Our winner this month is Beth from Edenton, NC. Beth has some great time and money saving tips to share with us.

Beth says:

"My name is Beth, and I've been doing freezer cooking for about 13 years now. I love it!

I just wanted to write in a few tips and ideas that I've developed over the years.

First, I set up in a way that makes clean up easier, since, as y'all know well, by the end of the day, you're exhausted, and the easier the clean up the better. I put a large towel in front of the stove, one in front of the freezer, and one in front of the sink.

I have a 5 gallon bucket that I put next to the trash can (that I put a new liner in). All food scraps and paper trash go in the bucket to go to the compost pile, and the plastic trash goes in the can with the liner. I also pour liquids to be discarded into the bucket. I also have a small clothes hamper that I put a trash bag in and put all wet and/or dirty pot holders, dish cloths, dish towels, and the towels from the floor in. That way I can just dump it into the washer, and start the load at the end of the day.

I also tear my old towels (when I replace them) into washcloth sized squares, and have these stacked on a counter out of the way to use as you would paper towels, when I use these, I toss them into the hamper, also.

When I have extra hamburger after a session, I go ahead and brown it, and freeze it. Then sometimes for lunch I add it to a can of vegetable beef soup, undiluted, and make "sloppy joe" type sandwiches out of it.

Every time I have a cooking session, I also freeze a separate serving of each dish for my neighbor. I gave him a casserole dish that's a single serving size for Christmas a few years ago, and print clear instructions on the freezer bag.

When ever we have leftovers from dinner, I freeze them in individual sized serving packages. Especially Mexican Lasagna and Lasagna. This eliminates the "leftovers again" syndrome, and gives the kids and me a variety to choose from for lunches.

I also pick up ground beef and chicken breasts when they are on sale (just got 50 pounds of hamburger for $.86/lb) and package them in 1 pound packages (2 cups) for the beef and 8 breast packages for the chicken.

I also have a shelf in the freezer for breakfast, one for lunches, and one for dinners, and the drawer in the bottom and my small freezer, I use for snacks/desserts.

I hope this helps someone."

Wow! What great tips! The clothes hamper is such a wonderful idea. Thanks for sharing with everyone!

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.