Hosting your own Cooking Day....

Allison from Savoring the Moments asked some good questions about hosting your own Cooking Day. "I would love to know how you started your group, and how you organize it each time. Things like: who does all the prep work, who shops, how do you split up the cost, etc. Also, where you find the "freezer" recipes that you use."

There are so many ways that you can start your own cooking group. Like I have written before I started with just my mom, sister, cousin and close friend. It was just the five of us. We would all decide together what meals we were going to make. I would go and do all of the shopping and organizing and then we would split the total cost of everything amongst the 5 of us.

Once the group got bigger and bigger and bigger and then at one time I had 2 groups going, I had to get more organized. I now decide what the menus will be each month (based on what people have said they liked or what they would like to cook). I still do all the shopping and organizing, but now we have a set price of $72 a month for all 6 meals. It evens out to $12 a meal, which I think is a great price since most of those "places" they have now, where you can go makes meals, cost at least $19.50 or more a meal! Outrageous.

Yes, this sounds like a lot of work for one person. And it can be. I do on occasion get help form my mom and/or sister. But to be honest with you, I LOVE doing it. I don't make any money from it. It pays for my set of meals every month and the gas I use to do the shopping. I consider it my ministry since I feel that doing this is a true gift that God has blessed me with. I think it would be easiest to start a group with a buddy. Someone who will help you to all the work.

OK, so let's get into how anybody can get a group going with minimal work.

1) Find a group of people who want to join you. Minimum of 3/maximum of 6 to start with. You can add more people, after a few times cooking, if you think you have room.

2)Decide on when and where. Our group meets on the third Friday of every month. We started at my house, but now we are up to 15+ people so we use the kitchen at my parent's Church. It's really big with lots of counter space. If you don't have a lot of counter space you can set up tables. We started in my kitchen with 2 tables set up in my family room for overflow!

3)Decide on how many meals you want to make. We make 6 meals each month. You can start with making just a few meals and grow from there. Start small, so you don't get overwhelmed and build it bigger as you go along and feel comfortable doing so.

4)Decide what meals you are going to make. You can do this a couple ways. You can send out an e-mail to your friends with a list of different meals and let them all vote. Or you can just choose the meals yourself the first time and at each cooking day ask your group what they would like to cook the next month. You can click on the "resource" link on the right to find some good places for recipes.
**Note**If you are in my cooking group, I keep meaning to ask you all this question every month. But I am always forgetting. So if you ever want something, just let me know :o)

5)Shopping-either have one person to all the shopping (this would be the easiest) or split up the shopping list and have everyone shop. If one person does the shopping just divide the total cost of food among all the members on Cooking Day.

6)Prep work-I use to do a lot of prep work before our Cooking Days. I would write the meal names on all the freezer bags, clean veggies, cook hamburger, etc.....and then the group grew and it became a lot more work to do the organizing of who's coming and who's not and to do the shopping. So now the group does all the prep work. But it still only takes us a couple of hours to do all the meals and clean-up.

7)Clean-up- This is probably the most important step. Seriously. Once everyone has all their meals in their ice chests they think it's time to go. Make sure you discuss ahead of time that EVERYONE needs to help with clean-up. It's part of Cooking Day just as the cooking is.

I think that should be the gist of Cooking Day. Like I said, start small and build from there. Don't let yourself become overwhelmed with it. Make it a fun day of fellowship and food with your friends!

Happy Cooking!
~howiesgal

Cooking Day Week

OK, so one clarification about me and baking...... I will pretty much eat any dessert that Kenj makes! Especially her Creme Brulee. Oh yummy! Chocolate Souffle anyone? That's another favorite that I don't make and have yet to find someone who will make it for me.....any takers? :o) Enough about desserts. I haven't had breakfast yet but now I want some pastries, which are OK to eat for breakfast. Right? I think I will be hitting up a local bakery today for a pineapple cream cheese coffee cake. Yep, that's right I said cake not pastry. I want the big one and I want to eat the whole thing by myself. Well, maybe I will share it with the ladies at Cooking Day tomorrow....I said maybe!

