1. How long have you been mamabaking?
Some members have been Mamabaking for about 2 years, but as a Vegan group only 12-18 months.
2. How many of you and where?
Usually between 6-8 but with a few more people wanting to join, we are trialing splitting the group in two next week! A morning and afternoon shift, in the same kitchen. Usually we try to take turns using each other’s kitchens but the people with lots of room and big kitchens generally take one for the team.
3. What’s the common bond you all share?
We have many common bonds, the obvious one being we are all mums of young children but also our love of vegan, healthy, nourishing, fun food is something we all celebrate together. Also we all have a very strong passion for eco-friendliness and looking beyond mainstream ways of thinking and living to find ways we can be the best mums, women, cooks and all round best versions of ourselves we can be.
4. How does Mamabake improve motherhood for you
Mamabake takes a lot of stress out of cooking for those few weeks after our big cook up. Even if we don’t use all the meals right away, it’s so great to always have that back up for those evenings that are too hard to get dinner happening. It’s also been lovely to know we are all helping each other out; especially the mums with newborn and very young babies and/or more than one child.
5. What are your favourite big batch meals?
Some of our favourite big batch meals are vegan lasagna ’cause it’s so yummy, quick and easy and super filling, so great for big families. Dahl is always soul warming and is a good crowd pleaser. One of our mums made a tomato and lentil dahl soup once which was absolutely delish! We all hounded her for the recipe afterwards, so she decided to make a blog with some of her Vegan recipes so we could all benefit from them!
6. Why do you mamabake?
When one member, Jess, was first asked to join our Mamabake she said she couldn’t believe someone had thought up such an incredible idea! “So you mean we get all these different meals and all I have to do is cook a big batch of something to share? GENIUS!”. Though it did take her a while to get her head around cooking for eight families in one go! It’s just such a fun way to help each other out, hang out, let the kids run amok together and share the occasional bottle of wine (the mamas sharing the wine not the kids hahaha). Always a huge and exhausting day but massively fun!
7. How have you found the process of making big batch vegan recipes
Vegan cooking comes naturally to some of our vegan members. For others it’s a great learning experience and makes us think outside the box of what we are used to making for our own families. It’s also a lot cheaper too because meat and dairy and other animal products are really quite expensive especially when you are making 8 family servings. It’s much cheaper to buy a big bag of lentils and some fresh veggies, approximately $30 for an eight family vegan mamabake, than buying meat, milk, cheese etc where you are looking at around $50 upwards for an 8 family MamaBake. It all ties into our passion for eco-friendliness and cost, community and family effectiveness.
8. One tip for others thinking about joining or starting a MamaBake group?
A tip for new mamabakers would be try and prepare small things to bring on the day. It’s easiest to have things measured out and ready to throw in a big pot than bringing bags and bags of things on the day. We have shared a lot of big pots, pie dishes, baking dishes etc. We are all really diligent in getting them back to their homes so be good to your fellow mamabakers and return their things. We share all sorts and if we can save someone an extra trip to the shops by sharing a tin of tomatoes here and there it all makes for a super smooth, stress free and fun MamaBake. At our most recent MamaBake hostess Jess also appreciated very much that once 8 mums and about 15 kids left her house, she hardly had any tidying to do. Our lovely mamas had washed everything, her fiancé came home from work and helped the kids tidy the toys and almost all she had to do was mop the floor. Again, we help and respect each other and our MamaBake runs wonderfully!
**Vegan meal ideas here**
