- You gather a group of people who have similar meal needs as your family and whose cooking you think you'll enjoy. Our group has 6 families currently participating. We've talked about expanding a bit and have all agreed that about 8 would be our max, if we do add families.
- Once a month, you cook a large batch of whatever dish you choose, providing some for each family in the exchange. You can decide the number of servings based upon the size of the families. For our exchange, we make 4 servings for each family. Counting our own families, this means making 24 servings of the dish that we're providing for the month.
- Package each dish in 1-family-size packaging (aluminum pan, gallon-size freezer bag, etc.) and freeze ahead of the exchange date. Write on the packaging the name of the dish, date of freezing and basic cooking instructions.
- Choose a date to gather and make the swap. We have picked the third Saturday of every month to swap meals. We each bring 5 of the dish we made, along with the recipes, and trade with everyone else, coming home with 5 different meals in addition to the one we made ourselves.
- If we're unable to be there on a particular date, we make arrangements either with the host to drop off our meals ahead of time and pick ours up later, or to have another member of the group take our meals and pick ours up for us.
It's brilliant. You just do one round of cooking per month and end up with 6 meals ready to thaw and cook, vastly cutting down on meal prep time for the nights you use those meals. I've been thinking about doing more of this for our own family, doubling or tripling meals and freezing some for later use. It's great saving labor and having things ready to go without having to put as much planning into it myself, plus I've gotten to try some really great dishes that the other women have made. And I've been able to enjoy getting together and having some social time with them when we exchange.
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