This question is asked quite often – What is a freezer cooking mini session? And how do I go about trying it? First, I want to strongly suggest, to anyone who has never tried freezer cooking or once a month cooking (oamc), that they think long and hard about the time and commitment it requires. If that seems like too much time (basically you need 1 full and 1 half day for a full month of cooking), then consider a mini session.
A freezer cooking mini session is different things to different people, and I’d like to take a moment to explain them.
One Ingredient Mini Sesssion – I think the original concept of a mini session was this method. It consists of choosing one main ingredient: turkey, ground beef, chicken, ham, fish or whatever and that is what you will work on during that session. A mini-session like this only requires a couple of hours (two at the most), where the main goal is to create several recipes consisting of this one main ingredient. You can probably get about a week’s worth of turkey recipes done in a mini-session. This can be done every weekend with a different main ingredient, or two different ingredients can be worked on over a weekend, or however you are most comfortable.
The REAL mini-session – In my opinion, the only real mini-session is cutting back the amount of time you are cooking for. I don’t mean number of hours in a day, I mean how many meals you are producing at one time, and instead of focusing on an entire month, you might only cook enough meals for two weeks worth of meals, or even one week, just to try it out and see if it is something you enjoy, or until you get the hang of it. This is the best way to start out, especially if you are still unsure about the whole process. In addition, even if you are very excited to try it out, it is very easy to get burned out trying to cook 30 days worth of meals all in one or two days. So this method can get you started and lessen the stress and exhaustion incurred in a longer session.
For more great articles on freezer cooking, please see the freezer cooking section in the frugal living blog or for some excellent recipes to prepare, visit the food blog.