March Menu, Grocery List, and Instructions

Well, we have the first month under our belts and are moving on to March! I am so excited about this new menu. There is not one recipe on this menu that is a regular in our house, they are all new! I hope that we all end up liking them they sounded pretty tasty. There is also some planning and reasoning behind the menu items chosen.

I wanted to give you some reasoning behind this month’s menu. In doing research I have found that March is typically a month where grocers run a lot of frozen food sales, so we have a lot of frozen food items on our grocery list. With Easter in the beginning of April you should also start to see eggs going on sale at the end of the month, so stay strong! We also have included an egg casserole thinking it would be an easy breakfast item on a busy Easter morning. Also, you will find several recipes that can go on the grill! Yay! The hope of warmer weather!

With Easter coming that means there is also Lent in March, this means sales for seafood. I have to be honest, I am not really much of a seafood fan, however, I saw this as a time of year that it might be cost effective to try out some new recipes. If you have an allergy or aversion to seafood simply substitute equal amounts of raw chicken breasts for the salmon fillets or cooked cubed chicken for the shrimp.

I hope that you had a good February cooking experience and are looking forward to March! We are glad that you have decided to join us. Here is what you will need to participate in the February OAM Cooking BIG DAY! Not sure how to get started, read here.

March Menu

**Indicates meals that require NO COOKING on your OAM Cooking BIG DAY!

Grocery List

  • Included in this spreadsheet you will find a listing of all the items you will need to complete your February OAM Cooking BIG DAY. For more instructions on how to use this, go here.
  • Printable Grocery List

Instructions

  • These are the step-by-step instructions you will need to quickly and efficiently approach your OAM Cooking BIG DAY!
  • Printable Instructions

Labels – NEW!

Designed to be printed on Avery 8163 or equivalent!

What do you think of March’s menu?

104 Responses to “March Menu, Grocery List, and Instructions”

  1. Amy in OHio says:

    Yum a yum yum!! This menu looks delicious!!

    So excited!

  2. Angela in Ohio says:

    Oh yum! I’ve never tried most of these for OAMC so this should be interesting!

  3. Bobby and I were just looking at this and we are very excited! Do you think I could substitute pork chops for the salmon in the orange marmalade recipe?

  4. Jen says:

    Ooooh. These look yummy. THANK You for all of your preparation on our behalf.

  5. Debbi says:

    So you have 8 main meals, do you only serve these 8 meals throughout the month? How many of each one are you making? I’ve been watching the website for awhile and I’m still trying to figure it all out. I know that I often buy like 20 lbs. of ground turkey at one times and I will make taco meat, spaghetti sauce, meatloaf and hamburgers with it all at once. Thanks for some great ideas.

  6. Tiffany says:

    The menu looks great. I plan to make everything. I love the variety!

  7. Bethany says:

    I love your website! I don’t eat a lot of meat, so I substitute beans, tofu, or Gardenburgers. For February, I made the chicken Parmesan with Gardenburgers and it was delicious! We do eat seafood, so I am excited about this month’s menu. Keep it up!

  8. Chrissy says:

    Your menu looks great! I love seafood. I cannot wait to try some of the recipes.

  9. Jen says:

    I have a question about the shrimp recipes. Most of the time when I buy shrimp it is already frozen. Do I thaw the shrimp, add the marinade, and then refreeze. I am a little worried because I know you are not supposed to refreeze meat after it has been thawed.

    • tricia says:

      No, you do not thaw the shrimp and then add marinade and refreeze. We will be adding the shrimp frozen to the chilled sauce. Stay tuned, the complete instructions (including details such as this) will be coming by the end of the week.

  10. Nancy says:

    I just stumbled across your website through someone else’s blog….great ideas….I would love to win the book and get myself organized in the kitchen!!

  11. Dana says:

    I’m not sure why, but I was unable to view February and March menu. I can see the grocery list and pretty much everything else. Odd. Could you help me out here? Thanks!

  12. Melissa says:

    The Firecracker Salmon looks great and easy. Can’t wait to try it since we should all be eating more fish! Hoping to win the cookbook too!

