So I tried Once a Month Cooking...

There's myth out there that something--an appliance, a process, a thing--will somehow make the arduous task of providing three square rations a day for preschoolers and picky husbands less, well, painful. Or at least prevent a few emotional breakdowns. Shopping for, preparing, serving and cleaning up that much food for that many people (who seem to throw more of it on the floor than eat it) makes my head hurt. Every. Day. They keep wanting more food! Please just stop!!!

So the idea of preparing the bulk of my breakfasts, lunches and dinners for the month seems a bit too good to be true. My version of Coronado's gold, treasure at the end of the rainbow, cellulite eraser pen... To have a freezer stocked full of paleo-approved goodness, labeled with thawing directions, is about as good as a visit from Mary Poppins. I need to give this trick a try.

A recent series of wasteful grocery shopping sprees and waaaaay too much last-minute take-out inspired yet another Google search of "paleo menu plan recipes," landing me at Once a Month Meals. Here's what pushed me over the edge to buy a month's worth of groceries and go for it.

I was under the impression that once-a-month cooking:

• saves time
• saves money by cutting down on waste
• saves a bit of sanity
• answers the worst question ever asked by anybody, "What's for dinner, Mom???"

Not much thought was put into do I/don't I do this, because the legwork was already done for me. For $8 per month you get a customizable shopping list, recipe cards, chopping instructions and, most vitally, step-by-step instructions on how to put the month's recipes together in an order that makes sense. What's to consider??? Surrender "minor fee" to the spreadsheet fairies and away we go.

So I end up spending three hours in four grocery stores buying all the junk for an entire month. It's intense. And right off the bat I notice that I'm not impulse buying a single thing. Something I've never accomplished. There's just no more money to spare with spending so much at one time. Unexpected problem solver right off the bat. Plus I was also smarter about picking the place with the best meat specials for the day. Started at Super Walmart for pantry items and kitchen necessities, then off to HEB for produce and weird stuff like coconut aminos. Kroger rounded it out with $1.87/lb. chicken breasts (rock on!) after a quick stop at the natural food store for arrowroot powder. (Why does that place always smell like a seance???)

How much? Well, I used the paleo plan this go around, but didn't buy grass-fed beef or free range chicken, or much of anything organic. I just bought regular 'ole ground beef and cancer-causing, hormone-injected chicken. And the total bill came to $540 for a meal plan for 5 people. That includes our usual produce for snacks and sides. I'll have to buy a few more things here and there throughout the month. It made double of all these things:

Breakfasts

• Apple Spice Cake
• Paleo Pumpkin Raisin Muffins
• Paleo Cold Cereal**

Lunches

• Paleo Creamed Spinach with Chicken
• Orange Chicken
• Crunchy Paleo Chicken Strips
• BBQ Bacon Apple Chicken
• Italian Slow-Cooker Chili**

Dinners

• Paleo Slow-Cooker Pork Tenderloin with Apples and Honey**
• Paleo Beef Lettuce Wraps**
• Paleo Bruschetta Chicken
• Paleo Stuffed Peppers
• Oven Roasted Paleo Indian-Spiced Roast Chicken**
• Slow-Cooker Beef Stew**
• Paleo Eggplant Lasagna

I did have to think on my feet a bit. There was an error in the shopping spreadsheet for the amount f stew meat needed, and I didn't have but 1/3 of what I needed for two recipes--so I incorporated the veggies used for them along with extra chicken. Ended up with a truckload of chicken, so had plenty to reorganize and then poach some for chicken salad. The cold cereal is rockstar awesome. Most of us like BBQ bacon apple chicken. We did alright with the stuffed peppers. But then I screwed up and didn't buy enough ground beef for the eggplant lasagna, so I attempted a mushroom eggplant curry which I tried to choke down. Zero Asian cooking skills.

The actual prep day is still a blur. I remember waking up early and getting started, and at some point took the children out to ride bikes, and then also had a visitor over, but I'm pretty sure it clocked in at 15 HOURS to cook everything. Yes, it hurt. The back, the shoulders--they ached. Completing the baking the night before helped and then I wrapped up three dinners the next morning. They recommend finishing it all in one punishing day, but I just couldn't do it with my four babes five and under.

And I stopped at least twice to do a big sweep clean mid-cooking and then one big clean up after the big day and another one the following morning. There were many pauses to clean bowls and pans and pots as well. Chapped, wrinkly fingers. I hit a wall around 3pm and it laughed at my coffee.

But I have a freezer full of food!!! And I'm more oriented to thinking frugally about using it up. No, it's not the absolute best food I've ever eaten in my life. But it has a decidedly paleo-feel, and I'd get the same results if I surfer the blogosphere for recipes. Many of the selections used are from low-carb bloggers anyway. The kids scarfed down crunchy paleo chicken strips, which will have to be a keeper in the future--nice curry spice to that one.