Yep, that's right tomorrow is Cooking Day! That means today is shopping day. We are very blessed in that we get to cook for the first time at my parent's Church's new building! They have a very large kitchen with lots of counter space (I will try to remember to bring my camera tomorrow). This week we have 10 ladies cooking and we will be making 15 sets of meals. Should prove to be another fun Cooking Day.

This month's menu is....
~Olive Garden's Fettuccine Alfredo
~Oriental Sesame Chicken Strips
~Lemon Chicken
~Chicken in a Raspberry Sauce
~Enchilada Pie
~Asian Beef and Vegetable Wraps

I will try to post recipes next week.

One last thing. As many of you know I have 2 daughters. Our oldest daughter (who is 9) has Cerebral Palsy, moderate mental Retardation, Sensory Processing Disorder and more.......She has been having a rough time of it lately and I would really appreciate your prayers for her. Specifically could you pray that God would give her inner peace. She can't tell me what is wrong or how she feels so all I can do is just hold her and pray that God would wash her with His glorious peace. Thanks.

I will post pics and recipes as soon as I have time :o)
Happy Cooking!
~howiesgal

March Cooking Day!

My plan is to post pictures and recipes from our Cooking Days every month. We cook 6 meals every month so that means at least 6 new recipes every month!

On the Menu this month....
~Ravioli Lasagna
~Beef and Cheese Crescents
~Breakfast Biscuits
~Chicken Stir Fry
~Picnic Chicken
~Beef Stroganuaff

We got started at 9 a.m. and we finished by 11 ish. There were 10 of us and we were cooking for 12. Not to bad. Of course we also do lots of talking and eating. Hey we're a group of gals what else would we do :o) Here are some pics from our day of fun....


Here is what the kitchen looked like before we started. Lots of bags of lots of food and supplies. (unfortunately, since I have been sick, I forgot lots of stuff. But our hostess was ready to fill in the blanks I forgot. Thanks Cheryl!)













Here is my sister, Catherine, finishing up the Ravioli Lasagnas. Yummy!





Here's one of the gals making the Beef and Cheese Crescents. We made 144 of these. They worked on them the whole entire time.



We had to bake them all as well. (The picture below is the finished product coming off the pan). Some of the gals were eating theirs as they came out of the oven. They said they were delicious!














Kristi and Cheryl making the Picnic Chicken. Messy job, but hey, someone's gotta do it :o)














And finally, some of the finished products. All in all it was a fun day full of food, friends and fellowshipping! Who could ask for more?


I will be posting some of the recipes this week for you. So stay tuned!



Happy Cooking!

~howiesgal

Cooking Day Prep...

This week is Cooking Day week. That means a busy, but fun, week for me. This week we have 12 of us cooking meals. We will meet on Friday at 9 am and should be done by noon. We will be putting together 6 meals for each person. All together that will be 72 meals!

I started the week by getting the shopping list together. This includes doing all of the figuring out for how much we need of each ingredient and so on and so forth.

We are making Breakfast Biscuits this month (recipes to come later) so I had to make 120 biscuits before Friday. My mom was nice enough to come over and help me out. Of course the girls wanted to help as well.




















On Thursday (today), with list in hand, I headed off to Cost*o and the grocery store. I had meant to take my camera with me so you could see what my carts and my car look like after a Cooking Day shopping trip! It is quite the site. Once I came home and put the refrigerator stuff away I snapped a picture for you :o)

I also filled up my sister's refrigerator, part of my mom's fridge, there are a few bags in the freezer and the trunk of my car is half full! We really know how to pack it all in!







I did get a picture of my fridge for you though....



Everything seems to be all ready for a day full of Cooking tomorrow. I am going to go put my camera in the car right now so I should have some good pics for you tomorrow :o)

Happy Cooking!
~howiesgal