Meal Planning on a Budget - Take 1

Meal planning. It seems simple enough. Find yummy food and cook it. So why is it such a complicated task?

I used to sit down once a month and dig through cooking magazines, food blogs, and a massive pile of cook books. I would scribble out recipes on a note pad, clip things from magazines, and bookmark a ton of links on my computer. Then I married a man who doesn't eat most foods and I had 2 babies back to back. I got out of the habit.

2018 is the time to get back on track and back on budget.

Homemade BBQ Ribs and Hasselback Potatoes

It's been a stressful weekend. Nothing has gone right. Not in my life. Not in my significant other's life.

I love to cook for people, he loves to eat. It works out well.

My dinner plans for the evening did not work out well. My mother made ribs the last time I was in Ohio. They were moist, tender and tasted like the generic bottle of barbecue sauce that she dumped on top of them. Not my ideal food but they were ok.

I set out on a mission to make my own, from scratch. Or at least as "from scratch" as possible. Making my own ketchup would have taken entirely too long. Although probably would have greatly improved my sauce.

An Italian Feast

I am part Italian. Therefore I like to feed people. I feel like my role in life is to feed people.

It makes boys happy. It makes coworkers happy. It makes me happy.

Buddy, The Cake Boss, is Italian. Now he is also The Kitchen Boss on TLC.

I watched a couple episodes. Buddy obviously does not count calories.

I am in love.

Real Italian food. Real butter. Real fat on the meat. All the stuff that makes food good. It's like seeing heaven.

I searched through his recipes on TLC's website.

I scribbled things down.

I really scribbled. On sticky notes. On Super Sticky Post-It Notes to be exact. These are harder to misplace. They stick around longer. (Lame pun, I know. Oh well.)

I have an addiction to sticky notes. They are handy, they don't take up a lot of space. I can fit them beside the touch pad on my laptop to write on them.

I have ambitions to organize my recipes. In a neat manner. One that doesn't use sticky notes.

I write down 3 or 4 recipes a week, sometimes more. I stuff everything into a folder if its good. If its not, I throw it out. I don't feel bad throwing out a small scrap of paper. I feel more wasteful trashing a whole sheet of paper with a recipe on it. So there are a lot of sticky notes in my folder. All of them are stuck together.

Yesterday, I went hunting for a brownie recipe. I made them almost a year ago. I looked through over 600 sticky notes to find the recipe. Oh my.

I'm working on organizing tomorrow. The end. I am not doing anything until at least 50 recipes are typed into my computer. And printed. And stuck into a binder. Into categories. So I can find them again. Easily.

But I digress.

My dinner, all recipes modified from Buddy Valastro, The Kitchen Boss.

Delicious!

For starters: Orzo Pasta Salad

Main Course: Sausage & Cheese Stuffed Chicken topped with Tomato Vinaigrette

Side Dish: Stuffed Eggplant

Dessert: Fried Zeppole