  13. Christy says:

    Can’t wait to try this, it will make things so much easier when we get are family started. (We hope it will be very soon) All these recipes sound great and it will help take the guess work out of what to make for breakfast. Breakfast is the hardest for me.

  14. Megan says:

    The Buffalo shrimp looks yummy!

  15. Ronica says:

    I have subscribed! I just found your website this morning, linking from Coupon Cravings or my OAMC yahoo group, I can’t remember which. I love the layout you have put together and I will definately be using your menus. The Firecracker Salmon looks wonderful, so that is definately on my next cooking day.

  16. Krista says:

    I, too, am having trouble viewing the menu sheet. I’m using IE with DSL. I’m looking forward to getting my feet wet with some of these recipes!

  17. Carmen Lake says:

    OH YUM! I am so excited I am a Wildtree Rep and am always looking for new recipes to try with our ingredients. I am so excited to try some of these. I love to do “Big Cookin’” I make all my meals ahead of time and freeze them in my Tupperware,(www.TupperKids.com) Then I my family can just pull out and heat when I have an event that night.
    Thanks again for all your hard work. I am anxiously awaiting instructions for March, I did my grocery shopping today!

  18. Nicole says:

    All looks yummy! One question…are there links for the two “Don’t Panick” recipes?

  19. Krista says:

    Oh, I figured out my problem. Like my mom used to say, “if it’d been a snake it’d have bit me!” Thanks!

  20. Frin says:

    OMG I can’t believe I just stumbled onto your web site! I have been trying to do this on my own for so long! Great to have a place to go for such fantastic ideas, menus and recipes! YEAH FOR YOU!

  21. Angela says:

    I have a question about the Mandarin Orange Chicken. The recipe calls for cooked and chopped boneless chicken breast, but I don’t see in the step by step directions where we cooked the chicken. Am I missing something?

    • tricia says:

      Nope! You weren’t missing anything, apparently I was! Thanks for catching that one! I updated the instructions to reflect the needed amount!

  22. dawn says:

    oh what great recipes!! will they stay archived here on your site, or should i be bookmarking them for myself? i love that you’re doing this — what an amazing gift to all of us!!

  23. Birgitte says:

    LOVE the idea of this website! But I do wish there were meals for at least half the weekend too. Could your IT-working hubbies make a web-based database where you can add the meals you want to make and it spits out a grocery list for you?

    That would be my dream website. :-) Don’t know if it is possible though.

    • tricia says:

      It is possible, but difficult. And seeing as we pay in “slave labor” (jk) it will take us a little while to “earn our keep”. We are definitely working on it though!

    • Kimberly says:

      First of all, I want to thank you Tricia for having such a great website for us all to visit. I came across your site this morning (very early) while looking for recipes that have the same ingredients. I am replying to this message in particular because Birgitte requested specific items to be able to print out for multiple dinners. I would have to agree with Tricia that is may be possible, but can be very difficult. I have just completed several courses in Java/SQL/Access and have tried the last two thus far. I think it would be feasible using Java, but the users on this site may not have the proper application(s) to run such a program; therefore having it to be displayed and calculated via the website in which I am not proficient in as of yet. Anywho, I have been working on this for hours already and have not done my shopping yet lol, but I will try this using my NetBeans IDE later to see if this can be accomplished. Thanks again Tricia! I will see what I can do to help out with your informative and helpful site.
      Take care!

  24. sarah r says:

    in reviewing the directions for your big cooking day, at the end you are to portion and freeze the soups from the crock pots. do you cool the soups prior to putting them in the bags? i’d hate to have it melt through the plastic! thanks!

    • tricia says:

      That is a good thought. Melting the bags would be NO FUN. However, I didn’t let them cool when I was doing them and didn’t have a problem with melting bags. I might let them a cool a bit to be safe though! (I suppose this could be a good test among zipper bags though) :)

  25. Kimm says:

    Just discovered your site and am eager to read through it, but thought you’d like to know that the light colors, especially the light blue print makes it very difficult to read your site.

