am at the grocery store and wondering if I need an ingredient or not.

5. Add or subtract lines

In the Master Grocery List Template you may find that a category needs more lines, at this point I add lines as needed. In Google Spreadsheets, to add a line you click on the line above or below where you would like to add. Then you right click your mouse and choose “add a line”. Follow the same procedure if you would like to delete lines to eliminate wasted space in a category.

6. Do the math

used with permission, Flickr Creative Commons, photo by Dominic's pics

Now it is time to get your thinking cap on and your calculator ready. You will need to add up all of the measurements from a particular ingredient. The challenging part about that is that not all recipes have the same types of measurements. For instance, one recipe might indicate the cups of cheese while another indicates ounces. One recipe may indicate Tablespoons and another teaspoons. In the next post I will address substitutions and equivalents and help you deal with this problem. So stay tuned.

7. Enter ingredient totals

To the left of the ingredient write the TOTAL amount needed of that ingredient. After I have done this I go to the Master Grocery List Template and create a new copy for the menu I am working on. For example, if I am working on the January menu, I make a copy and retitle it “January 2010 OAMM Menu“. I now input the ingredient totals into the worksheet.

Congratulations you are done with your grocery list! (Well, that is after we talk equivalents).

Overview Questions – Creating A Grocery List

1. Have I printed/copied each of the recipes I am going to need? Have I numbered them?

2. Have I printed the Master Grocery List Template?

3. Have I listed out all of the ingredient I am going to need for each recipe on the Master Grocery List Template, paying special attention to indicate measurement?

Please feel free to direct questions in the comment section below. However, keep in mind that this is a multi-part series. Please review previous posts for answers before submitting questions and review upcoming topics to see if your question will be answered shortly. Thank you.

Previous “Create Your Own Menu” Posts:

• Part 1 – Overview & Assessing Needs
• Part 2 – Researching Sales Items
• Part 3 – Planning Recipes
• Part 4 – Finding Recipes
• Part 5 – Selecting Recipes
• Part 6 – Evaluating Quantity

Future “Create Your Own Menu” Posts:

• Part 8 – Creating Instructions
• Part 9 – Substitutions & Equivalents
• Part 10 – Creating Labels
• Part 11 – Bringing It All Together

Evaluating Quantity

1. Print the recipes

I first start by going to each of the recipes that I have chosen and printing (if on the web) or making copies (if on a recipe card). I go through the list and number each of my recipes based on what number they correspond to on my recipe selection list. This step comes in handy later on so that you don’t miss count or duplicate count.

2. Assess the serving amounts of each recipe

Next, you need to look at the serving amounts of each recipe. Does it make enough for 4, 6, 8, 10 or more? You need to multiply the recipe based on the amount you decided on during the overview and assessing needs section. In the case of OAMM menus, I am always looking for a recipe to serve 16-20 people. If a recipe says it serves 4-6 I read through and determine whether it seems enough to triple or quadruple. On each recipe I write whether I am double, triple, quadrupling, etc.

As a general rule of thumb if a dish will fit into a 9×13 pan it will fit into 2 8×8 dinners making you enough for 2 dinners from one recipe. Therefore, this dish only needs to be doubled to make enough for 4 dinners for 2 families of 4.

If servings are not listed you will have to either email the author or try to determine how many servings you believe it to be.

3. Decide the Container

Since you are already evaluating the amount of each recipe, now would be a good time to write down what type of container that will be needed to accommodate the dish. If it seems like it is a full casserole I use a deep dish 8×8 pan, otherwise, I go with mostly 8×8 pans. If you need help thinking through types of containers that can be used, see my post on freezer containers. Once you have decided on the container type and amount, write that on the recipe so that when you go to fill out the grocery list you don’t forget that item.

4. Do the math

After going through and indicating how I need to increase recipes, I then go through and multiply the ingredients by that multiple. I write out the new amount next to the ingredient item as I am working. Yes, a calculator and a conversion chart are extremely helpful here.

At this point I don’t worry about turning teaspoons into Tablespoons or cups into ounces. For instance, when you do the math you may find that a recipe now takes 12 Tablespoons of mustard. You know that it would be much faster to measure it out into cups for your cooking day, but we will get to that soon. For now just write down the 12 Tablespoons.

