How to Bulk Cook with a Friend-Part one

For about a year and a half I have been bulk cooking our dinners with a friend. I thought I would go through the process of how we set up our "cooking adventures".

*You need to cook with someone who has similar food likes and dislikes. You will only run into issues if you can't agree on meals!

*We pick out 6 meals for the month and quadruple the recipe.  Then we split them in half.  So that means that I get 12 meals total (6 recipes done twice) and she gets 12.  My blog has a plethora of recipes....look up at the "recipe" tab for our favorites.  Here are some other resources we have used for recipes:

















*There are programs out there to help you create shopping lists for bulk cooking.  However, we didn't want to spend the money for a program and then end up not liking it.  So I found a free way to compile our shopping list.  Keep reading...

*I then take each recipe and put the ingredients for each one on a separate Excel spreadsheet.  It is a simple spreadsheet where I enter the name of the ingredient and then enter the amount needed.  The spreadsheet then calculates the amounts if we double or quadruple the recipe. Below is an idea of the numbers I come up with for a recipe (sorry that it isn't that clear!).  If you would like a copy of my spreadsheet leave me a comment with your email, and I will get it to you.  So by the time I am done I have 6 spreadsheets (one for each recipe). I save all these spreadsheets in case we ever decide to do the recipe again the spreadsheet is already there.

Green Chili Chicken Enchiladas


x1      x2      x4      ingredient
3        6       12      chicken breast
12      24     48      corn tortillas
0.25   0.5     1       cup butter
0.25   0.5     1       cup flour
2           4     8       cups chicken broth
1          2      4       cup sour cream
2          4      8      cups shredded Jack cheese
2         4       8      oz chopped green chilies
0.75   1.5     3      cup chopped onion

Come back tomorrow and I will explain how I finish compiling our shopping list.