Why They Call Me the Once A Month Mom

When people first meet me and ask me about my blog I usually get a little bit of a raised eyebrow and a head cock as they try to figure out what the meaning behind Once A Month Mom is. Check yourself. Are you sitting there with your head cocked to the side and a raised eyebrow in questioning? Caught you!

No it is not THAT so go ahead and run from that idea. Once A Month Mom is the name I decided on because I am the mom that does once a month cooking and lives to blog about it! Yes, you read that right, cooking all of your meals for the month (or nearly all of them) in just one day, slipping them into the freezer and then pulling them out when you are ready to consume them.

After we get past the initial funny looks the inevitable next question is, “how did you get started doing that?” Logical question, I agree. And if we were standing face to face instead of glowing screen to face you surely would ask the same. So I will tell you!

I started once a month cooking when I was newly married and was commuting 45 minutes to work each evening. My husband would make it home before I would yet we would have to wait on me to arrive before we could start dinner. Not that he couldn’t cook but mostly because we had decided that was my area of expertise. On occasion I would want him to get something started which would inevitably be a nearly 45 minute phone call explaining where everything was and what temperature and how long; I was home before things got started anyway. So I needed a new plan.

I started making dinners on the weekend and freezing them and then I would just need to leave heating directions for when my husband got home from work. Then my mother-in-law handed me a once a month cooking cookbook and the wheels started turning. I loved the concept and knew immediately this was what I needed but the down side was that I didn’t really care for many of the recipes in the book. So I set to developing my own plan using their methods but my families recipes.

Then a funny thing started happening. Every time I would mention to someone that I was doing this they would ask me if they could do it with me. That sounded nice but my kitchen is super tiny and will only hold one or two people; WAY more than that were asking. So what is a girl to do?

Fast forward a few years. . .I am on partial bed rest (with a freezer full of food mind you) and, for the first time in my life, not allowed to pursue my usual outlets of entertainment; so I started reading blogs. Lots of them. And then I started talking to my husband who encouraged me to jump into the blogging pool. Well, if I could come up with a unique concept and a unique resource that is. I did some brainstorming and kept coming back to once a month cooking.

I surely couldn’t have everyone over to my kitchen to cook, but what if I could provide a place to share with them my knowledge and planning skills in relationship to freezer cooking? What if I gave them everything they needed to do a once a month cooking day themselves, without much effort? Once A Month Mom was born. Three years ago this month actually.

What started out as a tool for me to provide dinner for my husband has since become a mainstay in our home for keeping mommy sane from 4-5:30 pm. I can’t imagine the dinner hour without it anymore.  I don’t cook full fledged menus on my own as much any more but I still do a lot of freezer cooking. And that freezer cooking has saved me so many times I’ve lost count.

And now I am a Charter Chiquita Mom which means that I can share all my type-A organizing obsessions skills with you! I am so excited to be able to talk with an audience of moms that also desire to have good meals awaiting their family on a daily basis. Whether you freezer cook or cook traditionally, we will spend some time talking about how you can reduce the insanity in your dinner hour and offer your family dinner table time that you will remember for years to come.