..ok I will and soon but..

I am in a freezer coop. Every month we buy ingredients for 11 meals and each person in the coop makes 15 copies of one (4 serving) recipe and then we swap so we have 11 meals for our families (the shoppers and ingredient sorters dont make a meal). I started it right around the time I started losing weight last year. Not all of the meals are "on plan" but they are certainly well ahead of "honey I dont know what to make for dinner so lets order pizza"

A few meals are disasterously caloric and I usually sell or trade mine or modify it when I cook it if I can. Today I was assigned to prepare the 15 copies of the absolute worst recipe of the bunch. This was great because the flavor is good and I could make a special one for me and leave out all the bad stuff that is usually all mixed in.

I am sooooo grossed out now. Each recipe called for a CUP of mayo. AND a can of cream of mushroom AND 2cups shredded cheese. But the process of measuring out 14 cups of mayo ick ick ick ick ick. Each serving of this meal has like 60 g of fat. So gross.

My hands are really soft now though.

Kind of like aversion therapy -- when a smoker has to stare at a bowl of cigarette butts for 2 hours!! I have to say, when I worked at a grocery store in high school and saw food, food, food for 4 to 8 hours a day go by on my conveyer belt -- that is when I actually lost a lot of weight and got to my smallest!! How in the world were you able to modify this fat laden recipe so that you could eat it???

For the freezer it comes with the chicken in a bag with lemon juice, olive oil and curry powder which you saute (yummy) you are then supposed to mix it with baggie # 2 which is the soup, mayo, cheese and brown rice and baggie #3 which is broccoli and bake the whole shebang in a fat laden casserole.

Normally I have to toss out the whole baggie #2 and use my own rice, but I just kept the rice separate from cheese which I'll keep in the freezer for several meals and have sauteed chicken in the lemon/EVOO/curry blend over brown rice with steamed broccoli with a smattering of the cheese on the broc.

Thank god there are only a few meals like this. We take turns picking the meals and only 4 of the members pick a lot of the gooey casserole crap. Mostly it is different marinades and stuff.

Wow, a freezer coop sounds like such a neat idea! I've never heard of that before

Yeah, it'd be great if you could get those 4 to fall in line with some healthier recipes. Great concept though!

Even when those 4 pick, there are only 1 or 2 recipes out of the 11 that are bad. We have mostly healthy stuff or easy to make healthy.

It is fantastic. Especially with little kids, having to only worry about veggies, fruit and milk when I go to the store for the most part. In the summer I am also in a CSA for my veggies & fruit and my grocery trips consist mostly of milk, eggs, cereal, cheese, bread, salad dressing and salsa. Sometimes some pasta and spag sauce.

Sweet Sanity, it's crazy to think that people still eat that way!

Sadly, in my "real-life" world, that's the rule not the exception.

I know it's not normal within the walls of our 3FC family, but it certainly is outside of here. I suspect that if you were in Mississippi, all 11 of those meals would have had a can of cream of mushroom soup, cheese, sour cream, mayonnaise, butter, etc.

My brother and his wife really like cooking shows on TV. Whenever someone talks about what to make for a meal, someone else says .... "well, we'll start with a stick of butter .."

Blowing wicked cold here this morning. Brrr ...

Tammy - It's sad, but oh so true. You're deeper south than I am, but I see it all around me too here in Virginia. I teach high school, and it's truly concerning to see all the heavy teens - I mean seriously overweight, not just a bit chubby. And just last week, I was running late to work, and I saw a little girl waiting for her bus... I believe she is in 4th grade now, but I had not seen her in maybe close to a year. She has gotten so heavy. She's probably 10 years old or so and already dealing with obesity. I don't know the family well, but I do know that mom is single and not home much. I'm sure it's tough on mom taking care of everything, and preparing healthy meals probably isn't as high on the priority list as just paying the bills. But this little girl has a lifetime of challenge ahead of her.

I work with a teacher, who actually is a good friend of mine, who admits to picking up fast food for dinner 3-4 times a week. Her daughter, at age 9, has recently become very self conscious about her big belly. Her mom told me when she last took her shopping for clothes her daughter went for clothes that offered coverage and was upset that she couldn't wear the same outfits her friends are wearing. My friend is beginning to see the consequences of raising her kids on burgers and fries, and she is now trying to do more meal planning and turn things around.

Information about food and health is everywhere we turn - Dr. Oz is on tv constantly, every magazine you pick up has articles on healthy eating, etc., etc, but we are also bombarded by the easy, FAST, and dangerously unhealthy fast foods and convenience foods. I wonder what it will take to move Americans as a whole toward healthy eating? Or will it never happen?

I have to admit that, sans mayo, something with cheddar cheese and cream of mushroom/chicken soup would have been part of a casserole in the past.

The freezer coop shoud be more specific like HEALTHY freezer foods....

Well... we got the brown rice and whole wheat pasta in...I think some people cant be pushed farther than that! Honestly, it is hard enough to find 15 people to cooperate as it is!

I can imagine! I think that's such a neat idea, cream of mushroom soup and all.

The combination of curry powder and cheese is what's killing me about this recipe. I love a good curry and I also love cheese, and I'm usually into adventurous food combinations, but I'm really struggling with the idea of curry and cheese together. Then you throw in the mayo (I agree, ick) and cream of mushroom soup and the whole thing really just doesn't sound appealing.

Mayo has been, hands down, the absolute easiest food for me to give up. I can't stand the taste of it by itself. We used to eat mayonnaise sandwiches as kids (just white bread and mayo--honestly, what was my mom thinking ) and I ate one too many. After that, I could never stand the taste of it; even looking at it grosses me out. It's fine in a salad or on a sandwich, but I also don't feel like it's critical to my enjoyment of a sandwich. I'm just as happy with mustard on my sandwich and nonfat yogurt in my salads.