  26. Jo says:

    just linked in here..I’ve done OAMC before when my kids are younger and toying with the idea again as I’m going back to work, hubby out of work, and the kids/teens may be the responsible party for meals…
    so only 8 dinner meals this month?? just trying to figure out my personal plan so they know what they should be cooking and eating..

  27. Tia says:

    Love the cooking one a month Idea. I’m so glad ya’ll put this together for us…..it would take forever for us to figure out the grocery list otherwise! ALready talking to my friend about cooking it….spreading the word about ya’ll!

  28. Cathy says:

    I’m a little confused. Are these recipes you made in Feb on the big cooking day to eat in March? or are they ones you are going to cook in March to eat in April? You said that you look all month long for deals for the menu, so I was trying to find the list for April’s food, so I can start looking for the deals before March’s big cooking day.

    • tricia says:

      March’s menu is the one we are shopping and cooking for in March, we will be eating the food in April. April’s menu will post April 1 and we will look all month for deals and then cook it at the end of April. We eat April’s food in May. It is a bit confusing!

  29. Mandy says:

    This is a great help for those of us just starting out. Are the recipes already doubled or does it mean we need to double them?

    • tricia says:

      If it says double, tripled, or quadrupled it means that is what we did to the original recipe. The math is already done for you. I just indicate that so as not to take away from the original author.

  30. Amy says:

    I just made the pizza roll-ups. I used a wheat dough and added canadian bacon. They are awesome and I am making them again tomorrow!! Maybe every night!

  31. Julie says:

    I jumped ahead and my sister-in-law and I did the March menu today. I found a few glitches and I thought I’d note them to make things even easier for everyone else. Here goes:

    I think the amount of chicken is wrong for the raspberry chicken recipe. The recipe calls for 4.5 pounds of boneless skinless chicken breasts (approx. 18 breasts). It took two 5 pound packages to make up 18 breasts, bringing the total amount of chicken needed to around 20 pounds rather than 14.5.

    The general instructions mention allowing waffles to cool. I’m guessing that this is talking about the raspberry pancakes. I tried out waffles just to see how it would go and it didn’t work nearly as well as pancakes.

    My pizza rolls were full of pepperoni and I only used around 2 pounds.

    The orange marmalade marinade salmon never indicates when to put in the chili pepper flakes and pepper. I just dumped it in and I was pretty sure that’s what was supposed to happen. :)

    I had a hard time finding sesame oil and it was going to cost over 15.00 at the health food store for the amount that I needed. I substituted peanut oil and I’m hoping that’ll work.

    It was a FULL day’s work, but everything looked and smelled YUMMY! We chased around 4 kiddos all day while we were cooking, so we still lack the chicken fingers (ran out of chicken) and the Farmer’s Casserole. Otherwise, it’s all in the freezer and the sink is shiny! :)

    • tricia says:

      Julie, thanks for the feedback! It will help! Here are a few comments: 1 – I based the lbs of chicken for raspberry chicken on a frozen chicken breast being a 1/4 pound. When using fresh it likely will be more, however I was thinking it wouldn’t be bad to have more sauce. I will buy extra chicken in case. 2 – was suppose to be pancakes and I have changed the typo in the instructions. 3 – I already changed the pepperoni based on the test run. 4 – I made the indicated change to Orange Mar Mar Salmon. 5 – here is a post about sesame oil substitutions for those looking. Thanks AGAIN all feedback helps!

      • Julie says:

        I guess I’ll invite the in-laws over for Raspberry Chicken night since I’ll have plenty! :)

        • tricia says:

          Good idea – I do think you were on to something with the amount though – a freezer breast is usually half the size of a regular breast, I hadn’t considered that before!

  32. Julie says:

    By the way, I posted a pic of my prepared food before placing it in the freezer on the Onceamonthmom Facebook group page. :)

  33. carriem says:

    I did a modified version of Feb’s menu (less recipes with just me, and my own recipes, I had my own versions of a few things I was too attached to) It was great, but I’m doing March’s menu with a friend, and I’m excited. I did have a question, how do you flash freeze things? I think I know, but I want to be sure.

