Meal Planning Basics

I decided January would be my "figure out how to do meal planning" month.  I have gotten recipes organized, been reading through food blogs, but haven't done much on meal planning. 

I stumbled upon a website today that seems like pure gold to me.  Surprisingly - its as simple as setting aside TIME to think through your week.  Each week.  Admittedly its been a hard six months trying to figure out what my routine will be for work.  But I've managed to cook and grocery shop, so clearly I have time to plan meals. 

I am looking forward to putting this into practice.  She suggests categorizing meals.  I came up with the following we like: burgers, soup and sandwiches, pizza, chicken, Mexican (tacos, enchiladas, burritos), Pasta, Vegetarian, Seafood, leftovers and eating out.  I'd also add Ethnic food - particularly Thai and Indian.  Obviously its hard to do all of these in one week - but perhaps a two week rotation?  

I've also found these gems on Pinterest.  This is a good visual of planning out what the meal is and what the required ingredients are.  And this is a really neat tool I saw last summer while visiting at one of Mike's co-worker's home.  She had gone to the extra work of putting the recipes on the back.  It was very impressive!

Again - this all takes time.  And today has been the perfect day to sit in a chair and watch West Wing while hearing the snow and ice fall around our house.  Like I said - January was my target month.  And I am just now getting to this - but I haven't sat much since we entered 2013.

As I mention a goal for the month, I'll also share that my hope for this year is to build some foundations.  Learn to make some basics and take one month to focus one thing.  I think it takes a few weeks to get the hang of something and hard to do too much at once.  I haven't decided on February - or the rest of the year - but its nice to have a start with meal planning. 

I think the best time for me to take this on is Monday mornings.  Usually this is my day to be at home and get to the grocery store and do some laundry.  At least it was before Christmastime hit.  So here's to getting back to that routine - y'all can keep me accountable!

Welcome to my kitchen!

I think its fun to picture a food blogger's 'home'.  The other night I went through and cleaned out our cabinets and the pantry - as these tend to get a little unruly from time to time.  So I went ahead and took some shots of our kitchen.  My husband did much to redesign the kitchen space a couple years ago, and I am still so thankful for the beautiful improvements.  As you can see, he replaced the appliances with stainless steel.  

We had granite countertops put in along with a subway tile style backsplash.  To finish off, last spring we had tile put in to replace the linoleum floor.  It is a wonderful place to work and all the counter space makes it so easy to have multiple 'projects' going at one time!

I keep the spices to the right of our oven so they're on hand.  A quick trip to Penzey's last weekend re-inspired a desire to keep lots of fun salts, cinnamons, and spices on hand.

The stainless jars have breadcrumbs, couscous, oats, and flour respectively.  Sometimes I mix things in and out - but its fun to have stuff out and reachable.

What's a kitchen without some fruit on hand? 

Thanks for stopping by!

New Christmas toys!

For Christmas I bought myself a few new goodies to use in the kitchen.  They were on sale at Tar-get.  I wanted a cast-iron griddle pan - but couldn't decide between a bigger square one that was flat on one side to make pancakes, or something like this.  Round and with griddle marks for chicken, fish, etc. that we tend to have. 

Alas, finding something on those end caps at Target with the bright orange "buy me now I'm marked way down" tags always trumps my initial plans. 

To the far right behind my cute make-up bag, there's a little 'Giada' goodie box.  It included a stainless steel set of an ice cream scoop, veggie peeler, pizza cutter, can opener, and silicone whisk - all for about $12!  Score!

 I don't remember what this beauty cost, but it was good. 

You can also see a packaged serrated knife - also Giada, also stainless steel (not on sale - but I did have a coupon and an extra 5% coupon on top of the Target RedCard 5% discount - so almost free...).  Anyways, the one I had was getting very dull.  I'd read its possible to sharpen this kind of knife - inlet by inlet - but it sounded super tedious.  I just want to be able to cut bread without fearing for my life (read: the safety of my hands.
Speaking of... my hands have never taken such a beating as they have since I started cooking more regularly.  Dry skin leads to more cracks, with an occasional slip of a dull knife. Owey.   

Finally - a nod to our efforts to be more green and reduce plastic - a new, large bamboo cutting board.  w00t!


All this to say, never go to Target with an "Oh I'm just browsing" mentality.  It always lands you...with lots of stuff you 'need'. :)