Overview Questions – Evaluating Quantity

1. Have I printed out all of my recipes? Have I numbered them?

2. Decide how to multiply out recipe. Have I written what size pan and how many I will need?

3. Have I indicated for each recipe – the TYPE of container? The NUMBER of containers needed?

4. Have I calculated new total amounts and checked my math?

Please feel free to direct questions in the comment section below. However, keep in mind that this is a multi-part series. Please review previous posts for answers before submitting questions and review upcoming topics to see if your question will be answered shortly. Thank you.

Previous “Create Your Own Menu” Posts:

• Part 1 – Overview & Assessing Needs
• Part 2 – Researching Sales Items
• Part 3 – Planning Recipes
• Part 4 – Finding Recipes
• Part 5 – Selecting Recipes

Future “Create Your Own Menu” Posts:

• Part 7 – Creating a Grocery List
• Part 8 – Creating Instructions
• Part 9 – Substitutions & Equivalents
• Part 10 – Creating Labels
• Part 11 – Bringing It All Together

Used with permission Flickr Creative Commons, photo by Muffet

After you have found a slew of recipes that you want to use, you then have to make a final selection. After all, you may find 6 breakfast recipes that fit the criteria and look good but you only have time for 3, how do you choose?

Selecting Recipes

1. Organize

When I am weeding through recipes to determine which ones to choose, I keep the answers to my previous overview questions at hand and divide recipes among those categories. If you are using recipe cards you could scatter them into categories on the floor. If you are using the internet and cookbooks this is a little more challenging. Here is the sample outline that I use for a Once A Month Mom menu:

Breakfasts

1.

2.

3.

Lunches

4.

5.

6.

7.

Dinners

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

2. Label

As I find recipes that I want to include I write them in PENCIL under the correct category. If they are baked I put a B in front of the number, if they are in the Slow Cooker I put a SC in front. I also indicate with an appropriate abbreviation the type of meat that is utilized if that is appropriate (ck, bf, pk, saus). If it is a “dump” recipe I put two ** next to it so I know it doesn’t require cooking on our cooking day. These abbreviations help me to determine if I am too heavy on certain types of menu items or if I have reached my capacity for an appliance (ie, baking, slow cookers).

Now, I also have to keep in mind not to have too many B’s, SC’s, or ** on my menu. If I have selected too many B recipes, I will simply decide which one to eliminate (or save for another menu) and erase! Hence, using a pencil. There are times that I do just add, let’s say 6 lunches to a menu and then when I am all done I know I have to go back and eliminate two.

3. Eliminate

Needing to eliminate recipes is a sometimes difficult task. The easiest way to determine what you need to eliminate is to decide if you are too heavy on an ingredient, too heavy on an appliance, or too heavy on a task.

Used with permission Flickr Creative Commons, photo by jules:stonesoup (great food website - The Stone Soup)

Too heavy on an ingredient:

Chicken is a great meat but you don’t want it to be your whole menu. You also don’t want all of your chicken recipes to be precooked chicken. So are there recipes that can be eliminated to assist with that?

Too heavy on an appliance:

You only have so much time or the oven or so many slow cookers so do you need to consider eliminating a recipe based on this factor?

Too heavy on a task:

If I already have a lot of fresh vegetables to chop for a particular month and I am considering a soup that uses a lot of canned products versus a soup that uses all fresh cut vegetables, I will likely opt for the soup with the canned ingredients. I love fresh vegetables but I only have so much time and I don’t want to spend too much time in any given month on chopping.

Like ingredients:

Another factor I look at is “like” ingredients. If I am trying to determine which of two dinner recipes that I want to eliminate, I will look at the ingredients of those recipes in comparison to recipes I have already chosen. When I have recipes with “like” ingredients it helps me to be able to choose the best recipe for my overall budget and shortens my grocery list. This is a simple criteria to use when you are having a hard time deciding.

Overview Questions – Selecting Recipes

1. Organize your recipes into categories

2. Label your recipes with the following symbols and/or ones that you have created for your own use:

• ck = chicken
• bf = beef
• pk = pork
• saus = sausage
• sc = slow cooker
• b = baked
• ** = no cooking required

3. Eliminate recipes if you have too many

• Are my recipes heavy on one ingredient?
• Are my recipes heavy on a certain appliance(s)? Which one(s)?
• Are my recipes heavy on a task? Which one(s)?
• Which recipes share “like” ingredients?

