You did WHAT for 7 hours????

OK...So I'm sure EVERY mom (working or SAHM) can relate to the dinner time conundrum. Planning, Prepping, Shopping, Making, Mixing, Baking, Cooking, Serving...there's a lot that goes into having dinner on the table every most nights a week!! I for one have tried a few different tactics: Weekly Meal Planning Service (e-mealz) which was great but costs $5 a month and was some {let's just say} interesting meals, then there was the plan my meals by what's on sale which was great but then we got down to about 3-5 meals that we had ALL THE TIME. Plus both of these still involved me being home to cook and have dinner on the table before bath and bed time. So, I decided to TRY the once a month cooking. For those of you that are thinking...what did she say? Basically, I cooked for about 7 hours on Monday (my day off since I work most Saturdays) and ended up with about 20 something meals that included breakfast and dinner options (and lunch options since we take leftovers to work for lunch). Now, before you start saying I'm super woman for thinking of this...let me inform you of the website that LITERALLY gave me step by step directions, recipes and even a grocery list!!

It is www.onceamonthmom.com.

 She gives you these options for menus: traditional, whole foods, gluten/dairy free, diet, baby food and vegetarian. I did the whole foods menu option. (I'll tell you what I did and did not like about this in a minute)...OH...and by the way...did I tell you this is F.R.E.E.?!? ok. what I liked about this was: obviously, the no brainer, plan-ahead, freezer meals that we can literally pull out and know what we're doing. The grocery list was wonderful! She even has step by step instructions for the night before prepping and actual cooking day (the 7 hours included about an hour and a half of night before prepping). She also has printable recipe cards that can print on labels for the actual dishes in the freezer (so you know what it is you're eating and there's no mystery meat involved).   Like I said/wrote, I chose the whole foods menu because it uses a lot of ... well ... whole foods which equals healthy. But, she is serious. It has me baking bread, making pizza dough and even making my own tortillas (which I nixed and decided to go store bought). So, the whole foods is definitely hard core! But, the end result is sooo worth the time. We had our first meal tonight: BBQ Chicken Quesadillas. And, OH. MY. GOODNESS.  They were delish!! And, it took me all of about 4 minutes to get them out, prepare and plop in the oven!