PROVO — If Laura Reeve has her way, she would only cook once a month and still have home-cooked meals just about every night.
Reeve's method, which she calls the once-a-month cooking method, means making a month's worth of meals during a single day’s cooking session, which usually takes from six to eight hours, she said during a presentation at Brigham Young University's Campus Education Week on Aug. 15.
“These meals are then preserved, usually frozen, until needed so you can enjoy a home-cooked meal in minutes,” said Reeve, who is a professional organizer, author, speaker and trainer.
The benefits she's seen from it include being able to create healthier meals, saving time and money, eliminating emergency grocery store runs, and saving energy of coming up with a new meal every night.
“The six steps to creating OAMC meals are to get organized, choose 10 recipes, buy groceries, assemble meals, track and rotate, and modify and repeat,” Reeve said.
During the presentation Reeve went through each step, explaining the most efficient ways to organize a fridge and pantry, different ways to prepare the food, what meals are the most efficient to prepare, and even how to modify them according to the size of your family.
Here's a more detailed look at each step.
1. Get organizated. Before anyone starts their OAMC plan, Reeve said, they first need to organize and declutter their fridge, freezer, pantry and anything else that is in the kitchen.
2. Choose 10 recipes. Reeve advised to choose 10 recipes and use it three times, coming to a total of 30 meals. Reeve added that before anyone chooses a recipe to test it out first before making it in mass quantities. Watch for sales or discounts for buying in bulk, she said.
3. Buy groceries. Reeve said the easiest way she found to buy ingredients is to list what each recipe calls for and the amounts needed so that at the store, it makes the whole experience easier. She also advised to buy in bulk and watch for sales to cut down on the cost.
4. Assemble meals. Reeve advised cooks to be prepared, get plenty of rest the night before, and for the chef to stay fueled and hydrated because this step will take the majority of the time.
5. Track and rotate. Since there are 10 meals, Reeve said to track when you have the meals and rotate among hem.
6. Modify and repeat. After the first month, Reeve said to make any adjustments needed that didn't work the first time and repeat the whole procress again.
Reeve also shared five tips to adapt the once-a-month cooking method, including creating two weeks' worth of meals, creating an OAMC group exchange, create generic sauce, like red sauce and white sauce, create dry mixes, and doubling recipes.
Reeve also shared a story that she affectionately refers to as the “24 Jar” story.
Before starting the Once-a-Month Cooking method, Reeve had heard of a way to put meals in a jar. After hearing about this way to do meal prep, she went out and bought 24 mason jars and all of the ingredients to put in the mason jars.
When Reeve found out that her grandmother was diagnosed with cancer, she had planned to make these prepared meals for her grandmother. But, Reeve never made them. After her grandmother had passed, Reeve felt guilty, but was determined that she would make the prepared meals.
Later, when her mother, mother-in-law, and husband were diagnosed with cancer Reeve went to work on her once-a-month cooking meal preps, and each family of the affected family members used the meals when there wasn’t much time in between surgeries and treatment.
The moral of her “24 Jar” story, according to Reeve, could be explained in Doctrine and Covenants 136:31: “My people must be tried in all things, that they may be prepared to receive the glory that I have for them.”
Email: ewhite@deseretnews.com