First Post

I decided a few weeks ago that the frustration of trying to decide at 4 pm everyday what I was going to make for dinner was going to end. We were lucky enough to have gotten a very generous Giant Eagle card from one of my husband's clients for Christmas so I decided to plan a menu and do a huge stock up grocery trip to Giant Eagle.

I sat down and thought about some of our favorite meals and also decided to check out a new blog that I discovered through www.pittsburghmom.com It's called Menus that Save. I'm an extremely picky eater so I went through and picked out a few of them that sounded good and added them to the calendar. I left for the grocery store with my calendar, a list, my coupons and the car without car seats and seats folded down.

I spent two hours in the store and couldn't push the cart by the time I was done. It was overflowing but I had enough stuff for three weeks worth of dinners, about 2 weeks worth of lunches and 1-2 weeks of breakfasts easily.

It took two carts to get it all to the car and many trips up and down the cellar stairs when I got home. I will probably have to go shopping again next weekend when the menu I had planned ends. I already have the rest of February written in and most of March. I've gone through blogs, cookbooks and recipe websites to get ideas and have also fallen back on some of our favorites such as stuffed shells, homemade pizza and Old El Paso Enchilada Bake (which I could probably recreate and it would be much healthier but I figured I was entitled to a lazy meal now and then).

Several friends have asked me to post a blog with some of the recipes. As I said they are not my creations so I will provide links to the ones I've found online and will give references for the ones out of cookbooks (of which I have a ton).

I'd also love to hear what others are doing for dinner because we all love to try something new once in a while.