TRADITIONAL July 2012 Menu
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July is always a month of transition in my house. We are just starting to get the “summer routine” in place and then it gets interrupted by swim lessons, vacations, weekends at the pool. Laundry and cooking become lower priorities compared to chasing my kids through the sprinkler. I have found though only doing laundry once a month is not as awesome as once a month cooking. (Although if anyone has any tips on how to do laundry less often , I’m willing to listen.)
Aunt Sissy’s Poppy Seed Chicken
This month’s menu is especially dear to my heart as it incorporates a recipe from my great Aunt Sissy. Growing up, I remember many July days spent in the kitchen listening to my great aunt and grandmother laugh as they cooked. I can still hear the laughter as I stand in my kitchen today and I can’t begin to describe how amazing the food was. I hope you enjoy this menu as much as I have and make sure to take a few minutes in the middle of your cooking day to make a memory.
The Traditional menu is designed for the “traditional” or “average American family”. It is favorites you would find in a majority of kitchens across the country. If you aren’t the average american family you may wish to try out one of or specialty menus. If you are new and not sure how to get started we have a wonderful series starting with 5 easy steps to get you on your way to once a month cooking. Good luck!
**Stay tuned on the 5th (5 Day Mini Menu) and 10th (10 Day Mini Menu)of July as we have accompanying Traditional Mini Menus coming out then that you might enjoy if you are looking for a lighter cooking day or are just getting started with freezer cooking.
Don’t forget to check out the 101 Summer Freezer Meals too!
Breakfasts
Blueberry Oatmeal Pancakes
Lunches
- Mom’s Pasta E Fagioli
- Parmesan No Fry Corndogs
- Shoko’s Sesame Chicken Salad
- Buffalo Burger Quesadillas
Dinners
- Baked Bean Chicken**
- Aloha Pork Chops**
Mom’s Pasta E Fagioli
- Aunt Sissy’s Poppy Seed Chicken
- Chicken Alfredo Pierogie**
- Turkey Verde Enchilada
- Chicken and Spinach Flautas
- Roasted Vegetable Lasagna
- Asian Steak Kabobs
Recipe Cards
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Recipe Cards
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Grocery List
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Grocery List
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Instructions
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Instructions
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Labels
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Labels
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Pinterest:
Are you a person that likes to see the menus visually? Perhaps you should check out the July 2012 Traditional Menu via Pinterest to see the yummy goodness you will be cooking up on this menu. Not sure what Pinterest is all about, check out what Once A Month Mom has to say about it.
Test Cooks
Each month we have some wonderful volunteers who “test” out the menu prior to publication. They do an amazing job of helping to eliminate confusion and mistakes. They may not catch everything but they sure do catch A LOT! If you are interested in test cook, feel free to volunteer. Here is a little bit about this month’s test cooks:
- Ann Wray Marland - I’m a mom to three kids – girl 11yo, boy 10 yo, and girl 6 yo. We have three adults plus the three kids living here (total of six people I cook for each night). I’ve been freezer cooking/bulk cooking for the past six years – since my youngest was born. We subscribe to a home delivery company that delivers organic meats/seafood and frozen food items to my house every six months so it’s a little hard to determine my actual costs for just this list of groceries. My top priority job is that of wife and mother, but I also work part-time as a pediatric nurse in my spare time.
And don’t forget you can always go back and use July 2009′s, July 2010′s or July 2011′s menus if you are looking for something different!
The muffin melts really do freeze/thaw well? I had been worried about the mixture doing funny things when I came across the recipe a while back. (And scrambled eggs wouldn’t make it much different than hard boiled eggs, right?)
Hi Lanna, it should freeze and defrost just fine. I prefer scrambled eggs to hard boiled but you should be able to use either. Let us know if you try the hard boiled and how it turns out!
These do freeze and reheat very well, although I did mash the eggs with a potato masher for a finer texture than just rough chopping. My family also prefers the method of reheating in the oven straight from the freezer- they don’t have that microwave egg taste if reheated in the oven.
Thanks for letting us know how it went! My husband also prefers to reheat things in the oven- the kids know when he’s cooking breakfast it’s always going to take longer. :)
I was unhappy with the frozen muffin melts. We tried reheating both in the oven and microwave and both times they were unevenly heated through. Everything fell off the top as we were eating and generally the muffin was soggy. The taste was just okay, and would maybe make and not freeze, but honestly probably not.