Please feel free to direct questions in the comment section below. However, keep in mind that this is a multi-part series. Please review previous posts for answers before submitting questions and review upcoming topics to see if your question will be answered shortly. Thank you.

Previous “Create Your Own Menu” Posts:

• Part 1 – Overview & Assessing Needs
• Part 2 – Researching Sales Items
• Part 3 – Planning Recipes
• Part 4 – Finding Recipes

Future “Create Your Own Menu” Posts:

• Part 6 – Evaluating Quantity
• Part 7 – Creating a Grocery List
• Part 8 – Creating Instructions
• Part 9 – Substitutions & Equivalents
• Part 10 – Creating Labels
• Part 11 – Bringing It All Together

]]> http://onceamonthmom.com/create-your-own-recipe-part-5-selecting-recipes/feed/ 8 http://onceamonthmom.com/create-your-own-menu-part-4-finding-recipes/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=create-your-own-menu-part-4-finding-recipes http://onceamonthmom.com/create-your-own-menu-part-4-finding-recipes/#comments Wed, 20 Jan 2010 12:00:10 +0000 Tricia http://onceamonthmom.com/?p=4709 Having assessed our needs, researched sale items and planned the types of recipes that we are going to prepare on our freezer cooking day; we are FINALLY ready to start choosing recipes!

Finding Recipes

1. Where to Look

Family Favorites

Simply get out the old recipe cards, consult the cookbooks, call mom or consult the filing cabinet in your head. But get out all of the family favorites and take a look at what you might want to utilize. At this point, don’t critique whether they will work for this menu or not. Chances are you might do another in the future and you want to make sure that you remember your interest in these recipes.

Cookbooks

Another great place to look is in your favorite cookbooks around the house. Since we are trying to find some baking items and some slow cooker items, cookbooks whose focus are on these items are especially helpful to look through.

Here are a few of my personal favorites when planning a menu:

• Make It Fast, Cook It Slow: The Big Book of Everyday Slow Cooking
• Once-A-Month Cooking Family Favorites: More Great Recipes That Save You Time and Money
• Make Ahead Meals for Busy Moms
• Don’t Panic – Dinner’s in the Freezer: Great-Tasting Meals You Can Make Ahead
• Don’t Panic–More Dinner’s in the Freezer: A Second Helping of Tasty Meals You Can Make Ahead
• Mad Hungry: Feeding Men and Boys
• $5 Dinner Mom Cookbook

Recipe Forums

Recipe sites like All Recipes and Recipezaar are great places to start, continue or end your search. They have features that let you bookmark recipes in a recipe box or folder. They also let you search by ingredient as well.

Here are a few of my personal favorites when planning a menu:

• AllRecipes.com
• Recipezaar
• Recipezaar – OAMC Cookbooks
• Tasty Kitchen

Blogs

My personal favorite place to find recipes is other people’s blogs. There are ssssoooooo many food blogs out there with great stuff on them. There are freezer cooking sites, oamc sites, gourmet sites, budget sites, baking sites, vegetarian sites, gluten free sites. The list is endless. Simply do a Swagbucks search (and earn rewards as you search) for whatever type of recipe that you are looking for. If my search turns up a lot of big named sponsor sites and I really want to get a personal blog recipe, I add “blog” to the end of my search terms which usually helps.

Here are a few of my personal favorites when planning a menu:

Starting Point:

• I’m an Organizing Junkie – Menu Plan Monday is a GREAT place to start your search for ideas. I typically go through other people’s menus and click through to their links for recipe ideas. I figure that if they are on others menus then they must be recipes that families will eat.

