So how does this work?

There will be two kinds of posts on this blog.

1) Recipes... Lots of recipes. If you have recipes you want to add drop me an email at leslieautumn@gmail.com and I will add you to the contributors of this blog. Then you can go and add your tried and true easy dinner recipes. The ones that your family may be sick of cause you do it all the time but; its good and it works. I will add mine as well.

2)The meal plan for the week. It will have 6 meals picked out for the week. A couple more time consuming ones, and a couple easy and quick ones. There will be some that work togethor. For instance, baked chicken one day, and then a chicken pot pie a couple nights later with the leftover chicken. Moves these meals around to work for your week and your schedule. They will have a link to each recipe.

Feel free to leave comments on recipes you try and like, or changes that make it easier, or yummier. Or just leave a comment to let us know your out there, and are joining us in our quest to make life simple.

I know I for one, am looking forward to trying some of your favorites.

Tips for Meal Planning

We all know the feeling, probably too well of running hard all day, only to eventually look up at the clock and panic. You haven't even thought of dinner.

I HATE that feeling. That is why early on in my marriage I began meal planning. I plan all my meals one day, and do all the shopping for the week.

This does several things for my family-

• Stops the nightly panic
• Saves us money, because we buy what we know for sure we are eating
• Saves us time, because we aren't stopping by the store for things that we "forgot" (well not always) and we aren't just roaming the grocery store aisles waiting on a divine idea...(been there)
• Saves us sanity, and trust me, I need all of that I can get.
• Stops you from having the same thing all the time.

So after emailing my weekly list to a few friends for the past couple months, I thought this blog would be easier and allow other people to utilize it.

Here are my tips to help you with meal planning-

• Make a habit out of cleaning out your fridge and straightening your pantry before you go. Take the list of meals, and as you write up your grocery list, clean up the fridge, throw scary things away, add to the list, what you need, and that way you won't duplicate stuff you already have. While your at it, grab a rag & wipe everything down, then when you get home from the store, its going into a clean fridge. This may sound daunting but trully 10 minutes max!
• Meals are flexible. Move around the more complicated meals to mellower nights, grab those quick & easy meals, for soccer games, bible studies, working late, etc. Make it work for you.
• If you don't like a meal, substitute it.
• Make a habit out of glancing at the list in the morning before you head out on your day. So you can lay out meat, marinate, if necessary. Start the crockpot, etc. Make a habit out of, giving it 5 minutes of your attention before you leave the house. It will save you from running out for fast food, or then standing with the pantry door open looking for an alternative.