Little Confused

All right here we go with my first post EVER! I am a little confused about what is going on for October--It sounds like Tiffany, Tawni and Brooke are out. But if there are less than 15 "official members" than we still add Andrea Henich? What about the other people that voted to split off?
I just need to know how much food to buy/ prepare and I think it would be helpful if we started a new recipe list for October with those that are still participating.
I am loving frozen meals and my kids are eating them up like crazy so thank you to everyone for the yummy food!

New Members

Is it ok that I invite other people to the large group? We are maxing out at 20, right? So, I'm assuming that until we get to that point we can add people. I invited Lisa Eskesen and her sister Erika. They are trying to decide if they want to do it, but I will let them know that they have to decide before the 1st so we know who is involved for this month. Thanks!

Other group

I was one that voted on splitting. If you want to try and put a smaller one together this time let me know if you voted. I can try to be the group leader for it. :)

Also if there is under 15 in the larger group I will go with that this month.

E-mail follow up

All, I sent out an e-mail today so hopefully everyone is aware of the group changes.  I would like to set a date for the official members list to be this Friday, Oct 1.  We need to know for sure who is participating and who is not.  I guess if you're not participating, you could comment here just so we know you got the message.  Please talk to your neighbors who are in the group so we know everyone knows what is going on.  Again, please let us know by Oct 1.  Thanks.

The Polls Have Spoken

Although there are still 3 days left to vote, it looks like everyone has voted and we seem split right down the middle. So in order to make it easier on everyone I've made the executive decision...we are dividing into two seperate groups. So here is what that means:

If you voted to stay in the group that caps at 20 then you will be staying with me in the MMMM group. We will continue to use this blog as our way of communication. Please be aware that this group can continue to grow up to 20 members maximum. So if you don't have the freezer space or don't think you can afford it than this is not the group for you.

We will still meet Monday October 11 at 9:30am at my house for our meal exchange. We will play by ear how often we meet, whether we meet every four weeks or every 6 weeks. That will just depend on how many members are in the group.

The guidelines are still the same except for one addition. We will continue to post our nutritional information for those that are intersted however we will not be posting our recipes and the nutritional information on another site. Feel free to use those websites to help you figure out the nutritional value or for your own personal use.

From now on we will be posting our recipes (that means the entire recipe and cooking instructions) along with the nutritional value on the blog. When you have decided what you are going to cook for the next exchange, create your own post, include the name of the recipe, the recipe itself, what you can serve with it, for instance Cola Chicken needs to go over rice, and the nutritional value of the recipe. That way there is no confusion as to what site we are using, not being able to enter the information on the site, or not being able to find other peoples' recipes. Let's just simplify!

To help me and the other members know who is cooking for October, please add your name to the Official Members of MMMM widget on the left hand side of the blog. Please have it entered by the end of this week, September 26, so that we can really have an idea of how many people want to be involved.

For those of you who voted to have smaller groups, we need a volunteer to be the group "captain" and start the new group. Feel free to use the blog idea or if anyone has any other ideas on how to get it started...feel free to do so. (And let me know what you find works better so that I can improve our group as well. :) )

I hope this helps accomodate everyone's needs and limitations. If I had it my way everyone would still be in one large group but I totally understand that for some it might be easier to be in a smaller group. I'm just glad that so many people are interested and hopefully this has and will help make our lives simplier in the end.

Please don't feel like you are hurting my feelings if you go to a different group or just don't want to participate at all. Again, I totally understand. My intent with this group was to make things easier not harder. If this group is not making your life easier than don't participate. It's not worth the hassle.

Also I hope that no one has been offended by this group or the splitting up of the group. That wasn't my intention. If anyone has been offended then know that I am sorry or let me know and I will personally apologize.

Okay , there you have it. I hope that was as clear as mud. Just keep me posted as to what you are going to do and please do it quickly so that everyone has time to get their meals ready for October.

Official Members of MMMM

Notice that there is a widget on the left hand side of the screen that is titled "Official Members of MMMM." If you are wanting to participate in October or be an official member of the group then add your name to the list. Just click on the screwdriver icon at the bottom of the widget and you can add your name to the list. If for some reason you need to drop out for a month or drop out forever then please take your name off the list. This will help us know who is participating and who is not.
Thanks

Let's put it to a vote...

I created two polls (sorry that they are so wordy). Let's see what everyone wants to do. The nice thing about this is that we can always change the organization again in a few months if we don't like how it's going. I think it will take a few exchanges to work out all the kinks. After we decide the size of group we want then we can decide how often we want to meet. We can meet every month, 6 weeks or even ever other month. The polls will close in one week so we can start planning for our next exchange.

Allergy question for Cari J.

