OAMC: What IS that?

OAMC = Over-Achievers Meet to Cook? Outlandish Activities Moms Create? Optimistic Adventurous Motley Chefs? I like that one!

I am in the throes of planning for a Once A Month Cooking (OAMC) day. This is a biggie, since we have eight families participating and we will all go home with twelve family-size meals...that's 96 meals that will feed four people each...that's 384 individual servings...which means we'll need 17 1/2 cups of chopped onion, 96 boneless, skinless chicken breasts...32 cups of cooked, chopped chicken, 64 pork chops...40 baked potatoes...16 cups shredded cheddar...8 cups of diced ham...13 cups olive oil...and so on, and so on...

It's a bit overwhelming, but once the shopping and prep work is done, my job gets easier (we have eight women assigned to different prep-ahead jobs such as washing and baking 40 potatoes, chopping all those onions, trimming the fat from the fresh chicken breasts, cooking the chicken for the recipes that require cooked chicken, boiling the pasta, boiling, peeling and chopping the eggs, grating fresh ginger...you get the idea).

With all this prep work, our cooking day will consist mostly of assembling our ingredients, bagging and labeling, and cleaning. We'll still have a bit of cooking to do the day of, but we'll have two woks, two electric skillets, four stove top burners, one oven, and several prep stations. Thankfully, we'll be working in a nice, big kitchen (my in-laws' kitchen, currently unoccupied!)...so we won't be interrupting any naptimes or bedtimes on cooking day...yea! Thanks, Mom and Dad!

Here is a list of our 12 Meals:

1. Loaded Stuffed Spuds
2. Apple Pork Chops
3. Teriyaki Pork Chops
4. Chicken Carbonara
5. Oven Sandwiches
6. Beef Stroganoff
7. Stuffed Cabbage Rolls
8. Sausage-Stuffed Shells
9. Red River Chicken
10. Moroccan Chicken
11. Chicken Tostados
12. Panko Parmesan Oven-Fried Chicken

Total cost per family: Between $60-$70 (I'll post the total next week when all is said and done, and some pics from OAMC-Day...we cook tomorrow!)

Half of the recipes we chose are chicken recipes, so we wouldn't have to deal with too many different ingredients. In my family, we like to intersperse our OAMC meals with lighter, veggie-bean meals--we don't like meat every night.

The best thing about OAMC is getting all that cooking done in one day in the company of seven other fabulous women! It's actually quite fun! Oh, and not having to stand at the stove every afternoon while my kids destroy the house like a couple of tornadoes...yeah, that rates pretty high for me!

See the post-cooking day follow-up here!