Cooking up some dinners

This weekend was going to be the weekend to cook some meals for the coming weeks. Hmm, guess what! It didn't happen! I am not really as suprised as I am wondering how the coming weeks are going to flow with everything that the six of us have going. Once a month cooking is a great easy way to keep up with  my life. When you feed three teenagers, one wannabe and two adults; FOOD in quantity and quality is a huge issue. I never knew that people could put away so much food. We almost never have leftovers. We have some serious food allergies and couple that with a one income household and you better believe that we cook from scratch most all of the time. I can really tell when it is time to cook in bulk again; menus full of  frozen pizzas and a  reluctance to walk into the kitchen lest someone think that I am going to really cook a full meal. So I see the writing on the wall, it is time to once again prepare a full months dinners in one day for the freezer.
     Wow, I can see some of you saying, what a huge amount of work. Yes, it is and no it isn't. Chopping 6 onions at one time in the food processor versus one onion at a time on a cutting board and then cleaning all the mess up for every meal, now that is WORK. Especially since We don't like to do dishes at our house; yes, that is the Royal "WE" meaning everyone else.
      The other question that I get often is how can you afford to buy all that food all at once. Well, yes it can be expensive all at one time, but so can relying on convenience foods or gasp, eating out! I have found that since I am coupon queen inept this is the best way for me to save my grocery dollars.  Once the dinners are in the freezer all I have to do is run into the store for milk and produce. It cuts my miscellaneous spending way down, and it lasts me almost six weeks or 8 weeks if I am on a roll and cooking in between the once a month dinners. I really do like to cook, I just don't like to have to think about what to cook.
     What kinds of things do we cook; well that is a trade secret! No, not really, I cook all kinds of things. This last time, I browned a couple of roasts ahead of time for the crockpot and put the cut up onions and garlic in the freezer bag with them.  We have cooked everything from tuna casserole to lasagne to quesadillas and fajitas. The night before I take a quick look at the calendar and pull a good dinner out that fits with our schedule. Now that you are convinced, next time I will tell you how to adapt your style of cooking for your family and give you some recipes and links!
Well, now that I am inspired to get with the cooking, till next time!
 Karen