Our winner this month is Sharyl from Verona, WI, who is starting over again and using freezer cooking to help along the way.

Sharyl says:  

"I used to do freezer cooking a few years ago. I got slightly away from it. My husband was tragically killed in December and my life has totally fallen apart. We have recently relocated to be closer to family. I have a 5 yr old and 3 yr old, who love broccoli, its all they want to eat. (Sounds strange, I know, but they love those little green trees!!!) If I try to eat broccoli without her she takes it off my plate (but I guess there are worse things).

So I'm starting this over, small steps. Making 2 or 3 of an item at a time. I know it costs more money for convenience of items, but on some stuff, that's all I can handle. For the first 3 months or so after my husband died, we lived off peanut butter and jelly, macaroni and cheese and frozen pizza because that's all I could handle making. A lot of people made meals and that was wonderful. I had run my freezer low and was getting ready for a cooking day after the holidays were over. So we got through it. I'm slowly coming around and just taking small steps. I have some meat frozen into smaller packages frozen in marinade and stocked up on the frozen chicken breasts when they were on sale over the 4th of July.

Look forward to trying some of your recipes."

Our hearts and prayers go out to you, Sharyl. We have a wonderful community of users through our message boards that are with you 100 percent of the way! And remember, there is no right or wrong way to freezer cook. The best thing to do is to determine what works for you! Even I don't stick to one particular method. Sometimes I cook based on what's on sale. Sometimes I have just a breads and breakfast cooking day. If my life is too busy or overwhelming I may just have a meat prep day where I cook and chunk chicken and brown hamburger for future meals. That's the great thing about this system. You can make it work for you.

So, how do you make 30 Day Gourmet work for you?  How do you use it to help you deal with a challenge in your life?  How do you use it to help others?  Do you have a funny cooking story to share? Email me at  carol@30daygourmet.com to be entered in our contest.