Once A Month/Freezer/Bulk Cooking Blogs

• Frugal Menu Mamas
• Full Tummies
• Chill Mamas
• OAMC Freezer Supper Swappers
• Adventures In My Freezer
• Freezer Friendz
• Extraordinary Ordinary Life
• Meal Planning Mommies
• Moms Budget – Freezer Cooking
• Frozen Assets
• Frugal Mom – Freezer Recipes
• Favorite Freezer Foods
• Dinner Coach
• 30 Day Cafe

General Cooking Blogs (Some are blogs that occasionally do recipes. All are good resources for finding recipes for your monthly menu):

• Cooking During Stolen Moments
• Vanderbilt Wife
• $5 Dollar Dinners
• The Finer Things in Life
• Hoosier Homemade
• Savor the Thyme
• Calm in the Kitchen
• Carrie’s Cooking
• My Wooden Spoon
• Kalyn’s Kitchen
• Pinch My Salt
• Passionate Homemaking
• Family Food
• 24 Hour Menu
• Rookie Cookie
• Real Mom Kitchen
• Recipes for Moms
• Smitten Kitchen
• Annie’s Eats
• Life As Mom
• Lynn’s Kitchen Adventures
• There are obviously so many more out there. These just happen to be the ones that I frequent on a regular basis or subscribe to.

Product Websites

Many of the products that we utilize each and every day have websites of their own. They have great recipes using many of their products. They are usually simple and easy. This is another great resource when you are looking for recipes.

Here are a few of my personal favorites when planning a menu:

• Kraft Food & Family Website
• Campbell’s
• Betty Crocker
• Taste of Home

2. Save, Save, Save

Make sure that you are either bookmarking a recipe, saving it in a recipe box, or saving it in a folder. There is nothing worse than finding a perfect recipe only to forget where you saw it. Whether it is a paper recipe or a virtual recipe, saving the recipes and storing them in the right categories is important in your search.

For my family recipes, I have a family recipe binder that I utilize. There are many options out there for saving and organizing recipes, here are a few options to consider.

On the computer I set up a folder in my browsers toolbar titled “Recipes”. In that folder I have created sub-folders for the following: breakfasts, lunches, dinners, snacks, desserts, appetizers, side dishes, soups, sandwiches, slow cooker, dump and baby food. I know, some of these categories may be overlapping, but I bookmark a recipe in multiple folders if I need to. My reasoning? When I am creating a menu there are times when I am looking for a general “lunch” recipe. There are other times when I want a “slow cooker” recipe. I may consult both folders or one specifically. Just my system. Do whatever would work best for you.

Also, last year Laura at I’m an Organizing Junkie had a Round-Up for people to list their systems for organizing recipes. And a challenge to actually get them organized. You can find those links HERE if you are looking for some inspiration for organizing your recipes.

Overview Questions – Finding Recipes

1. Have I looked through all of my resources?

__ Family Favorite Recipes

__ Cookbooks

__ Recipe Forums

__ Blogs

__ Product Websites

2. Did I save all of my recipes?

Please feel free to direct questions in the comment section below. However, keep in mind that this is a multi-part series. Please review previous posts for answers before submitting questions and review upcoming topics to see if your question will be answered shortly. Thank you.

Previous “Create Your Own Menu” Posts:

• Part 1 – Overview & Assessing Needs
• Part 2 – Researching Sales Items
• Part 3 – Planning Recipes

Future “Create Your Own Menu” Posts:

• Part 5 – Selecting Recipes
• Part 6 – Evaluating Quantity
• Part 7 – Creating a Grocery List
• Part 8 – Creating Instructions
• Part 9 – Substitutions & Equivalents
• Part 10 – Creating Labels
• Part 11 – Bringing It All Together

]]> http://onceamonthmom.com/create-your-own-menu-part-4-finding-recipes/feed/ 9 http://onceamonthmom.com/create-your-own-menu-part-3-planning-recipes/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=create-your-own-menu-part-3-planning-recipes http://onceamonthmom.com/create-your-own-menu-part-3-planning-recipes/#comments Fri, 15 Jan 2010 12:00:27 +0000 Tricia http://onceamonthmom.com/?p=4699 So far we have had the opportunity to determine how much your family is going to need for a given month and where you find what items are going to be on sale. Now we are on to planning your recipes.

Believe it or not, this still isn’t the stage where you start choosing which recipes you want. There is still another stage before you do that. Well, that is if you want to be efficient. And I have a thing for efficiency people!

Planning Recipes

1. Baked Items

One of the first things I look at or take into consideration when planning a freezer cooking day is to determine how many baked items I will have on a menu. And by baked items I mean recipes which need to be baked in the oven before freezing. Items that are being baked take longer than cooked items, in general. And sometimes, like in the case of most muffins, we have several rounds of baking batches that need to take place so that we can make a lot. For this reason, my rule of thumb with a 15 item menu is to not have more than 3 baked items on a menu. This equates to approximately 6 hours of baking.

