I've been working a lot harder at planning meals ahead of time, more so now that I have started participating in Orgjunkie.com's Menu Planning Monday. It has motivated me to hunt down good AND practical recipes that will stick to the mission but still please the palates of my finicky boys.
I have some cookbooks at home, but what I find is that many of the recipes are either completely impractical (too many non-standard ingredients) or too complicated (if it takes more than 30 minutes to prepare, I probably don't have time!), or too involved (the cost per meal would be WAY off my scale). The internet has become my best friend in this adventure - between other posters and recipe websites, I've easily been able to fill that gap!
I started a 3-ring binder for recipes I find along the way - the computer is no replacement for a recipe on paper. I like to make notes on my adjustments and additions to recipes, and seeing the occasional splatter on the page lets me know where the family favorites are. And with so many great resources available, I know my printer will be working overtime filling that recipe book!
I would highly recommend checking out the MANY participants in MPM (here is the most recent post) as many post recipes - you can rest assured these are tested by REAL moms
Some of my other fave sites:
Cooks.com - The recipes posted here fit nearly flawlessly into my frugal mindset...they are basic, but simple and inexpensive...and they serve as fantastic base recipes so that you can add stuff and make your own masterpieces!
$5 Dinners - She's new to the blogging scene but already a fast fave of mine. Who doesn't love a recipe that feeds everyone for the same price as a Big Mac meal? Check out her post on portion distortion..
A Year of CrockPotting - One woman who resolved to use her crockpot every day for a year! There's a wealth of recipes, including over 200 that are gluten-free! I like having a resource for the days when I know I won't have time to prepare dinner after work.
Allrecipes.com - Another of my go-to sites. Recipes are rated by users (there are usually great suggestions in the comments), and they have a great search-by-ingredient tool - I've used this to find recipes based on what's on sale in the store flyer and get ideas for menus!
Supercook.com - I just found this one recently - it lets you enter as many ingredients as you have on hand (from meat to veggies to staples and spices), and will spit out as many recipes as it can find including any combination of your ingredients on hand. What I LOVE is that the top of the list is any recipes you can make without needing ANY other ingredients. I entered 12 items I had on hand at home, and there were 94 recipes I could make now!
Leave a comment and share your best go-to sites and favorite cookbooks!
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8.26.2008
Recipes for success
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2 comments:
Thanks for the sites to check out. I don't have any to recommend because I never do anything creative with food, but I need simple, cheap recipes myself. Like you said, otherwise, I won't cook them!
I feel the same way about a lot of the cookbooks. They sound good until you look at the ingrediant list and realize you'd be better off just falling on an old favorite than trying out something new. I'll definitely have to check out the $5 dinner blog.
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