6 Dinners For Less Than $25.00! Multi-Meal Preparation

OAMC ... OAWC ... freezer meal preparation ... multi-meal preparation ... assembly cooking...What do all these terms have in common?

• They are all strategies used to prepare more than one meal in a single cooking session and then store the extras so they can be eaten later.
• They can shorten food prep time by hours to days each month.
• Using one of these strateges can decrease transportation, grocery, and utility expenses more than you can imagine.

I generally do mult-meal preparation once each week and store between 4 and 5 meals. I purchase enough of whatever meat is on sale and double or triple each of 1 to 2 recipes that freeze well.

A few weeks ago, I purchased two 3# bags of fresh chicken tenders. I had 2 bottles of jamaican jerk marinade, a bottle of italian salad dressing, and the fixins for vegetable soup in the pantry.

-- From the first bag of tenders, I divided the chicken equally into 3 freezer bags, poured jerk chicken marinade over them, squeezed as much air out of each bag as I could and placed the sealed freezer bags flat in my freezer.

-- With the other bag of chicken tenders, I used a third of the chicken for chicken vegetable soup which we ate that night with cornbread. I sauteed the rest in italian salad dressing for chicken salad dinners, divided the cooked chicken pieces in two freezer bags and placed the sealed freezer bags flat in my freezer.

--Once all the chicken meals were frozen, I turned them on end like old fashioned album covers.

All 6 dinners took less than 30 minutes to prepare, cost less than $22.00, and used less than 2 inches of freezer space!