Bulk Cooking

I've talked a little bit about my fun bulk cooking group, and I wanted to give a little bit more information for people who've shown interest in it.   The group is run by Hy-Vee and meets at one of their second floor kitchens.  Every month, the women in the group each pick a meal from a list of hundreds of recipes.  We post the meal that we each have chosen on a shared Google document, and then we get to order however many we want of each other's meals.  Hy-Vee then does all the shopping for us ahead of time and has everything organized when we get there each month.

That night, each woman is then responsible for the meal she ordered and makes as many of that meal as were ordered.  So if my meal was Teriyaki Hamburgers and a total of nine orders were placed (each order is about four servings...like a normal recipe), then I make nine orders of Teriyaki Hamburgers and hand them out when I'm done. Likewise, I get all of the meals that I ordered.

All of the meals are freezer friendly AND Hy-Vee does all the clean up.  The meals vary in price from month to month because it depends on meat prices and what meals were ordered.  This month each meal was around $12.  Not bad for four servings + no shopping + no clean-up.  So after about an hour and a half of cooking tonight, I came away with five different meals (Corn Chowder, Barbacoa, Beef Stroganoff, Pot Roast, and Korean Sesame Beef).  My family has really liked the majority of the meals we've tried, and it's gotten us out of our chicken/ground beef comfort zone. 

So if you're interested in bulk cooking, feel free to come join us or you can contact Hy-Vee to start your own group.  I've really enjoyed it so far.