{"id":32691,"date":"2011-06-16T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-06-16T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.krogerkrazy.com\/?p=32691"},"modified":"2011-06-16T00:08:14","modified_gmt":"2011-06-16T04:08:14","slug":"guest-post-start-a-meal-swap-with-friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.krogerkrazy.com\/guest-post-start-a-meal-swap-with-friends\/","title":{"rendered":"Guest Post | Start A Meal Swap With Friends"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The following is\u00a0a guest post, courtesy of Heather\u00a0with\u00a0Spectacular Savings<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

For a long time, I really disliked cooking.\u00a0 Regardless of what my mood was before I started cooking, it was lousy by the time I was done.\u00a0 I was convinced that I just wasn\u2019t meant to be a cook.\u00a0 Then, one night, I was up late making a meal for a friend on bedrest and, when I was finished, I was still in a good mood.\u00a0 Well, it turns out that I, do in fact, enjoy cooking.\u00a0 What I don\u2019t enjoy is cooking while a two year old is begging for me to do another puzzle with her and a baby is crying to be held.\u00a0 So, I knew that I needed to give freezer cooking a try.<\/p>\n

I thought it would be fun to get my friends involved.\u00a0 Maybe we could all get together and cook a few meals at someone\u2019s house. I really wasn\u2019t sure about\u00a0the logistics but I wanted to try it with others.\u00a0 So, I brought the idea up with my Mom\u2019s group.\u00a0 One of my friends had \u201csubbed\u201d in another meal swap so she grabbed the idea and got us organized!<\/p>\n

What is a Meal Swap?<\/em><\/strong>
\nIt\u2019s exactly how it sounds!\u00a0 We get together and swap meals!\u00a0 There are six of us in a group and we each pick a meal and make 6.\u00a0 Then, we get together, swap meals, and go home with 6 different meals.<\/p>\n

What do you make?
\n<\/strong><\/em>Since we didn\u2019t want to come home from the meal swap with 6 different versions of lasagna, we decided to create 6 different categories that we rotate.<\/p>\n

*American\/European
\n*Breakfast for Dinner
\n*Chili\/Soup\/Stew
\n*Italian\/Mediterranean
\n*Indian\/Asian\/Eastern
\n*Southwest\/Mexican<\/p>\n

When we first started the meal swap, I was a little apprehensive.\u00a0 My original thought was that we would all get together and cook.\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t quite sure I wanted to do all the cooking by myself.\u00a0 How boring!\u00a0 But, because we make just one meal x6, it didn\u2019t take long at all.\u00a0 I was able to do a lot of prep work all together.\u00a0 We\u2019ve only had two meal swaps so far but it has only taken, at most, 3 hours of cooking and preparation.\u00a0 3 hours, 6 meals, no screaming children\u2026..wonderful!<\/p>\n

Get a meal swap started with your own friends!\u00a0 Its a great excuse to get together and a wondeful help to have six meals sitting in the freezer waiting to be tossed in the oven or warmed up on the stove!<\/p>\n

************************<\/p>\n

The meal swap is organized, now what?\u00a0 Pick a recipe and buy the ingredients, right?\u00a0
\nWell, not exactly.\u00a0 You still need to stay within your budget.\u00a0 This is something that I’m still\u00a0working on.\u00a0 Here are some tips to stay within your budget:<\/p>\n

*Look through your cupboards and then decide what you’re making.\u00a0 Use your stockpile.\u00a0\u00a0If you pick a recipe before you check out your stockpile, you may end up needing to buy everything.\u00a0 That is what I did last month….eek!!<\/p>\n

*Plan ahead.\u00a0 Because we have a rotation, I know which category I have for each month.\u00a0 I went through and decided on the meal that I would make within each category.\u00a0 I wrote down the ingredients I will need for each and I pick them up as they go on sale.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following is\u00a0a guest post, courtesy of Heather\u00a0with\u00a0Spectacular Savings. For a long time, I really disliked cooking.\u00a0 Regardless of what my mood was before I started cooking, it was lousy by the time I was done.\u00a0 I was convinced that I just wasn\u2019t meant to be a cook.\u00a0 Then, one night, I was up late …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"list_headings":[],"deal_type":[],"class_list":{"2":"type-post","7":"entry"},"yoast_head":"\nGuest Post | Start A Meal Swap With Friends - Kroger Krazy<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.krogerkrazy.com\/guest-post-start-a-meal-swap-with-friends\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Guest Post | Start A Meal Swap With Friends - Kroger Krazy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The following is\u00a0a guest post, courtesy of Heather\u00a0with\u00a0Spectacular Savings. For a long time, I really disliked cooking.\u00a0 Regardless of what my mood was before I started cooking, it was lousy by the time I was done.\u00a0 I was convinced that I just wasn\u2019t meant to be a cook.\u00a0 Then, one night, I was up late …\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.krogerkrazy.com\/guest-post-start-a-meal-swap-with-friends\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Kroger Krazy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/KrogerKrazy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-06-16T17:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.krogerkrazy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/meal-swap.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Katie\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Katie\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.krogerkrazy.com\/guest-post-start-a-meal-swap-with-friends\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.krogerkrazy.com\/guest-post-start-a-meal-swap-with-friends\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Katie\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.krogerkrazy.com\/#\/schema\/person\/0645f1d4c58617aa713891eecd9cdb02\"},\"headline\":\"Guest Post | Start A Meal Swap With Friends\",\"datePublished\":\"2011-06-16T17:00:00+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.krogerkrazy.com\/guest-post-start-a-meal-swap-with-friends\/\"},\"wordCount\":573,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.krogerkrazy.com\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.krogerkrazy.com\/guest-post-start-a-meal-swap-with-friends\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.krogerkrazy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/meal-swap.jpg\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.krogerkrazy.com\/guest-post-start-a-meal-swap-with-friends\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.krogerkrazy.com\/guest-post-start-a-meal-swap-with-friends\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.krogerkrazy.com\/guest-post-start-a-meal-swap-with-friends\/\",\"name\":\"Guest Post | Start A Meal Swap With Friends - Kroger Krazy\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.krogerkrazy.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.krogerkrazy.com\/guest-post-start-a-meal-swap-with-friends\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.krogerkrazy.com\/guest-post-start-a-meal-swap-with-friends\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.krogerkrazy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/meal-swap.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2011-06-16T17:00:00+00:00\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.krogerkrazy.com\/guest-post-start-a-meal-swap-with-friends\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.krogerkrazy.com\/guest-post-start-a-meal-swap-with-friends\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.krogerkrazy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/meal-swap.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.krogerkrazy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/meal-swap.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.krogerkrazy.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.krogerkrazy.com\/\",\"name\":\"Kroger Krazy\",\"description\":\"Kroger Weekly Ad Specials, Digital Coupons and Secret Deals! 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