Once A Month Cooking - Large Group-Style!

I wrote about Once A Month Cooking before, in another post. If you haven't read about it, click on this link.

In October, I organized another cooking day for the women at my church. This time, I took crazy pills, and decided to offer 3 different menus!  It wasn't a lot of work on the day of, but getting everything set up took a while. This is because I wasn't a pro member of the Once A Month Meals website. The next time, it will be MUCH easier, because I will be able to do customized menus!

9 women were set to participate, so I knew we wouldn't be able to use my house. Though I would love to host that many, my kitchen and work space is just too small!  Thankfully, our church's office space is a former preschool, with lots of open space, and an industrial kitchen!  Woopee!

Everything the day of the cooking went so well. In addition to the 8 women cooking, one was cooking for two families, and 4 of us had our kids and husbands in tow! 

In order to make it work the best, we figured that each person needs to have a prep table, and a "storage" table for their supplies and equipment. There were several 8-foot tables in the conference room, so we spread them out and everyone was able to have their own space, and also be close to the other women doing their same menus. I also learned that it was helpful to have a trash can at (or a trash bag taped to) each work station. I had printed out everyone's labels and recipe cards, so everyone was set! We sent the hubbies out for Starbucks, said a prayer, took a group photo, and got started!

Throughout the day, there really were very few mishaps. A few times I realized I had forgotten an ingredient, or someone realized they chopped too much/too little of something, but for the most part, there weren't many errors in our equipment/supplies. Shannon, the rockstar, was doing cooking for the first time AND cooking for two families! She had a couple spillage instances, but nothing major. And, with so many women around, there were always an extra pair of hands or two to help with the clean up!

One thing I recommended this time was some kind of bowl or stand to set your bags in. When you're adding ingredients to a ziplock bag, the last thing you want is for the bag to tip over, spilling the contents everywhere!!

Another tip is (if you're cooking at someone else's house, or another location) to carry all your supplies in a laundry basket. Sturdy, and carries a lot of stuff!

Finally, DON'T buy cheap bags! Ziplock bags are the way to go. The last thing you want when you thaw your meals is to have the contents slowly leak out of an unknown hole down the drain (or all over your fridge--not that I've ever had that happen)!

We had 4 sub-six-month babies with us, and they all did wonderfully!  They took turns in the "magic swing".  This was during Avonlea's turn:

And when the mommies were feeding the babies, the daddies jumped in to help!

We were definitely making a mess, but everyone was having a pretty good time--at least, they were telling me that was the case!

We each brought "snack food" to share, since once you get started, you don't want to break for lunch. It was nice to be able to snack on fresh fruits and veggies...and brownies! throughout the day.

This was the first time I had everyone do at least one "cooking" recipe. All of the other times I did this I did all easy-assembly meals. I figured, since we had the big fatty stove, we should definitely use it!  Sadly, for me, the recipe that we used didn't turn out all that great. But it's nice to know that the stove works well for when we want to use it in the future.

I finished a little early, so I helped Shannon assemble kabobs. I HATE touching raw meat!  I think I'm going to need to get meat-handling gloves from now on!

Here are all the ladies at the end of our cooking day. We started around 10:30am, and the last of us finished around 3:30pm. We were all tired, but excited to have freezers full of food.  The menu I did yielded 14 dinners, and it cost me $150. Yay!

Unflattering photo, but exactly how you feel at the end of a cooking day:

Excited to do our next cooking day as a group--February!

Also, if you're interested in doing Once A Month Cooking on your own, I am now an affiliate for Once A Month Meals!  You can click the banner on the right side of the page, or click on this link to be directed to the site. When you sign up using the banner or the link, I get credit. Thanks!