I just got invited by my friends Jen and Polly (both mamas I know from when we did our cooperative playgroup together) to be in their dinner swap. I did a dinner swap for over a year with friends Julie and Hillary when Sabine and Vivian were very little,, and it was a godsend.
If you're unfamiliar with the concept, here's how it works. Find a willing friend (or two). It helps, but is probably not completely necessary, if you have a similar # of folks in your family, with sort of similar eating tendencies. If you're lucky enough to have 3 families involved, this is how it works:
Night 1 - family 1 cooks - family 2 picks up and delivers to family 3 (and for themselves)
Night 2 - family 2 cooks - family 3 picks up and delivers to family 1 (and for themselves)
Night 3 - family 3 cooks - family 1 picks up and delivers to family 2 (and for themselves)
So...you cook one night, you deliver one night, and one night you have totally off! Not only do you get to sample new cooking, you have fewer dishes overall (only one night to clean up from cooking), you've built community, and have more time for other things (like writing on your blog...).
Real Simple ran an article on "cooking exchanges" a while ago...check it out for some ideas. FYI, we came up with a budget of $10-$12/family/meal...i.e. for each night you cook for dinner swap, you should plan on spending $30-$36.
FYI, this week, among other things, my family and I enjoyed:
* marinated pork tenderloin, steamed/seasoned asparagus, mashed potatoes
* meat loaf (with chopped veggies), carrots/sugar peas/broccoli, potatoes
* breaded chicken with onions/red peppers/mushrooms, brown butter balsamic asparagus, couscous
WITH leftovers.
And I had time to tell you all this. :)
(Can you guess which one I cooked? I'll post one of my recipes from this week's dinner swap soon...)
No comments:
Post a Comment