Yes, you are about to get two posts in one day. You're welcome :) There is a reason for this though. As you all know I am very passionate about good homemade food and believe that everyone has time to eat a healthy fresh meal at home it just takes a little time and a little planning. I know, time and planning, two things that are hard to find so here is where I come in and help you. I always have friends who tell me how they wish they could cook at home but they don't have the time or the talent and on the other hand I often have friends who have both the time and the talent but lack the recipes. Awhile back after a friend asked if I would send her some recipes I took it one step farther and planned out an entire week of easy, healthy meals for her. I wrote the recipes out and made a grocery list for her and it was a big hit. I've since been asked by other people if they too could be included in these emails and since I'm more than happy to share and help anyone who is interested in home cooked easy meals I figured I'd just go ahead and put it on my blog so it could be shared with anyone who was interested. I'm definitely a more the merrier kind of person.
So here is how it's going to work:
1. Each Friday I will post on my blog five easy dinner recipes along with the coordinating shopping list. I'm a fresh food kind of girl so don't be surprised if you follow this and your fridge goes from full on day one to empty by the end of the week. That's good, that means you have successfully cooked fresh meals and haven't let things go to waste.
2. I will say that I consider myself a flexitarian, I eat meat but it's definitely not the most dominating part of my diet so you will see lots of salads, pastas and fish on these menus.
3. I am only going to think out enough meals for five days and the reason for this is that in our busy lives I doubt that anyone can honestly say that they eat dinner at home seven nights a week. Especially when two of those nights are weekend nights.
4. I am only going to put dinner recipes on the blog however most of the dinner recipes I make I have enough leftovers to recycle and use for lunch sometime that week.
5. This list will not include other important items like snacks and fruit but if you have any questions about my favorites or would like suggestions I'd be happy to provide that.
6. I will not be putting this on the list each week but it should go without saying that you can never have enough rolls so always be sure to pick up some rolls to go with your meal.
7. I do most of my shopping at a Farmer's market, what we call Eastern Market (which has a butcher, fish stand and poultry stand) and at Trader Joes. I loathe all big box grocery stores and rarely set foot in them. It's important to remember that your food is only as good as the ingredients that you put in them so if you have time I would encourage you to go to your local farmer's market, butcher, poultry person and if I lived in Europe or NYC I would expand that to include local deli's, bakery's etc. I do not have those luxuries here in DC and I'm sure others don't even have the luxuries that I do have like a local butcher etc. so just do the best you can keeping in mind, the fresher, the better - food is not the place you want to cut costs in your budget and eating in is always cheaper than eating out.
8. Unless otherwise noted the recipes will generally be a good portion for two people with some leftovers that can be reused. It will be this way because most of the people I know are only cooking for one or two people so why would they want a recipe for four? If you are just cooking for yourself and don't want any leftovers just half the recipe and the required amounts on the grocery list. I like to eat leftovers for lunch the next day so even if I'm just cooking for me I usually cook enough for two.
If you're wondering why I'm posting this today and not tomorrow the answer is because I thought I'd get the questions and formalities out of the way so that tomorrow's post can be a clean post that only has to do with the grocery list and recipes.
I'm always happy to hear suggestions or thoughts so if you think of something that could make this weekly update more helpful please don't hesitate to let me know. The first grocery list will be posted tomorrow.
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