supper club

A stroke of genius, you might call it. Okay so I can't take complete credit for this. My mom was in a supper club when I was growing up. Not sure if she came up with it or not, but at the end of the summer I approached two friends about starting a supper club of our own and they agreed! Here's how it works: On Monday nights Megan cooks a meal for her family and triples the recipe so that Stacey and I can pick up our portions. On Tuesday nights Stacey cooks her meal times three. On Thursday nights it's my turn. Each meal includes a main dish and one side dish. Here's why this is so great:

1. BUDGET: Dameon and I have been looking for ways to cut back on our grocery budget for a long time. We spend way too much money on food and can't ever seem to figure out how it really happens. Very consistently we are overspending this area of our budget and is so frustrating! We obviously have to eat. And we eat most of our meals at home. We also both eat lunch from home. And we don't have to eat fancy food or anything but we don't want to eat junk either. I cook almost every night, so that means buying a lot of ingredients that I only use part of. But when I buy ingredients for one meal times three, I am more able to use up those ingredients and less goes to waste. Bingo! Grocery budget intact.

2. MESS: This may come as a shock to you but I'm not awesome at cleaning up messes. Especially kitchen messes. I know, I'm almost 30 and it's about time I get it together. I know. But cooking less often means less mess in the kitchen. Win!

3. FAMILY TIME: Typically when Dameon gets home at 4:30...or 4:45...or 5:00...I have to quickly turn Henry over to him so that I can bury myself in the kitchen and quickly prepare our meal that we need to eat by 5:30 so that he can get back to work. Now that our meals are prepared for us two nights a week, the three of us can spend more time together.

4. VARIETY: Having other people cook for us has introduced a little more variety into the things we eat. Generally the three of us seem to have the same likes thus far but I think we've eaten four or five meals that I've never prepared.

5. I'M PREGNANT: Just because I can cook it doesn't mean I can eat it. Such a bummer to spend time preparing a meal that, in the end, makes you gag when you think of eating it. Solution? Our meals are brought to our door prepared!

The only really hard thing for me is coming up with what I want to make. I think the best way for me to avoid this problem is to sit down with my cookbooks and make a list of the meals I can easily make in mass. So far I've made pulled BBQ chicken sandwiches with pasta salad, meatloaf with party potatoes, taco soup with corn bread, chicken tacos with tortilla chips, tomato cream pasta with garlic bread, and lasagna with bread sticks.