Arranging a Frozen Food Swap

What is a food swap/casserole exchange?

 

It is a way for people to get together and exchange their dishes and recipes. Each person prepared 1 dish in a large batch, packages individually for each person that will be at the swap. Usually it entails lite faire, wine  and good conversation with good friends, but you can make it as big or small of an affair as you like. The Bonus to this is you cook one large batch and you could potentially come home with 12 different dishes.

 

How do I plan one?

 

q  Put feelers out to see which of you friends would be interested to swap recipes with you. This is meant for everyone to participate, so don’t invite people that won’t cook and will try to mooch off everyone else’s hard work.  You want this to be a relaxed atmosphere so invite people with similar tastes and that will get along. This is not a platform for people to one up each other.

q  Decide if you want this once a week, month, or quarter. Also decide if it will always be at one person’s house, or if the swap will rotate to each of the participant’s houses. Try and set a day that is always the day i.e. the third Thursday of the month, and send out a reminder email at least one week before. You can even set up a group on Facebook.

q  Decide what you are going to exchange the meals in. If you’re doing soups you can exchange in gallon Ziploc bags, but if your exchanging enchiladas that won’t work.  Some groups all pitch in and buy the same dishes so that it doesn’t matter who gets which dish. If you don’t feel like doing that, then use a dish you can write on the outside with permanent marker.

q  Keep the group under control. The more people that come, the more each person has to cook. So if you invite 5 people you’ll have to cook for 6 people so that you keep one for yourself and one for each guest. If you invite 11 people you’ll have to cook 12 dishes. There are pluses and minuses to both. The more you exchange the less repeats and amount you’ll have to cook during the week, but you’ll most likely have to make multiple batches of the same dish the night you’re cooking. The smaller the group, the more frequently you’ll meet, but you’ll cook in more manageable portion sizes.

q  It’s always a nice idea to tape the recipe on top of the casserole. This way not only is it a meal exchange, but if you like the dish you don’t have to wait until the next exchange to get it again.

q  This idea doesn’t just work for frozen dinners, but breakfast exchanges, cookie exchanges, soup exchanges. The possibilities are endless.