Don't Enjoy Cooking Every Night?

Try Cooking Once a Month!

5 Steps to a Month's Worth of Meals

Involve your partner and children. My husband washes all the dishes on cooking day. Younger children can help by periodically sweeping up anything that may have fallen to the floor or taking out the trash as it accumulates. Older children can be enlisted to chop vegetables or fix Mom a snack while she works.

Now follow the plan you made the night before. If you're supposed to start with the chili, get a big pot and start putting in your ingredients. If you have items that need to simmer or bake for a certain amount of time, mark down the time they were put on the flame or in the oven and the time they need to come out. You might think you'll remember, but when you find yourself with four pots on the range and three baking dishes in the oven, you'll go nuts.

Keep following the recipes methodically. When you take things off the stovetop or out of the oven, set them aside to cool. Once an item is cool, transfer it to a freezer bag (unless it's to be frozen in a baking dish, like lasagna). Close the bag, label it and stick it in the freezer.

The first time you try once-a-month cooking, you should plan on it taking a full eight hours. But once you get the hang of it, you'll get through cooking day in five or six hours. At the end of the day, you'll have 30 home-cooked meals! Have your husband and children set the table for dinner while you put your feet up and relax.

For the rest of the month, all you need to do is defrost one bag every night, and cook it for about an hour the next afternoon.

Bon appetit!