Food groups

For a few months now, our family has joined with eight or nine other families in making meals for one another. The way it works is that once per month, each family makes nine or ten (depending upon how many families are participating) frozen meals. Then they meet at one of the houses and swap meals. So you spend a couple of hours per month preparing a whole bunch of meals (all the same), then you give them away. But you get a whole bunch of different meals in return.

Last night the swap was at our house. At the swap, people not only swap meals, but also rate the meals they ate the previous month. That way folks know whether they should make something again. Ideally, people get two or three meals that “work” and they just rotate them from month to month. One other cool thing they’re doing this month is they’re going to make extra meals and donate them to the local Love, Inc office…

Anyway, Amy and my sister and a few other friends started the group and now another group is forming and my guess is that at least one more will begin before too long.

5 thoughts on “Food groups

  1. Not one to throw greed into a great thing, but they could market that somehow. Loved the videos of Tru. I have them on my hard drive now. Thanks!

  2. I am really interested in this idea. What are some of the meals? Is there a special process for freezing to avoid freezer burn? I have a lot more questions, is there a web forum for this idea?

  3. Amy can answer better than I can, but we eat the stuff before it gets freezer burned, so no worries there.

    Also, it seems like all kinds of food work for this. We’ve had homemade gardenburgers, lots of casseroles, soups, breakfast burritos, pastas, etc. I don’t think there are too many constraints around what can be frozen. The key has been to keep the prep work to a minimum, so elaborate meals are out.

    I’ve seen Amy reading a book called ‘Monthly Cooking’ or something along those lines…

    I know some other friends who used to just do this individually. They’d cook up 15 pans of lasagna, freeze em and eat them throughout the month. I kinda like the variety of having meals from different friends, though. 🙂

  4. Yeah, variety is key. We have done the bulk freezing, only to get burned out on baked zitti, wait to long and have a whole pan get freezer burn. This swap idea is great, thanks for passing it along!

  5. Amy told me about this a couple weeks ago ( trying to start a group here in Mich) Anyway, if your looking for info, Do a Google search type in: OAMC and you’ll get lots of sites to check out. That’s what Amy told me to do. I’m liking it!!

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