In general, you might say for every one baked item you have on your menu, you can estimate approximately two hours of your time. Now, you can do other things when those items are baking BUT you can’t do other items in the oven. Hence, limiting the oven items to three. If you are working to try and create a menu that is shorter in length so you don’t have to be in the kitchen for so long, make sure that you limit the number of baked items.

Now, there are a few cases where a recipe will indicate that it needs to be baked but, in fact, can be frozen prior to baking to save you time on your cooking day. You will have to determine whether that will work for a particular recipe or not. Items that typically freeze well before baking include casseroles, marinated meats, pies, cookie dough, batters and doughs.

2. Slow Cooker Recipes

During the cooking day, I try to utilize my slow cookers as additional kitchen resources for my cooking day. This is a simple and easy way to cook a recipe to completion without much effort. Keep in mind that you are making multiple batches though so you will be utilizing multiple slow cookers. If you don’t have access to multiple slow cookers you will want to limit this resource.

Also, I try to make sure that slow cookers are plugged in and cooking in another part of the house other than the kitchen so that there is more working room in the kitchen. I have used a spare bedroom with card tables, the living room or even outdoors when my space is limited. (Just make sure they are plugged in somewhere the kids can’t reach them!)

On a 15 recipe menu, I usually strive to only include one or two recipes using my slow cooker. Usually, you are doubling or quadrupling a recipe which means that one recipe would utilize at least 2 slow cookers. Doing 2 recipes would utilize 4. Much more than that and you will be on outlet overload!

3. Meats

I usually choose 2-4 main meats for building our dishes around for a particular menu. There are many others that would suggest that you do an all chicken, or all beef, or all pork menu so that you are only utilizing and working with one meat. This is a great way to tackle a cooking day as well, especially if a particular meat is on deep discount. However, I find that method doesn’t create much variety throughout the month. And I don’t want to be eating only chicken dishes the entire month. Thus, I choose the method of selecting main meats.

When I am selecting meats, what I select as main meats is first determined by what is on sale. After that, I determine that approximately half of the meat needs to be raw use and not more than half can be precooked. Why? Precooked meat either gets done the night before in the slow cooker or on the stove. This takes time and space. The meat has to be able to fit into a slow cooker(s) for overnight or in a large skillet for mass browning beforehand. Too much of this can equate to more time on your cooking day. Just another factor to keep in mind as you move onto the next step of finding recipes.

4. “No Cooking Required” Recipes

Beef Stew

Many times I refer to these as “dump” recipes. They are recipes that you simply “dump” into the bag or dish and freeze. They take no cooking on your cooking day. There is no precooked meat, noodles, rice, etc. They are simple and easy to put together and forget about until your serving day.

When creating the Once A Month Mom menus I aim to choose 2-4 of these types of recipes. The reason being that they are so simple and don’t take much time at all. And at the end of a weary 8-12 hour cooking day, I need some mindless recipes that can just be thrown together.

5. Other Seasonal Items

I simply keep my list of seasonal items close at hand whenever I am moving on to the next step of choosing recipes so that I can match recipes and sale items as closely as possible. If there are a few items that I want to highlight I do so. For example, on the October (Thanksgiving) Menu I knew I wanted to focus on pumpkin, potatoes, and pork. I kept these items in mind as I was searching through recipes.

Overview Questions – Planning Recipes

1. How many baked items will you be making?

• 1 Baked Item = 2 hours x _____ = ____ hours

2. Slow Cookers

• How many slow cookers do you have access to? _____
• How many recipes would you like to utilize in your slow cooker(s)? _____

3. Meats

• How many main meats will you choose? _____
• Which meats are you focusing on for this menu?
  • ___________________________
  • ___________________________
  • ___________________________
  • ___________________________

4.”No Cook” Items

• How many “dump” recipes do you want? _____

5. Seasonal Items

• What seasonal items would you like to focus on for this menu?
  • ___________________________
  • ___________________________
  • ___________________________
  • ___________________________

**Hint, hint – I am also dreaming up a great contest for having readers create March’s Once A Month Mom menu. Study up on this series and stay tuned for more details coming soon.

Please feel free to direct questions in the comment section below. However, keep in mind that this is a multi-part series. Please review previous posts for answers before submitting questions and review upcoming topics to see if your question will be answered shortly. Thank you.

