Meal Planning Made Easy: 7 Easy Dinners and a Printable Grocery List!

I don't always love iVillage, sometimes it's full of stuff that I just really don't care about.  I'm still subscribed to 20 of their different lists though.

(I have mentioned the 5,000 emails I get each day  haven't I?)

While sorting through my inbox this morning I stopped and saw an email with the title 22 Quick weekday meals for under $20.  Upon opening it though  there was this:

Supermarket Shopping 101: Read This Before You Hit the Grocery Store

Then..... Then.... 

there was this:

Click here for a week's worth of dinner recipes and a printable shopping list!

While I don't always like to go by someone else's meal plan.. suggestions are always a plus, when it comes along with a grocery shopping list it makes it 90% more likely I will take more of these suggestions.

I almost always try to make a shopping list, because otherwise I buy a bunch of stuff and then I'm stuck with mismatched meals or I'm forgetting necessary ingredients for things I wanted to make.

I've been getting better at this, I've been good at sticking to my food budget and nobody has gone hungry yet :)

One of the most versatile gadgets in my kitchen...

Months ago I was musing to my guy that I needed to get myself a new George Foreman grill.  I had tossed mine right before my last move.  I used it so often it finally crapped out on me and I hadn't gotten around to getting another one.  Well,  low and behold he said "Oh, I have one, I never use it... you can have it!"  So, of course I accepted.  Since then he's made no mistake of saying it's one of the best gifts he's given me.

Seriously, it's great.  I use it a few times a week.  The kid even uses it to make grilled cheese.

I started out with the usual, grilled chicken, burgers, the occasional steak.  Then one night I was tired and hungry and just generally not in the mood to cook (it happens).  Granted, the kid is now seventeen and he is more than capable of cooking for himself, but I see it as my mom duty to make dinner every night. That's when I discovered you can make Grilled cheese on the Foreman grill.  From there it went to Quesadillas,  burritos, and my latest discovery... flatbreads.

Oh yeah.  make up a batch of pizza dough and after it's risen separate it into a few pieces. stretch them out a bit and slap that baby on the grill... Mmmmm, bread. (I LOVE BREAD!)  Sandwiches, pannini's   pizza... with or without grilled meat or veggies... there's no end to the deliciousness.

Next  up.. I need a Belgian waffle iron ;)

Lets do a little blog hopping, shall we?

Getting back on a food budget

I wrote a post the other day about how I'm spending an unbelievable amount on groceries lately and how I need to get "back on the wagon".

Weeks ago I signed up with Jessica @Allshecooks.com and actually have been signed up with her 52 weeks of no repeat dinners since the beginning.  I don't know How I found it, but I'm glad I did and it has helped get me back on track, but the problem with going off someone else's menu is you don't always like the choices or you have allergies or whatever the case may be.  This week's menu  had shrimp, I'm allergic so I kinda poo pooed the whole menu she had up this week without bothering to check the rest.  I know that's bad and I have a tendency of checking out once something fails to appeal to me (I'm sure the kid would have liked it, but I can't even handle shrimp to cook it).

Anyway.... Being the girl on a mission that I am and getting nothing but frustrated by google I went to where I should have gone in the first place...

Pinterest  

Search Pinterest for Budget Friendly meals and HOLY COW!! There was a Ton of stuff!  I made up a board of budget friendly meals and there are meal plans and recipes and So many things (can you tell I'm excited about this?)  I'm still adding things to it and before making a grocery list this week I'm gonna pick seven recipes and go with it.   There are SO many other people in the same situation that I'm in.  We've all gotta eat, some of us have giant teenage boys to feed (and seriously, where does all that food go?) Most have more than one kid to feed.

It's not easy to stick to a food budget but with a little planning it's a LOT easier :)

It's really HOT!! Lets cool down with some ice cream :)

I get an insane amount of emails daily.I'm really trying better to get through these emails daily... or at least a few times a week.  I came across an email from cookingchannel.com last week and flagged it to keep it on the list of stuff I need to read.

I finally got around to reading it on Sunday night when I sat down to get through the mass of email in my inbox and make an effort to get the number of unread emails to under 1,000.  (Yeah, you read that right)

We're having an incredibly hot week, the longest heatwave since 2002.  By 9am it was already 91° outside my office (now it says 97°).  It’s too hot to cook, it’s too hot to eat.. It’s almost too hot to even be outside for any amount of time.  The Kid hasn't been to the park all week.  It’s just too hot.

So... back to this email with the recipes.  It was Their best summer and grilling recipes so I clicked through and stopped at the recipe for Cornstarch Ice Cream.

I have an ice cream maker, I use it maybe 3-4 times a year.  I can’t seem to get the hang of making ice cream.  I don't like to use full fat milk and heavy cream, it always melts too fast and it always rock hard when I take it out of my freezer. This seemed like a very different approach instead of custard ice cream (which, admittedly is wonderful, but Sooo fattening and I've been so good at eating healthy and not just losing the weight that I battled with for years but keeping it off too.)

Okay, so Cornstarch... I have that on hand and I grabbed a quart of light cream at the store, I can do this.

And so I did.

And...

It was WONDERFUL!

I was a little hesitant while cooking it up, it looked a little... gloopy? Gluey?

I left it to cool for a bit and then set up the ice cream maker (I have a cuisinart with the freezer bowl that I always keep handy in the freezer) and churned it for 30 minutes, put it into a covered container and sat it in the freezer overnight.

I like it, the kid liked it.  I followed the recipe exactly with the vanilla bean and all and I'd like to try it again with cherries and almond extract.  Being a base recipe, just about anything can be added to this.

Cornstarch Ice Cream