How to Cook Once a Month

Even if you hate to cook, once a month cooking can work for you. Starting with the basics of four weeks of seven nights, or 28 nights of meals, you can reduce this number so that you only have about half the nights to cook for.

Instructions

1. Figure out the days you will not cook. For example, most people eat pizza one night of the week and something like beans and franks another night. Voila--two nights gone from your calendar. You are down to 20 nights.

2. Cook one night for the season. In winter, this means hearty soups or crock pot meals. In summer, buy a bag of salad and top with tuna, chicken or beef strips for stir fry. Now you are down to 16.

3. Resign yourself to the fact that you will never get away from hamburger (or ground turkey if you are very clever). Spaghetti sauce, hamburger casserole, stuffed peppers, meat loaf, tacos--the variations are exhaustive. You might decide just to buy five pounds of hamburger, fry it all up, cool and freeze in weekly portions. Assuming you will eat this one and a half times each week, you need just 10 ideas more.

4. Lean on that other family favorite: chicken. Some roast whole chickens and use the leftovers for later meals; others search for the cheapest cuts and cook around those. One favorite is oven fried chicken, which uses both oven racks to cook all the pieces at once. These freeze well and can accompany any potato recipe from the most exhausting (twice baked) to the laziest (microwaved). To make your offerings seem varied, rotate with pork, turkey or sausage throughout the year. Again, do this one or two times a week.

5. Throw a ringer in for your last four days, making one night a week creative: Breakfast for Dinner Night, Leftovers, BBQ or the traditional Sunday roast. Make the kids cook that last night; then they can see how hard it is to come up with a new use for hamburger.