Hey Cari J. If a recipe calls for cream of celery do you have a suggestion of what to use instead?

New Members

How many people are in the exchange for this month (October)? I would like to start looking for sales and want to know how many I'm shopping for.

Also, I would like to know what we are going to do about the recipe "thing". Do we want to pick one website to enter all our recpies in or just continue to do it wherever?

Cranberry Chicken

Hi Guys, sorry I am a slacker and get everything on here late.

With the Cranberry chicken you can serve it over rice or do a bake potato and salad. My mom always makes it with funeral potatoes and a 7 layered salad, but that kinda defeats the purpose of a quick meal now doesn't it.

Nutrition info

Sorry, I hate to be a pest about this, but I haven't seen nutrition info for a few of the our meals. I don't know exactly where people have put recipes, so do you think we could all comment and list the site our recipes are on? Thanks!!!

Cornbread Stuffing Stuffed Pork Chops Side Suggestions.

When we eat this for dinner we usually have a veggie side (broccoli, corn, or green beans) and oven roasted red potatoes. The chops themselves are should be very filling alone, so something as simple as salad also goes great with them!

Tortilla Soup Meal Instructions

Again, I'm sorry for the terrible containers. Just remember to defrost the cups in the fridge on a plate or paper towel. This is really a meal in itself. The paper on the broth has garnish suggestions. I especially love the limes and avacados. Enjoy!

Sweet and Sour Chicken Meal Suggestions

Just a thought......Go crazy with fresh vegetables! Pretty much any fresh vegetable can be added to this meal (in addition to the green bell peppers and onions that are already included): brocolli, carrots, pea pods, zuccini...anything that your family likes (or can one day like) can be added. After thawing the sauce, I just add the fresh vegetables in and slowly heat everything together. Although you could steam any vegetable before adding, I like a little crunch with my veggies (plus, you won't lose additional nutrients by cooking them previously.)

Meal Instructions

Chicken Cordon Bleu - Stuffing and Cheese goes with this one.  If you really like stuffing, you can add another box and cook the chicken with both.  Goes good with green beans or a green salad.

Polls!

Please add a poll about your freezer meal on the right hand side of the blog. Put the poll ending time at 10/11/2010 at 09:30.

For those of you that need help doing this, just click on the Design button on the upper right hand corner of the blog. This will take you to the outline of the blog. On the right hand side there is a Gadget button to click on. Once you click the Add a Gadget button it will pull up a list of gadgets you can add. Scroll down and find the Poll gadget button. Click on it and it will bring up another window that you fill out for your poll. Create your poll by typing in a title and then answers for people to choose from. Also make sure you change when the poll will end to 10/11/2010 at 09:30am so that people will have time to vote. Click on save and it should take you back to the blog outline window. Just click the view blog tab and it will take you back to the main window.

If these directions are too confusing, let me know and I will make your poll for you.

Please don't worry too much about the polls. Don't take it personally if people don't like the recipe. It might just be that the recipe isn't great for the freezer or just people's personal tastes are different. Feel free to make the same recipe again (if the majority likes it)next month. You don't necessarily have to come up with a new recipe everytime...unless you want to of course!

The Second Meal Exchange

Our next meal exchange will be Monday, October 11 at 9:30am at my house (Savanna's house-7416 Sunset Maple Drive).
This is one month away from our last exchange. In doing it one month from now we can see if everyone eats all their meals in four weeks or if we need to extend the next exchange to 6 weeks.

A Victorious First Attempt!

I don't know about everyone else but my freezer looks awesome with all the food we cooked. I'm excited to try everyone's meals. (Don't be fooled. Not all that food in my freezer is from our exchange. :) )

I think our first attempt at the meal exchange was a success. After talking to several people there are a couple of suggestions that I think we should put into practice for next time.

First, if you have extra add ons like cheese in a bag, french fried onions, etc, put the name of the dish they belong to on the plastic bag, can, or package so that we know which meal it belongs to, then try to attach it to the main meal. If it's a can or you can't attach it to the main meal then place the frozen meal and accessories together in a plastic grocery bag. This will help insure that everyone gets all the accessories.

Another suggestion is to bring your meals in a box or laundry basket so that next time we can just set them up in a line on my kitchen floor and have everyone go around in a line and grab a meal. Hopefully that would keep us from forgetting to grab a meal.

Next time I will have a print out of all the meals everyone is bringing. That way as we walk around grabbing our meals we can just check the meal off the list, making sure we have all of them. This means that at least a couple of days before the exchange I would need to know what everyone is bringing. So make sure you add your meals to the main list on the blog.

