Let's get this started!

Exchange Night

September 30th 7:00 pm

at the Boston's house

I am so excited to finally get this started!! I feel like I have been talking about it forever, but now it is time to get down to business! I still don't know exactly how many people are participating in this first exchange. My latest count was six. If you don't see your name on this LIST, please either leave me a comment or send me an e-mail. If you are going to be participating in the exchange, here's a few instructions and tips:

1: Sometime between now and next Monday (September 29th), please e-mail me with the total cost of your meal. I need to average out all of the prices so that we can keep everything even. Plan on spending as close to $70 as you can. We are trying to keep this as close to $10 a meal as we can, so do your best and don't worry if you have to go over by a little. I will be sending out an e-mail on Tuesday morning letting you know if you need to bring any money to the exchange night. If you do, it will probably be most convenient if you can bring cash.

2: If you are making a dish that requires a pan, you have two options. First, you can bring the meal in the cheap foil pans from the store. Make sure to cover with plastic wrap and tin foil. Second option, you can freeze the meal in the pan. When it is frozen, set it in warm water for a couple minutes to get it to slide out of the pan. Then wrap the meal in plastic wrap and foil. Either way will work, so pick whichever works best for you.

3: If you are making something liquid, freezer bags (aka Ziploc bags) work great. When using the freezer bag method for freezing, place your meal in the freezer bag, remove as much air as possible, and seal (see tip #4). Then take a cake pan, or a pan that has sides, and lay the bags flat, stacking one on top of the other. The cake pan will not only freeze the meals flat, giving you more freezer room, but will help ensure that any leaks will be kept within the pan. Place the pan in the freezer. Once the item has been “flash frozen,” remove the items from the pan and stack inside your freezer. Then just bring the frozen bag to the exchange.

4: To get the air out of a zip-top bag, close the bag except for an inch at one of the corners. Submerge the exterior of the bag in water almost to the top of the bag. Let the pressure of the water release air from around your food, and then quickly close the last inch at the top of the bag. Be careful not to let any of the water into the bag and onto your food.

5: Make sure to include the instructions for how to cook and/or thaw your meal. Find some way to attach it to the meal or write it on the outside. That way we won't lose track of the directions for all the different meals.

That's all that I can think of right now! If you think of any other questions that I haven't answered, please let me know. I'm excited to finally get this going!!