If you reheat the muffin melts in the microwave, wrap each one in a paper towel first. It keeps them from getting soggy.
My family and I LOVED these, and they froze and reheated just fine. For a little extra punch of flavor, we added a bit of onion. Very yummy!
Maybe a dumb question, but… How do you flash freeze?
Not a dumb question at all! This link should help. http://onceamonthmom.com/flash-freezing/
Just an FYI…the recipe for the parmesan corn dogs made a TON of batter. On the upside, I used the left over batter to make mini cornbread muffins and they turned out great! Thanks for the great website!
I did the same thing but made a loaf of cornbread!
Hi :) I tried OAMM last month and my family LOVED it. I didn’t do all the recipes because my family is flexitarian (mostly vegetarian, but we do eat seafood and poultry). I’m curious as to what might be a suitable substitute for the pork and beef products. Ground beef I always substitute with ground turkey anyways, but would chicken breast be the best substitute? I will never shop regularly or cook every night again. This has been a lifesaver for our family as my husband and I are both in school. We have gone from eating out several times a week to only twice this month. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS SITE!
Thank you! So glad you are loving it. In the case of this menu, chicken would work great for the pork chops and similarly for the Kebabs. In fact, that sounds mighty good to me actually!
I just wanted to say how thankful I am to have stumbled upon this for July. We’re expecting a little person any day and it was a great experience for hubby and I to get to spend a few days planning, prepping, and cooking together. It’ll help out so much when this baby gets here- especially considering we have a family of 6 already! Thank you, thank you, thank you!
You are most welcome! And good luck getting ready for the new one. And please don’t cook so much you go into early labor. :)
The chicken and spinach flautas recipe card doesn’t say what to do with the onions and red peppers. I assumed they went n with the spinach and it looked right. Thanks!
Oh, yes, that’s the perfect place to add them in. Thanks for letting us know and we’ll get it corrected.
The grocery list says to buy eight pounds of pork chops. You only need two. It also says in the chicken salad recipie to cook six pounds of chicken…you only need six peices (about two pounds).
Next time I will know to compare recipes with shopping lists and check out the original recipies too.
Oh, and my corn dogs turned out to be corn bread with some hot dogs thrown in.
Still for my first time it went relatively well. thanks for doing all of this!
Samantha, thanks for this feedback. It turns out there was an equation error for the pork chops and you really did need the 8 pounds indicated. As for the chicken, that was an over-calculation. Sorry about that. We do test all of these menus and if you want to volunteer to be a test cook you sound like you would be perfect! http://onceamonthmom.com/become-a-once-a-month-mom-test-kitchen/ Thanks for following! I have made the needed changes.
I found the same thing! I just froze my extra pork chops and have a TON of chicken salad! This is only my second time doing this and I think that a good practice would be before chopping the vegetables to skim through to see which recipes they will be used in. In several places the veggie was used in two recipes but I mistakingly used all of it in the first one! I need to make a note on my chopped veggie bag which recipes it is used in so I don’t use them all.
Yes Amy, it is important to use the measurement amount indicated on the recipe card for each chopped item as there are often more than one recipe that uses that item. I get zealous sometimes myself. :)
Oh, I cooked for four…
Hello! I have a question. I am new to this website and trying to sort through all of the helpful information. I noticed on the label printout example on this page, it shows the calories, fat, ww points, etc. However, when I look at the actual labels as if i was going to print them, that information is not on the labels. Am I doing something wrong or looking in the wrong place?
Great Site! Can’t wait to start using this! :) We eat out WAY too much.
We actually only do the nutrition information for the Diet menu write now, it is just there to be a visual representation that labels are present.
The grocery list calls for 14 oz cream of chicken soup (for 1 person), but the only recipe I see using it is the Aunt Sissy’s chicken, which only uses 10.5 oz. Am I missing something? Thanks!!
Actually Aunt Sissy’s only uses 5.25 oz for 1 person, I mis-typed. What is the rest of the soup supposed to be used for?
It was a error on our part from the recipe cards to the grocery list. It is suppose to be 5.25 for every one serving. I changed the grocery list to reflect this change.
The grocery list has 32oz beer on it.. what recipe is that for? I can’t match it up.
Hi Veronica, the beer is for the Chicken and Spinach Flautas. Although if you buy extra, it might make your cooking day really interesting. ;)
LOL! Too true. I figured it out when I actually started the prep. We ate them tonight and they were FABULOUS! :)
I got the recipe for a casserole like this, no english muffins though…it is the most decadent breakfast dish I have EVER eaten! Love your site and I am now following you on Pinterest and Facebook!
