As you know, I am all about eating healthy.  I appreciate once a month cooking and have done that before.  I love the ease of having meals ready at a moment's notice.  A food swap takes it to another level, a social one.  To be able to take a "break" from cooking and share delicious meals with like-minded friends sounds so appealling to me.  After reading my friend Jillian's post about her food swap group, I was immediately intrigued and wanted to know more.  She was gracious enough to share her experience with organizing a food swap.  I hope you find the information she shares encouraging and doable.  Thanks so much, Jillian!  Well done.   Please don't forget to visit Jillian at Andothertimes.

A few months ago, I initiated a food swap in my community. Jenna, your
lovely Chive Talkin' host, was interested in the ins and outs of the
swap and asked me to explain the process for you, her readers.

I wish I could say that the idea for a food swap was mine and mine
alone, but it wasn't. When my family and I were living in Scranton,
PA, we had friends who turned us on to the idea. Our move to Chicago
landed us in a great place to start our own swap.

So...What exactly is a food swap?

Simply put, a food swap is an exchange of food between a number of
different households. If you're interested in organizing a swap for
your community, the first thing you should do is decide on what kind
of food you want to swap. By that I mean, are you a vegetarian? vegan?
Do you have any severe allergies? If so, when you look for
people/families to swap with, you should be sure to specify that
you're organizing a vegetarian food swap or a peanut-free food swap. On
the other hand, if you love the taste of meat and cheese, your best
bet is to not invite your vegan best friend to join you. The food swap
I organized is a vegetarian food swap. The families involved do not
use any meat in their dishes, and after a quick conversation between
all of us, we discovered that one of the women has a horseradish
allergy, so that ingredient is omitted from all dishes as well.

Once you know what kind of food you want to swap, you'll need to find
other people to swap with. The easiest way to find participants is to
ask family members or friends to join you. If, like me, you've just
moved to a new area, you'll need to get creative. I found some
families to swap with on Meetup.com. The neighborhood I live in,
Rogers Park in Chicago, has a Parents' group on Meetup that I joined
within days of moving to the area. When I decided I wanted to try to organize
a swap, I posted a message on their message board detailing the parameters
of the swap and why I thought it was a good idea to participate. A few weeks
later I had three solid yeses from three different families. August 30th
marked the fourth month of the swap, and now, on any given month, we
have the potential of having seven families participate.

The frequency with which you swap can vary. Some groups will want to
swap bi-monthly. Other groups might want to swap just once a month. At
the moment, my group only swaps monthly, but we've talked about moving
up to twice per month once we get the hang of what we're doing.
Personally, I would love to find a group to swap with weekly, though
time constraints make that a bit unrealistic.

Food type? Check. Families to swap with? Check. Frequency of swapping
decided on? Check.

After you get the above-mentioned in order, you'll need to sit down
(either in person or via email works best) with the families you're
swapping with to decide on the number of servings/family you're each
going to be responsible for. Our friends in Scranton were used to
making six servings/family involved. My group in Rogers Park wanted to
do less, only four servings/family. Again, the number of
servings/family is a variable that will change with each group's
separate dynamics. If your group is made up of five families of four
people each, you might decide that six servings is a good number. On
the other hand, if your group is mainly comprised of two adults and a
baby or toddler or small child, you all might decide that four
servings/family is plenty. Whatever number of servings you agree on,
you want to make sure that you keep that number consistent. If you
decide on four servings for each family involved, then each and every family
involved needs to make four servings of their dish for each of the
other participating families.

When you have all of your swapping parameters in place, all you need
to do is choose a recipe, cook up a bunch, and swap!

"But, but, WHY is a food swap a good idea?" you ask. Well, let me tell you:

A food swap saves you money. You can use the time between swaps to
decide on a dish, make your shopping list, and shop the sales! It's
often times economical to buy foodstuffs in bulk; a food swap allows
you to utilize large quantities of ingredients at once. Additionally,
vegetarian dishes, being devoid of meat, tend to be on the cheaper
side of things. Beans, for instance, are fairly cheap. Taking it a
step further, dried beans sold in bulk are even cheaper!

While you'll likely spend a few solid hours in the kitchen cooking
your 30 or so servings of whatever dish you choose, taking part in a
food swap will save you time in the long run. You'll likely find your
'cooking groove' and bang out your meals with minimal effort. Making a
few batches of soup on a Sunday afternoon takes time, but it's better
than slaving away weeknight after weeknight in the kitchen.

And finally, a food swap is a great way to try new foods. One of your
fellow swappers might love cooking Indian food; another might
introduce you to Thai cuisine. And, if you like the dish a friend has
made-you can always ask for the recipe so you can make it for
yourself!