Want to save some time and money for meals and still have fun? Food swapping parties are a great way to catch up with friends and low in cost. Similar to pot luck, gather a few friends one evening and do some cooking over wine and cheese. But unlike pot luck, food swapping has the main goal of leaving with a few meals for the week. So it is important to pick dishes that has longevity and refrigerates/freezes well, such as stews or casseroles. It is also important to make sure there are containers for easy transportation. Tupperware that locks well is vital.
Stews are easy to prepare and do not need a lot of tending to once it starts cooking, same with casseroles. These are great ideas because they take a couple of hours for one. So if you have four friends and each one makes one dish, you will have dinner for the week in one evening. Sundays worked best for my cooking buddies because it sets you for the upcoming week. We bring our own Tupperware and divide up the goodies after they cool and the wine is polished. We have a few rotating members so we do not need to worry about retrieving cookware. Remember the stove is likely going to have four burners, and an oven with one temperature so utilize all cooking vessels.
My friends and I formed the pasta club for a while. Stir fry pasta in olive oil, baked ziti in Alfredo, vegetable lasagna, and spaghetti and meatballs are a good variety within the same theme. We could not sustain that because we needed to trade in for a gym membership after three months. In truth, we used more cheese than pasta. The pasta was simply a vessel to hold the cheese. But if you have a high metabolism, more power to you.
I introduced the idea at work and it worked well for swapping sandwiches. Three of us each take turn bringing sandwiches one day a week for everyone. It is much easier to make three of the same thing one night vs. three different sandwiches on three evenings. The other two days we brought other leftovers or went out to lunch so things did not get boring. Fridays were “buy a brownie” day until we discovered it freezes very well for a month and we incorporated that along with cookies into our food swap agenda. The food quality increased while my grocery bill decreased. As soon as I lose the tonnage from the pasta coma, I will look for a cute outfit with the savings.