Also, several people have mentioned that they know of at least one or two people wanting to join the group. Several of us have talked about it but obviously everyone's opinion is important. So what do you think about adding more people? We were thinking about putting a cap on the amount of people that could join. We were thinking 20 people would be enough. Then if we had even more people than that that wanted to join then they would just have to start their own group. We discussed splitting the group into 2 groups of 10 but people commented that they would rather spend a little more at one time on bulk items and only exchange every 6 weeks then split the group. What do you think?

We would give the people that wanted to join a week to let us know and get up to speed with the blog and the guidelines. That way people could start looking for food on sale now.

I think that's all the suggestions I can think of right now. Let me know what you think about the suggestions and also anything else you can think of.

Good work you guys!

PS, Did someone not get a Sweet and Sour Chicken? I ended up having two extras left at my house. It's in my freezer waiting for someone to claim them. Let me know.

I'm Done!!

I picked an assembly recipe so it was really easy to put together for me. I posted the recipe on Sparks- with Brandi's help. And Natalie picked me up tin foil. THANK YOU!!!!!!
I spent $103.81 I bought frozen chicken from Sam's club no sale. SOOOOOOO $7.98 a meal.
I am really looking forward to trying new meals! See you Monday

Official October Menu

When you have decided on a meal please add it below

Carrie- Tomato Soup
Tawni- Sloppy Joes
Nanci - Enchilada Casserole
Savanna- Tatter-Tot Casserole
Henich- Taco Soup
Rudy-Chicken Cacciatore
Cari J- Bean Burritos
Bobbi - Creamy Chicken and Pasta posted on Sparks
Tiffany-BBQ Shredded Pork
Lisa- Corn Chowder

My Crazy First Attempt

So I thought I would share some of my thoughts and feelings about cooking 13...actually it turned out to be 15...meals tonight.
I didn't really follow very many of my own cooking tips. I had children running around crazy, only one set of measuring cups available, not enough big bowls to stir the meals, and not all of my supplies handy.
I assembled my Broccoli Chicken and Rice meal in 4 seperate batches all at the same time. My first batch took me a while as I tried to get everything in order. However, by my second and third batch I had things down to a science.
After writing the cooking instructions on freezer bags 15 times I can tell you the directions by heart.
My arms are tired from stirring and my feet tired from standing.
Luckily I had my husband do the running up and down the stairs to the freezer and he was nice enough to run to the store when I ran out of a couple of items.
With all of that said, I must say that it feels great to have actually made 15 meals in 3 hours. I have a nice freezer full of meals already to hand out on Monday. I'm tired but it will be totally worth it everytime I don't want to make dinner next month.
I hope everyone else's cooking experiences have either gone well or will go well. There is light at the end of the tunnel.

By the way, just for your information:
*I changed my meal from the Chicken Broccoli Rice Bake to Broccoli Chicken and Rice. It's mostly the same ingredients just in a different preparation. I will put the recipe in our cook book later along with the nutritional value of the recipe.
*Chicken is $1.78/lb in the fresh packs at Walmart right now.
*Smith's is having their case lot sale so if you need some items in bulk you might want to check them out. For instance I got Cream of Chicken Soup for $0.59 a can. That's a really good price. Smith's Kroger Shredded Cheese 2lb bags are only $4.99 a bag. Not even Sams club/Costco in their 5lb bags can beat that.
*I did the math on my meals. I tried really hard to stay within the $75 budget but just couldn't do it. I spent $106 and I made 15 meals. That means each meal is only $7. Just thought you might find that info interesting.

Friendly Reminder!

This is just a friendly reminder about our meal exchange coming up. It will be Monday, September 13th at 9:30am at my house (Savanna's house-7416 Sunset Maple Drive).
***Please come with your meals already frozen so that it's easy to transport home.

***If you CANNOT make it then you need to make arrangements to have your meals brought to my house on the day of the exchange...or you can take them around to everyones houses' before or after the exchange. I DO NOT have much room in my freezer to keep other people's food.

***Please bring something to transport all of your meals. They will be frozen but 12 meals are a lot to handle.

***Please be on time so the food doesn's sit out very long.

Thanks and hope to see you all on Monday!

PS-Sorry this sounds so bossy! :)

Next Month...

Is it too soon to talk about what everyone is going to do for next month?

Thought I'd share...

I checked out four freezer meal cookbooks from the library this week. If anyone wants to look at them and plan ahead for our next attempt, you are more than welcome to borrow one of the books. Here are the names of the cookbooks:

Girlfriends on the Go- A busy Mom's guide to make ahead meals
The Freezer Manual from 30 Day Gourmet
The Best Freezer Cookbook
Dream Dinners...Life just got Easier!

There are lots of interesting ideas and one book actually has planning worksheets and menus!