Previous “Create Your Own Menu” Posts:

• Introduction
• Part 1 – Overview & Assessing Needs
• Part 2 – Researching Sales Items

Future “Create Your Own Menu” Posts:

• Part 4 – Finding Recipes
• Part 5 – Selecting Recipes
• Part 6 – Evaluating Quantity
• Part 7 – Creating a Grocery List
• Part 8 – Creating Instructions
• Part 9 – Substitutions & Equivalents
• Part 10 – Creating Labels
• Part 11 – Bringing It All Together

Researching Sale Items

1. Seasonal Grocery Items

Grocers run in approximately 12 week sales cycles. That means that a particular product is likely be on deep sale every 12 weeks or so. In addition, there are trends in grocery stores on what items are likely to be on sale in a particular month. These usually revolve around holidays and national X months (for example, national oatmeal month, national chicken month, etc) but not always. Below I will list several resources that I utilize when researching what grocery items will be on sale.

2. Seasonal Produce

Flickr Creative Commons, photo by mandy pantz

It isn’t always plausible that all produce we are using is in season, but there are a lot of ways to “plan” for what produce is in season thereby reducing your overall cost. For instance, you can do stuffed green peppers as part of your oamc day but it is going to be way less expensive if you make these in July or August when they are at peak season than in February when they are not. Below I will list several resources for finding out what produce is in season for the time of year that you are cooking.

3. Holidays

Many grocers will have discounts on items that are related to a holiday. Considering upcoming holidays is important in predicting which foods might be on sale during a certain month. The resources listed below also list national holiday events

4. Resources

Yes, the important part of this post. What sites/resources do I consult to find this information? There are hundreds more out there but these are the ones that I focus in on each and every month:

• Hot Coupon World – Sales Cycles – A month by month guide to holidays and sale cycles.
• Organic Grocery Deals – A month by month guide to holidays, national product months and organic seasonal produce.
• The Grocery Game – A weekly breakdown of key sales items and stock-up prices. This is a great and easy resource for those of you that want to take the guess work and time out of shopping for cheap. (If signing up for the fist time please use referral email address tricia @ onceamonthmom.com)
• Our Ohio – Seasonal produce available in Ohio (where I live).
• Swagbucks Search – Use swagbucks.com and search for seasonal produce and your state. And earn rewards while you search.

Overview Questions – Researching Sales Items

1. Which grocery items are on sale right now?

2. Which produce items are in season?

3. What holidays are this month that might mean sales items?

4. Any additional information that would influence sales?

**Hint, hint – I am also dreaming up a great contest for having readers create March’s Once A Month Mom menu. Study up on this series and stay tuned for more details coming soon.

Please feel free to direct questions in the comment section below. However, keep in mind that this is a multi-part series. Please review previous posts for answers before submitting questions and review upcoming topics to see if your question will be answered shortly. Thank you.

Previous “Create Your Own Menu” Posts:

• Introduction
• Part 1 – Overview & Assessing Needs

Future “Create Your Own Menu” Posts:

• Part 3 – Planning Recipes
• Part 4 – Finding Recipes
• Part 5 – Selecting Recipes
• Part 6 – Evaluating Quantity
• Part 7 – Creating a Grocery List
• Part 8 – Creating Instructions
• Part 9 – Substitutions & Equivalents
• Part 10 – Creating Labels
• Part 11 – Bringing It All Together

Assessing Needs

1. How much do you need?

The first thing that you need to do is determine how much you and your family will consume over any given month. Do you eat breakfasts or just cold cereal? Do you need lunch items or are you okay eating leftovers? How many dinners are enough?

When I set out to create Once A Month Mom menus I decided on 3-4 breakfasts items that would be doubled giving us 6-10 breakfasts. I chose 4 lunch items that would end up giving us 8-10 lunches. And 8 dinners that would produce up to 16 total dinners. All of this for a family of 4.

Now I am not a family of 4, I am actually a family of 2 (now one toddler and a newborn). However, I was building a blog for readers and decided that my average reader would likely have approximately 4 eating family members. You may have more you my have less.

In our case, I plan on giving several of the meals away that are made because I know that the quantity made is much more than we will eat in a given month. And we also eat much of the leftover dinners for lunches which often give us lunch items that can be given away as well.