    • tricia says:

      We have a couple posts that will help you with a few items – mushrooms and blueberries. If you are talking about the pizza roll-ups and the pancakes – let them cool and place them on a room temperature/cooled cookie sheet. Place them in your freezer for 10-20 minutes until cooled or starting to freeze. Then remove and place in zipper freezer bags. For additional info on flash freezing fruits and vegetables the USDA has a great site.

  34. carriem says:

    Also, what is the total Chicken breast pounds we should be buying if substituting shrimp for cooked chicken?

  35. Angela says:

    On the pizza rolls—Do you think we could sub refrigerated pizza dough for the loaves of bread? There is a good sale at Kroger on Pillsbury pizza dough this week. Hmmmmm.

  36. Angela says:

    question about the farmer’s casserole: do you put the hash browns in the pan while still frozen,or do you thaw them first?

  37. Jo says:

    just completed the day..whew! did it by myself with momentary help from husband and son..they scrammed as soon as I put them to work…

    my comments for the day

    had a momentary lapse at the onset with boiling the carrots..since I had both sliced and chopped I wasn’t sure which ones I was using..read through and figured it was the chopped ones for the shepherd’s pie topping…but a note would help as I was just literally going from start to finish…

    and my crockpot chicken….was that for the mandarin chicken/rice dish?? I had cooked chicken and wasn’t sure where it was heading…

    then in the initial instructions it said to chop chicken…I chopped 2#s and then wasn’t sure what to do with that…..I had thawed chicken breasts/skins/ribs that I had picked up on sale a while back..found out one was a whole chicken ..so stole the breasts out of that..took the back/neck and all the ribs from the breasts I was filleting out..and cooked up for soup tomorrow…took the wings/legs and baked for our lunch today in the midst of the cookathon…then got to the chicken fingers part and had no more chicken..so thawed more out..as I too just took the list and bought ingredients..and didn’t think I would need more chicken..but I put 4 breasts in each bag..and mine like others were considerably heavier…

    for the pizza rolls I had intended to halve the amount since it’s just our family/me cooking..and picked up a 5 oz. turkey pepperoni…and then just pulled out all 3 loaves of bread figuring I’d just make cinnamon rolls or something..but I decided to go ahead and see how far the pepperoni would go..and it looks sufficient for the bread..so used jsut 5 oz in lieu of 1 1/2lbs..I pulled out the thawed dough early this a.m. to warm up and raise..noonish..it was nooooo problem rolling out to the correct size..and then smelled wonderful..

    on the muffins..I used an icecream scoop and we had just a smidge over 24 muffins..which is fine as I divided into 3 groups of 8 for the four of us..

    my minestrone soup didn’t fit into a single crock pot..so pulled out another one…so had 3 going at once…

    and somehow ended up with a considerable amount of onions and celery left…I halved the quantity listed to chop..and thought I read the directions correctly..but I have a good 2 cups celery left..and at least that or more in white onions..and my couple of pounds of chopped chicken…I figured tomorrow when I have more energy..i can fry that up and add a zip lock to the mandarin chicken as I had put the shredded crockpot chicken in that as I wasn’t sure where it was supposed to go…

    and half the spinach tortellini soup was dinner tonight…couldn’t see cooking something else when it was done and cooling…so just baked up some garlic bread and served right then..it was great…other half went into the freezer…

    and because I bought costco frozen salmon my poundage was off..I had the correct weight..but theirs is precut into 6 oz. portions..7 to a bag..and I was adding to a 1 1/2 lb fillet that I had from a kroger sale…so have a 3 portion/4 portion of one recipe..and the other salmon recipe would of only had 3/4 lb in each for 4 servings..so I just lumped into 1 so we have 1 less dinner…

    all in all it was a good day..but I was ready to be done…washed dishes as I went along so my kitchen is clean and my freezer is full!

