back to menu planning

this is not the jam I made today, but strawberry jam I made last winter!

We are back to planning our dinner menus. Not because we are incredibly busy or because of budgeting, per se, but because it helps me keep my sanity! There is no second guessing what's for dinner or running to the store at the last minute. I know exactly what we're having and I have plenty of time to get to the store if we discover we're low or out of an ingredient.

Today, I stumbled upon a blog that I automatically fell in love with. She offers everything that I look for in a good read. I found myself going over many of her posts thoroughly and wanting to highlight, write down, save, print, and reread again! Lindsay's Passionate Homemaking helped me make the decision to make freezer jam with my raspberries today. She gave me the extra bump that I needed to get back into menu planning. There is so much more on her site, and I can't wait to sit down and dig in further. I'm looking forward to trying out some of her many recipes that she has too! Thank you Lindsay!

I have decided to keep my menus on Google Calendar. If you haven't tried this feature it is worth checking out. While I used to use Microsoft Outlook for most of email, scheduling, and sharing information with my husband. We no longer use MS Windows applications and have really enjoyed the change over to the Google products. I figured since we share our calendars already, why not add our dinner menus to it as well. I'm sure I can play with it more, my menu looks pretty crude compared to others that I've seen online, but it's MINE! We will see how it works starting next week- that's when we start our new planned menus. I'm expecting a lot less of the "what's for dinner babe?".


I will post next week's menu, tomorrow night. The kids loved the idea of theme nights for dinners, (thanks again Lindsay!)so I need to adapt our menus to coordinate with the themes.

If you're interested in the recipe for freezer jam. I altered it a bit for what I had on hand. Instead of juice from lemons, I used limes and I used honey for the sweetner. I can't wait to have some tomorrow on my toast!