In general, we don’t eat a hearty breakfast but I also took into consideration what I was reading on the blogosphere and realized that many families DO consume pre-made breakfast items. Thus, the breakfast menu.

If your family doesn’t eat homemade breakfast items than you likely aren’t going to want to breakfast on your menu. Take these things into consideration when building your menu.

2. How many are in your family?

As I mentioned above, my menus here are all based on a 4 person household. If you have 6 people you may need to make larger quantities. If you have less people you will want to make more.

3. Consult Your Calendar?

Photo used with permission Flickr Creative Commons by Joe Lanman

Your monthly calendar is a great tool for assessing your families needs. Even though there are only 16 dinners each month we often have leftovers, frozen pizza *gasp*, an occasional dinner with friends, a church dinner once a week and the occasional dining out experience. Which is why there is more than enough for us. Our meals last us about 1.5 months if we make and eat them all on our own. As I mentioned above we donate some. What are the trends in your family? Take a look at your calendar to see.

4. Time in kitchen?

The last thing that you want to consider is how much time you want to ultimately spend in the kitchen. If you do the math above you will find that the Once A Month Mom menus makes 15 recipes total. This will produce 8-12 hours in the kitchen, depending on your work speed. If you don’t want to spend that much time in the kitchen or you want to start out slower, you will want to pear down how many total meals you are making for the month. If you are considering more than 15 recipes than you need to realize you will be spending more time in the kitchen.

Overview Questions – Assessing Needs

1. How much do you need?

• Breakfasts = #?______
• Lunches = #?______
• Dinners = #?______

2. How many are in your family? _____

3. Consult your calendar:

• How many meals a week do you dine out (or would like to limit yourself to)? _____
• How many meals do you have dinner at friends/families/church? _____
• How many meals a week do you count for leftovers? _____
• How many meals a week do you eat convenience foods (or want to limit yourself to)? _____
• What else? _____

4. Time in kitchen – how many hours are you willing to spend? _____

Please feel free to direct questions in the comment section below. However, keep in mind that this is a multi-part series. Please review upcoming topics to see if your question will be answered shortly. Thank you.

Future “Create Your Own Menu” Posts:

• Part 2 – Researching Sales Items
• Part 3 – Planning Recipes
• Part 4 – Finding Recipes
• Part 5 – Selecting Recipes
• Part 6 – Evaluating Quantity
• Part 7 – Creating a Grocery List
• Part 8 – Creating Instructions
• Part 9 – Substitutions & Equivalents
• Part 10 – Creating Labels
• Part 11 – Bringing It All Together

I have been meaning to write a post series for some time now on creating your own once a month cooking menus. Whereas, I am sure many of you love, love, love the Once A Month Mom menus (what’s not to love?), I am also certain there are many of you out there that would like to try your own hand at producing a menu. Or would like to incorporate your own family favorites into a menu.

Some of you may have already done that. Others of you are completely overwhelmed by that process. And still others are up for the challenge but aren’t sure where to start. That is where this series comes in!

Over the next five weeks I have written a series of posts that will walk you through the steps I take each month to create the Once A Month Mom menus. (On Wednesdays & Fridays). You will find step-by-step guides on selecting, producing, and cooking your own menus. My hope is that at the end of the series you feel like you have enough information and resources that you could tackle your own once-a-month cooking (OAMC) menu.

Now don’t panic, Once A Month Mom isn’t going anywhere! I’m not trying to wean you are anything. Just want you to not only be equipped to do your own if you would like, but also want to show you the time, effort and thought that goes into each months menus. (And why I *might* or *might not* get a little uptight when I get criticized).

I hope you enjoy the series. We begin tomorrow with Part 1. Here is what is in store the next few weeks:

Part 1 – Overview & Assessing Needs

Part 2 – Researching Sale Items

Part 3 – Planning Recipes

Part 4 – Finding Recipes

Part 5 – Selecting Recipes

Part 6 – Evaluating Quantity

Part 7 – Creating a Grocery List

Part 8 – Creating Instructions

Part 9 – Substitutions & Equivalents

Part 10 – Creating Labels

Part 11 – Bringing It All Together

**Hint, hint – I am also dreaming up a great contest for having readers create March’s Once A Month Mom menu. Study up on this series and stay tuned for more details coming soon.