Wednesday, January 9, 2008

What's 4 Dinner - 4 Quick Tips

This HAS to be my least favorite question. I think my DD calls me at least 4 times a week just to ask me this question before I get home from work.

My usual response is, I don't know. Now, this is not entirely true, I do try to shop for one week at a time and I never go to the grocery store without a list, or, at least, a general idea of what we need. This includes some rough form of what I am planning to make for the next week for that ever important evening meal.

One lifesaver in the past few weeks has been the FoodNetwork website. I like that I can do a search at the top of their page for parts (like I did one yesterday to use up some chicken thighs that I had on hand) and get a big list of recipes using those parts.

I also purchased a book a few weeks back called Saving Dinner: The Menus, Recipes and Shopping Lists to Bring Your Family Back to the Table by Leanne Ely that I find moderately helpful. Some of her recipes are a hit, and some are not. My family is very picky, so in all fairness, this is probably a really great recipe book, and you can go online and get actual shopping lists if you want to follow her weekly dinner plan. I don't, I pick and choose and then make my own list.

I also love Every Day with Rachel Ray for this as well. Each month she has a pull out section that gives you 7 recipes and then shopping lists for them. Again, because of my picky eaters I usually have to pick just a couple of recipes that we will try and not use the full planner, but every little bit does help.

And finally, a tool I found recently when searching for organization tips is a free little newsletter that comes everyday with a recipe. The Change Your Life Challenge is mostly about organization, but there are a few newsletters on this page, including The Daily Rush, which is the one that includes the daily recipe.

Got any great tips on where to find fun, easy, quick, and yummy dinner ideas?? Please share!

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