Chewin'

the News

January 2002

Ways to Cook

MEAL EXCHANGES
Dear Nanci,
I must say your cooking manual is the best bulk cooking manual I've found. I bought it from you at Hearts at Home in Michigan a couple of years ago.
I have used your cooking manual many times, but always alone or with one friend. But a friend from my church began organizing "meal exchanges," and they work great. We have begun taking turns organizing them.
Here's how it works: We have anywhere from 8-12 people participate. Each person is assigned 2 meals, of which they make the number of batches for however many people are participating. For example, if we have 10 people participating, I would make 10 batches of lasagna and 10 batches of chicken enchilada casserole. We each freeze all our meals ahead of time, then meet at an appointed time to exchange them. Each of us will go home with 20 different meals for our freezers, with only the work and mess of 2 different meals.
We try to group the meals so the amount of work and price is equitable for all, like a cheaper meal paired with a more expensive meal, or a more time-consuming meal with a quicker one.
We try to do the exchange every 6-8 weeks, so we use the freezer meals when we need to and make fresh meals when we have more time. We also try to accommodate dislikes, like "no onions" in one family's meals.

Amy P. from Michigan


Thanks for the personal email!

I actually contacted you months ago about our Fast Freezin’ Mamas Ministry Group. I’ve never gotten my act together about making a bulk order of your cookbook! We’ve been cooking for 1 year now (as of 11/20/01) and have used your cookbook as our main resource for not only recipes, but I LOVE your conversion charts in the back — what a HUGE help! Especially when one month we make only 5 meals per recipe, then the next month we make 15 meals per recipe! And I figure we’ve had about 100 women cook at least once with us over the past year.

Our group cooking dates are definitely going more smoothly thanks to your cookbook!

Rosey B.


Here’s a fun article about a neighborhood cooperative cook group:

http://www.jsonline.com/lifestyle/parenting/oct01/neighbor1001.asp

COOKING WITH FRIENDS

Dear Tara and Nanci,

A friend of mine attended your seminar at the Brownsburg Library a month or so ago. She bought the book and also the video, because she wanted me and another friend to watch it. Well, we decided to go for it! I just had my first cook-a-thon 30 Day Gourmet style with 2 friends of mine this past weekend. Since there were 3 three of us, all rookies, we decided to start out slowly. Therefore, we decided each of the 3 of us would prepare 6 portions of 3 entrees each. We made 54 meals, split 3 ways, we each took home 18 dinners. We're going to try to build up to more in the future. It really went very well and all of the recipes were straight from your book. Now that a few days have passed, and we're trying them out on our families...we call each other every evening saying, "Well, what'd ya think of that dish?" You'll be happy to know, that between the 3 families, we've now tried 6 different recipes out on our families and they've thanked us for great meals! When I got home and put my feet up, my husband asked, "Well, did you have fun?" I said, "FUN?!?!? No, I didn't have fun! It was a lot of work, we were so busy we didn't have time to have fun!" haha. But, this system sure beats cooking every evening by myself! Because we are a busy family with 3 kids in school and 3 sports teams at all times, this is the answer to a lot less headaches for Mom! No more time crunch dinners of: "Well, I guess it's Chicken nuggets and Macaroni for dinner tonight!" haha
Thank you soooo much for sharing your ideas, recipes, and trials and errors with the rest of us! You are my new best friends! The 30 day Gourmet is the answer to ending my mealtime sagas!
Dawn W. from Mooresville, IN


A friend and I spent a day in December making about 10 different types of cookies and in the summer we often can together. You two reminded me of how much fun it is when you cook with a friend.

Thanks,
Julia S. from Indianapolis


Well, we did it. We had our first cooking day! It was a blast. We both agreed that it was hard work but we will do it again and again. We enjoyed the chance to visit and laugh without having the kids interrupt us constantly. But instead of just going out to lunch and wasting a couple of hours so that we could visit and have some quiet time, we stayed home and cooked. We finished the day with 41 meals each and a huge sense of accomplishment and joy knowing that for the next 6 weeks we wouldn't have to worry about dinner. Thanks to both of you so much for showing us this fun way to make our lives easier. And to our delight and surprise our families have loved EVERY recipe. Thanks, too, for the additional recipes on your website. It's great to buy a cookbook and continue to get recipes and support. Thanks again from two moms with more time on their hands.

Jody and Cheryl from San Jose, California
 

COOKING WITH YOUR SPOUSE
Thanks so much for rushing the manual out to me! My husband and I have about 20 dinners completed and I love the tally sheet. I’m very impressed with all the helpful hints so all that hard work is successful. The snacks look delicious so tonight I’m going to put some of those together for my picky 13 mo. old who insists on feeding himself (and if he doesn’t eat it I won’t mind finishing it.) Just knowing I have twenty tasty dinners prepared is so stress-reducing. Thank you for putting together such a complete and easy system.

Ricki from Ohio


If you and your spouse cook together (and it’s a good experience) I’d love to hear about it. E-mail me your story at: chewinthenews@30daygourmet.com.

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