Food is the most primitive form of comfort. (Sheila Graham)

I decided I had done enough talking about once a month cooking. So I finally took the plunge. Now my freezer has over 20 meals ready to eat...

For quite a while I've been talking about starting a once-a-month-cooking program. There are a lot of great resources on this online. My favorite is 30 Day Gourmet. It takes a little bit of planning, but you buy in bulk and cook in quantity. Since it's just as easy to put together two (or three) pans of lasagna or casserole as it is to do just one, you save time by freezing extra meals. The trick is to sit down and do the planning.

This weekend, I finally took the plunge. I'm tired of picking up fast food almost every day. But a hectic schedule and a demanding job just doesn't leave enough energy at the end of the day to even think about fixing a meal. The sad thing is that I actually enjoy cooking. So Sunday I made out a two week menu, including several freezer meals from Fix, Feeze, Fix (another wonderful resource and my latest "favorite" cookbook) and went shopping. I spent just under $200 and managed to cook up over 20 dinners plus enough planned leftovers for lunches. The savings alone was worth the effort!

Tonight as I was heating up spagetti (one of our favorite recipes, One-Pot) I finished bagging up the last of the meals. My freezer is full, and life is good.

Of course, Taco Bell may be forced to go out of business now...