Homemaking Organized Blog

Posts Tagged ‘menu planning’

It’s Anti-Procrastination Tuesday time. Time to get a hold of whatever task you need to tackle and tackle it! Just fight through and get it done.

For me it’s making a big ol’ menu plan. Not weekly, but monthly. We don’t eat out anymore due to food allergies (And if you stop eating out you’ll notice that eating out just isn’t the same if you try and do it again. The food doesn’t taste as good as homemade. You become more sensitive to any additives, etc.) so we really vary our dinner menus.

I’m also not one to stick to one source for recipe ideas. These are my main go to sources for meal ideas and recipes.

• Taste of Home (number one right now) (link to last night’s dinner)
• Saving Dinner (number two right now)
• America’s Test Kitchen (to ge the cooking method down right)
• The Web  (for that recipe I just can’t find).

When I’m being smart I put it all in my recipe software, Shop’NCook (Which I’m opening now because I forgot to add tonight’s dinner to it) because I can make a nice menu plan and keep track of how my family is eating. Then at the end of a month I have a whole month of good menu ideas and I don’t have to start from scratch again each week. Although that is sometimes fun it’s nicer, more efficient, money savvy, and a just a good idea to have a month to look at.

This is where I fail.  I’m severely delinquent in adding recipes to the software. Breakfast and dinner. One of my lingering projects has been to keep an accurate account of what we are eating. There are certain recipes we really like to revisit and if I would just keep track it would be a lot easier.

So my anti-procrastination is to add last night’s’ dinner to my software, make a note in my-to-do list to to do this each night. Make a print out in february.

This includes breakfast.

 

By the way click the button on top and Visit Amy at New Nostalgia for some great Anti-procrastination link ups.

 

 

Save from 10% to 50% on most everything at the Saving Dinner Shop this weekend (except Menu-Mailers, Clubs, and Gift Certificates).

 

If you’ve been wanting to try Saving Dinners delicious menu planning recipes now’s the time to pick up some at a savings.

Leanne has a deal going. Pick a coupon code…any code…and the savings will be anything from 10% off to %50 off but she’s not telling which coupon code is for which discount.

So go pack your Saving Dinner online shopping cart with the menus of your choice and enter any one of the following codes  to see how much you can save.

Coupon Codes:

turkey

gravy

stuffing

cranberry

hotrolls

Find Menus on…

Freezer Menus: Delicious recipes for the freezer using your chosen meat. In the 10 for the Freezer ebook pick Beef & Chicken, Chicken and Fish, or Chicken and Beef part two (Vol. 3). Much, much more.

Morphing Menus : These are now and later menus. Cook one now for dinner tonight and prepare another for the freezer.

Weight Loss : If you’re trying to lose weight  I highly recommend go the route of Leanne. There’s the Detoxing Plan, Losing it With Leanne, Gluten Free Volumes (plural), and so much more.

Ebooks

Find much more to tempt your palate at Saving Dinner

 

 

If you have been thinking about signing up for Plan to Eat and simplifying your cooking, shopping and life, but couldn’t justify the cost — this is a great time to start!

Save 50% OFF sale this weekend only (Friday 25th – Monday 28th) for all yearly subscriptions. That’s only $19 (or $1.58 a month) for a whole year!

It’s Christine Steendahl’s baby girl’s 3rd birthday!

In celebration she is having a birthday frenzy sale! And it starts RIGHT NOW!
(Here’s why it is called frenzy!)

She’s selling Lifetime Subscriptions to Menu Planning Central
Which sells for $199.97 every day.

Starting RIGHT NOW

The first 3 people who order can grab a lifetime membership for $30 (Saving $169.97)
The next 3 people who order get their lifetime membership for $35
The next 3 people who order get their lifetime membersihp for $40
The next 3 people who order get their lifetime membership for $45
Etc.
She will go on up – every 3 people who order will raise the price another $5
She will top off at 50% off – So Lifetime Memberships will be $100 once she has sold out of the other reduced rates.
The $100, 50% off rate will remain in effect through Monday.

