Back to Meal Planning

It has been so hot this summer that I haven't even wanted to think about cooking anything, much less planning out what to cook. We've been pretty much eating whatever we can throw on the grill, hamburgers, the occasional hot dog, chicken, pork chops, etc. It helps keep the house cool and the electric bill down, but it gets a little old after a while.

The last few days it has really cooled down. In fact, it was 48 degrees this morning when the kids walked out the door to catch the bus. So I've been getting back into the mood to start better meal planning and cooking something more than a hunk of meat and a side of fresh veggies. Coupled with this, I've been thinking about thinning out my cookbook/recipe mini collection. I don't really have that many books, only 13 :-) , but basically only use a couple recipes out of a couple books, the $5 Dinner Mom Cookbook being the exception. So my plan is to go through the rest of the books and mark recipes that look interesting and cook from a book a month. If a particular book has more recipes marked than I can use in a month, it's a keeper for now. If I find just a handful of recipes, I'll copy them and get rid of the book.

September I'll start with actually 2 books to cook from: From Grandma's Kitchen and Gifts for Giving, both Gooseberry Patch books. I didn't mark many recipes from either book, so we'll see if any are worth keeping. Of course, this weekend it is supposed to heat up again, with highs in the upper 80s and lower 90s, so I won't want to heat up the kitchen too much, but I am anxious to get cooking again.