    • tricia says:

      KUDOS to you for doing it all by yourself! WOW! Yes, I had some similar items. Thanks for sharing your story! I am sure it will help other readers!

  38. Belle says:

    I am having trouble when I click on the printable march menu I cannot get to the other documents it only lets me see the “notes” page. Can anyone help?

    • tricia says:

      There are “tabs” along the bottom of the document that you click on for each of the recipes. I am writing this as a comment as you are not the first, nor will likely not be the last to have this problem. It takes some getting use to Google Docs!

  39. JJ says:

    I’ve been playing a bit with Google docs. (I use OpenOffice for all of my word processing stuff btw) and I was wondering if there was a way that I’m missing to save the instructions and labels with the menu? I did make a separate sheet with the menu for the instructions and hand put them in. I don’t really know much about spreadsheets anymore (I last used Quattro in college in 91 if that tells you anything). I can get around but that’s about it. Either that, or how do you save the page of instructions or labels to google docs? I’d love to have a folder there with your stuff.

    • tricia says:

      You need to get a Google Account. It is easy to do. Just go to docs.google.com and there should be instructions. Then it will be easy to save all of these documents in one place. If you still have trouble, email me and I will try to walk you through it.

  40. CC says:

    I’m really wanting to try this, but I’m lost on one thing.. you call this your “March Menu” but is it really for the month of April?

    • tricia says:

      We call it the March menu because we shop for it all month long and cook it at the end of March. We then eat the food on this menu in April and shop for the April menu. A little confusing but the About OAM section may help clear a few things up!

  41. Jo says:

    we just had the buffalo shrimp last night..way yummy..on the edge of too spicy for one teenager but the rest of it loved it…

    mexican casserole has gotten only neutral feedback..kids and husband said it was okay but nothing they’d pursue again..probably too similar to a hamburger helper dish which they never get…

    I do like the fact that I used some square pans in my kitchen..so some where aluminum/some pyrex, some glass..and then filled in with purchased foil ones..they weren’t as stable putting into the freezer..and the pyrex/glass ones have worked great for microwaving to thaw quicker (for one emergency quickie dinner turnaround)..so I think if I keep doing this I’m going to purchase another 6 or so of the pyrex pans…no need to buy disposables so better for the environment and my pocket book..and they were stronger when I was freezing/stacking on my freezer shelf…

  42. Mrs. CPA says:

    I took the buffalo shrimp recipe and dumped the shrimp and marinade in a pan and cooked the shrimp until they were done. Then I took the shrimp out and took the tails off. I turned the marinade up and let it boil for a minute or two. I took about 2/3 of the marinade and added it to a jar of alfredo sauce. Then I put the shrimp back in and served it over pasta. It was DELICIOUS!

  43. Jo says:

    tried our first farmer’s breakfast yesterday..had intended for Sat breakfast but the pan didn’t even come close to thawing out overnight…and on SUN..still fairly frozen..took about double the time period for cooking..didn’t matter to us as we were just messing around the house..but if you had to get somewhere on time and/or have company over..definitely make sure that thing is thawed ALL the way through or add additional time..it was very yummy!

    and the idea with the buffalo sauce and alfredo sounds delish!..will definitely try it that way for the next go round..we had on rice/with the tails…but we have jars of less fat alfredo from Kroger’s sale previously just waiting on my shelf..that way the food won’t look the same every time we serve..

    and I read on some of the other posts about people not having all the right tools/toys/equipment…I’m a kitchen junkie(and older) so have doubles/triples of about any possible toy you could want..BUT…I’ve found some of the larger 2nd hand shops will have a bazillion rice cookers, Donvier ice cream makers, pans, etc..as more and more people are just buying prepped foods and not cooking they are deep sixing the tools…in Idaho there was a store called Savers and every Monday they would sell anything that had been around for a month for 99 cents..I accumulated gorgeous rice cookers, bamboo steamers (dim sum/tamales), Donvier, toaster ovens, crockpots, you name it…it’s worth browsing a little to get to know your area rather than buying another full priced item..and/or making a request on your local freecycle…so many people just have the stuff gathering dust in their pantry..just a thought to have your toys on the cheap!