To take advantage of this offer, visit here:
Menu Planning Central
Choose the Lifetime Option
Enter Coupon Code: frenzy3

If you’ve been looking for a good Menu Planning Software Shop’NCook 4 is here. Compatible with both Macintosh and Windows it’s the perfect supplement for your Menu Planning.

There are three versions depending upon your needs. In a nutshell here they are…

• Shop’NCook which will let you organize your recipes with nutritional analysis, and plan your grocery shopping list.
• Shop’NCook Menu which will let you organize your recipes with nutritional analysis, plan your menus, and pull together an organized shopping list
• Shop’NCook  Pro which will let you organize your recipes with nutritional analysis, plan your menus, pull together an organized shopping list AND do a cost analysis so you know what you are spending.

There is much more to each software program including the ability to add recipes VERY EASILY and send your shopping list to your phone or something which I haven’t quite mastered yet.

Find out more Shop’NCook Menu Planning Software

I’m getting sick of gardening. That being said I planted some chives and cabbage last week. Sigh! So maybe not that sick of it. It’s frustrating, aggravating and rewarding. The first vegetable ready to be picked makes you so giddy!

UPDATE: The tomatoes are taking FOREVER to turn red. We pulled a few in the house and let them ripen there. Black from Tulas. Very good. There are a few turning red on the vine. The Black from Tula and Amish Paste. The Golden’s are not doing so hot. The plants look horrible (I’ve been ruined by lovely gardening magazines) but they are still putting forth fruit.

Lately we’re going from temps in the 100′s to the 70′s. My garden is not happy. We’ve harvested a few cumbers too. Boothby’s Blonde. The corn is almost ready. It’s always swarming with wasps so I’m afraid to touch it. Some gardener I am.I’m not sure what is happening there.

We should be harvesting potatoes next week. My husband has been watering for me in the cool mornings. Kiss, kiss!

Anyway as we get ready to start up another school year it has come to my attention that the home arena is falling into major disorganization. I’ve been spending some time each day organizing various areas in the home.

1. Laundry
2. Filing
3. Home office in general
4. Meals

Today I’ll talk about the meals. Family dinner in particular.  My husband has been alternating his days off so he is home some days during the week. This means he really gets into the cooking and it throws my whole meal plan off. Besides after he cooks there are usually a few leftovers so cooking the next few nights is not really necessary.

Well this week things seem to have shifted a bit and I’d better get a handle on the evening meals or we’ll be eating cold cereal.

As far as pantry staples are I usually have those all together bit it’s the fresh stuff I’ve been lacking on.

My plan was to eat from the garden and we have a bit but we need teeny bit more variety.

So my husband took care of dinner last night but this morning I grabbed my Saving Dinner book and headed to the grocery store.

I’m starting with a summer menu and only using three of the five menus for the week.

We’ll have…

• Fish Romano
• Lemon Skillet Chicken with Rosemary and
• Warm Spinach Salad

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned in the past how much I like the Saving Dinner cookbook. Of all the menu plans, cookbooks etc this is the most used in our household.  I have two bookshelves full of cookbooks, a computer database and an online system I use but the Saving Dinner one is the best.

When I first purchased Saving Dinner my husband and I rated each recipe so we could know where we would want to adjust or even swap out if need be. We’ve only nixed about 3 in the whole book of 4 seasons worth of recipes.

As much as I like menu planning I can get lazy about it and having a cookbook handy without having to go the computer is great. There are four seasonal menus, 8 weeks worth of menus per season, your grocery lists and cooking tips.

AND! Leanne is revamping the book. You can preorder Amazon or Barnes and Nobles and the new version will have 4 weeks worth of freezer meals. You can also get an ebook version at Barnes and Nobles….Thanks a lot Leanne! (said sarcastically since I already have my copy).

Oh I guess this is sounding like a review….okay.

Saving Dinner YES! I love this cookbook.

The recipes are not difficult but if you are a complete novice at cooking Leanne also has Saving Dinner Basics: How to Cook Even If You Don’t Know How