I'd have to agree that it saves me money in the long run. Our out-to-eatings had gotten out of hand and we were spending close to $900 per month in food. We can shave that by about $150, maintain our weekly date night and Sunday lunch out AND increase the quality of food we eat at home by using this plan. It's doable and I'd recommend it.

One disclaimer:

Anybody can cook for the month flying solo. It takes the mind of a hostage negotiator to cook with four children in the house. Here's how to survive without casualties: Tell them what's going on! "Mommy is going to cook all day." "All day, Mommy??" "All day, children. You can help me with x, y, and z, but you're going to have to find something fun to do while I'm cooking." I saved a new app for them to mess with that day (photo booth) and they experimented with that for quite sometime. They helped me make an assembly line for the chicken strips and learned a good lesson on efficiency. We rotated alone play-time in their rooms, I got out the fort, they got to watch a movie with popcorn when things got really dirty. Get your crap in order with the children and all with go well.

We Could All Use Some Humble Pie

The majority of popular, Facebook-shared mom-blog write-ups I've noticed lately seem to echo the same theme. Parents are bombarded by an over-abundance of "do this, don't do that" digital parenting gurus (or just folks met on the street) who range from faintly smug to downright rude. Moms, especially, become overwhelmed with guilt over which of these opinions to subscribe to and then toil over how "well" they implement the advice on a daily basis. We must rebel, these bloggers proclaim, and declare the "we-know-what's-best-for-our-own-kids" mantra. Stick it to the snarky experts and observers nosing in on our kid-raising business.

Of course there's more than an ounce of truth to their rants. Under no circumstance should anyone offer unsolicited and random parenting advice to anyone at the grocery store. Ever. Nor should we keep our minds completely open to any and all creeds floating around.

But to unabashedly reject all input about how to raise our kids is a problem. We say we know best how to raise our own kids, but does that mean we don't look for wise counsel? Or recognize the limitations of our own puny, human brains? The older I get the more I see how much I don't know about things. At the same time I also realize how much I'd like to believe I know more than I do. I'm pretty self-deceptive.

Let's say a fellow friend sees you constantly losing patience with your picky eater. She has an older child who walked through the same struggle and notices that the way you respond builds up a wall of conflict between you and your kiddo rather than your intended goal of developing a more well-rounded eater. This friend has some insight you don't have. And you have expressed your frustration with her. But in this don't-tell-me-how-to-run-my-family cultural climate, she is far less likely to share her experience and observations. It takes a big risk of her coming across as self-righteous when she really can (and needs) to lend a helping hand. So she stays quiet and you toil along down a bad path.

What I'm saying is, we need to be open to being reproved, even in our parenting choices, accepting that the advice giver isn't the perfect parent. Because even though she may done a crappy job of potty training her kids, she nailed the picky eater thing. Our initial reaction will be to criticize her potty training and mute her advice to us. But how can iron sharpen iron without an open, trusting dialogue?

It's just silly how quick we are to share our struggles while getting mad when listeners try to help. "But I just need to vent" never helped anyone in this life. Proverbs 9 tells us that correcting a mocker invites insult, but teaching the righteous will only add to their learning. We are prone to self-deception and to ignore help.

Here is a list of excuses I've used in the past and more I've heard from other folks that clue us in to resisting advice.

1. "Nobody's perfect."

This is the most obvious sentence anyone has ever said in the history of the world. It would be more revelatory to say "I have green eyes" than this dumb nonsense. What we mean when we say this is, "Yeah, I hear you, but you have your own junk to work through." Blame shifting at it's most boring,

2. "He'll outgrow it."

There is some truth to this, for sure. But it can easily be used as a crutch for not dealing with a heart issue or addressing how well or poorly I respond to my child.

3. "Every child is different."

Again, yes, we don't employ the same methods on every child, but reading between the lines this means, "You have no idea who I'm dealing with here. Your advice is bunk."

4. "You think you know better than I do what to do with my kid?"

Moms would never actually say this in a playgroup. But think about the times you've observed parents and known a better way of diffusing a tantrum. You actually do know better what to do with that kid than the parent, in that tough moment. It's so much easier to see solutions in other people's lives. That's why we need other wise people around.

5. "Being a parent is just one of the hardest jobs on the planet."

I'm not quite sure what this one means, other than a pithy non-statement designed to cut the conversation short. We can all agree parenting is the most sanctifying (or revealing) experience we have in this life. That statement isn't particularly helpful, though, in figuring out how to navigate it.

This doesn't give us carte blanche to start preaching to each other, then demanding to be heard. A word fitly spoken is delicious, edible, devoured by a wise listener. But it's not our job to force the listening.

Let's face it. Not everything goes in parenting. There are many, many ways to screw up a child. To fall short of what we are called to do as parents is a serious, heavy consequence that we may not chalk up to random chance. While we don't have to be condemned to guilt and punishment over our parenting through the sacrifice Jesus Christ made, we still strive to repent and get going in the right direction. We must be sensitive to first following the perfect Parent's wisdom on growing godly kids and then be open to counsel from others we trust.

End of sermon.