  44. Julie says:

    What do you think is the best way to thaw the farmer’s casserole? I thawed it overnight in the refrigerator and followed the baking instructions. I think it would have been better if I had thawed it correctly. Can you thaw it at room temp. over night? I’m not sure of correct thawing procedures.

    • tricia says:

      Do not thaw it at room temperature over night. I would say perhaps longer in the refrigerator for better thawing. Maybe 24 hours. I am making mine this weekend and will try it out.

  45. Angela says:

    This does take a long time to thaw in the fridge. Give it 24 hours at least. I have done this twice. The one time it wasn’t thawed enough and it baked unevenly. I ended up dishing up a little pit into a frying pan to make sure the eggs were cooked through. A bit more work, but it saved us from salmonella!

  46. Tami says:

    I had the same thawing issue with the shepherd’s pie! I had it in the fridge all day and it didn’t even come close to thawing. It ended up taking 2 hours to cook! Luckily we were busy that night anyways so we really didn’t mind that it took longer. It was very yummy once it cooked though. I’m thinking maybe a few hours on the counter before cooking might have helped. I’ll have to make sure and take the Farmer’s Casserole out in enough time!!

    • tricia says:

      I usually double the cooking time if mine aren’t all the way thawed. I thawed my Farmer’s Casserole in the refrigerator over night and it was still partially frozen the next morning. I doubled the cooking time and it came out perfect.

  47. Miriam says:

    I’m looking over the Pizza Rolls recipe, and you say to put 1 cup of sauce in a quart bag inside the larger bag… but that would only use 4 cups (since you divide the pizza rolls into 4 bags) and the recipe takes 12 cups of sauce. Should it be 3 cups of sauce per bag?

    • tricia says:

      There should be 4 individual (1 cup) bags that are put inside the 1 large gallon bag with the rolls.

      • Miriam says:

        Thanks! Is that the same with the Shrimp Roasted Peppers & Feta, and the Buffalo Shrimp? I’m sorry I’m so confused :P The directions for both say to “divide into 4 bags” but then the “containers needed” list 16 quart bags. Thanks for all the work you’re both putting into this! I’m thinking about trying it and am still looking over your recipes :)

  48. Tami says:

    So someone at work told me today that you pour a little drizzle of syrup on the pancakes when you are making them and then the syrup is already in the pancake when you eat them. Its very nice, especially if you are on the way out the door in the morning. I thought this was a good idea!

  49. Laurie says:

    Wow WOw WOW! Really amazed at how much work you have put into this site! LOVE LOVE LOVE! Really looking forward to doing all of the recipes! I think you’ve thought of everything you’ll need to do it and make it simple! We’ll see when I get started next week! This will save me sooo much time trying to decide what to make for the week! Keep up the good work!

  50. Sara says:

    trying to get access to the march labels. any luck?

  51. [...] Recipes) Banana Sour Cream Bread (made as muffins)  – Make dairy free modifications! Chocolate Chip Raspberry Pancakes (Once a Month Mom) Homemade Granola Bars (Once a Month Mom) Homemade Granola with Almonds and [...]

  52. Brenda says:

    Curious what I am doing wrong, as I am denied access to march labels. I could get the Feb. ones. Thank you for sharing.

  53. Jennifer says:

    I am still getting the same problem. Not able to get the March 2009 Labels as well

  54. Jill says:

    I also cannot gain access to the March labels … Can you please either give me access or email me the files.
    Thanks!!!

  55. [...] don’t feel guilty if you aren’t able. And don’t forget you can always go back and use March 2009‘s OR March 2010‘s menus if you are looking for something [...]

  56. [...] of the recipes was chicken with rice and mandarin oranges. Three things that they love to eat. They could eat them every day and sometimes they do. So I made [...]

  57. Jennifer says:

    The instructions for this month will not open up. Can you help with this? When I click on the link it takes me to a google page and states that I do not have access to this account and need to request permission.

    Thanks,
    Jennifer

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