I have just finished cooking up all the wonderful meals from this July’s menu and am astonished with how wonderful these recipes turned out! My family is really enjoying the home-cooked goodness and hubby even commented that many taste like dinners we’d order at a restaurant! I just wanted to thank you for putting together such a wonderful assortment of meals – and many with nutrition in mind! I will be back to see what you put together for next month. I’m on my way to becoming a converted, once-a-month-mom myself!!
Hi,
I’m a new fan from the UK! *waves*
I LOVE the site and I really want to get started on some of these recipes, so exciting. I’ve just found that I can’t view or print the recipe cards for any of the months. Is there something I’m doing wrong? I’ve tried in IE and Firefox.
Many Thanks!
Welcome Lisa! I have a friend living in the UK and going to school right now at Leeds! Try these steps first and then let me know if you’re still having trouble http://onceamonthmom.com/all-menus-saving-printing-google-document-grocery-lists-recipe-cards-instructions/
Thanks Kelly, how does your friend like Leeds? I’m a long way away but I have been there. Very busy city!
I have realised the problem – I can’t view Google Docs in work! This task will have to wait until I get home I think.
Another quick q for anyone…does chicken broth in the US equate to the same as chicken stock in the UK? I’ve see broth a lot and I’m guessing that they are the same thing!
Thanks!
Lisa she LOVES it! She’s living in Yorkshire with her fiance and commutes to Leeds for her masters program. And yes Google Docs can be restricted sometimes!
As for stock vs broth they aren’t technically the same thing but it will work. A quick google search found this definition, “Chicken stock should be made with mostly bones and scraps; its high gelatin content will give body to sauces. Chicken broth, on the other hand, should be made from chicken pieces with a high meat-to-bone ratio; its pronounced, meaty flavor is perfect for classic chicken soup.” But I think in this case you would be fine using stock. :)
We have eaten a lot of the meals at this point…yum! Well… The lasagna wasn’t a favorite for my children, but they survived :-)
Not sure why you changed the recipe for the Buffalo Burger Quesadillas. If you mix the BBQ sauce and Buffalo sauce into the meat, then when you cook the patties they dissolve into a soupy mess. I still went ahead with the recipe and the quesadillas tasted good and are quite filling. Next time I’ll just make the patties and put sauce on top when I make the quesadilla.
Thanks for a great menu!
I prepared the July Traditional menu yesterday. My family and I are very excited to try all the yummy things I made! I did find some inconsistencies though. For some of the veggies, the grocery list for 4 would say to purchase 4-5 m yellow squash for example, but then I’d get to the chopping section and it would say that I needed 9 m to get the correct proportions.
I’m also a bit confused about the menu months and wehn you’re supposed to do them. The instructions say to cook during the month and then eat it the following month, is that correct? Since I did all of mine yesterday, I’m at the end of July, which means the seasonal ingredients are dwindling and we are getting ready to eat Fall foods, but I couldn’t wait for the Fall menu to come out.
Thanks!
We will check into the inconsistency you mentioned and make changes as needed. As for the menus, we intend that they come out on the 1st, get shopped that month, cooked at the end of the month and eaten the next month. You don’t have to do them that way but that should save you the most money. And explain our menu selections.
I have a quick question, if you make this with scrambled eggs, do you still use the mayonnaise?
Hi Tish, which recipe are you referring to?
I made the July menu for the first time around the end of July. Because of some emergency issues that came up, I wasn’t able to get everything done on the big cooking day. So I spent the next week cooking something every night and freezing it. That was a little labor intensive, but fun. Anyway, we are greatly enjoying the products of my labors this week. The slushes, muffin melts, and flautas have been especially popular at my house. I noticed that someone had problems with the melts; we thawed them in the microwave for 45 seconds, then popped them into the toaster over. They were great! We also used those with the boiled eggs, this will become a family classic. Thanks for a great website! Can’t wait to cook the August menu.
Thanks for the great and honest review!
Do I cook the lasagna noodles for the veggie lasagna before building the dish? Doesn’t seem like the cook time is long enough for them to cook after the dish is frozen.
Dianna, you don’t have to cook the noodles before building. If you are concerned about the length of time, you can always add 0.25 to 0.5 cup of water and cook a bit longer or you can buy no bake lasagna noodles.