Taste of Home, and meal planning

If you have been wondering why almost all of my recipes are from TOH...

No, they are not paying me to advertise for them. (Although, if someone from TOH is interested... lol)

I simply really like their cookbooks, so I have quite a few. TOH & Cooking for Two, which I think is made by the TOH people, are my favorites. They have easy, realistic recipes.

Because, contrary to what Olivia with says, I am not Martha Stewart. :)


Also, the big reason there are a lot of TOH recipes this month is due to the fact that I am trying monthly meal planning, and I mainly flipped through those magazines.
I normally do meal planning for a week at a time, but this month I tried to go for a whole month. I picked out what I thought would be enough meals (dinners) for the month, plus some sides, and some desserts. Week by week, as I am making my grocery list, I pick out the meals I want to use that week. It saves me quite a bit of time each week, although I have to admit I enjoy it either way. :)

Of course, the grocery list always includes the usual breakfast foods, and some misc items. I have been making things that aren't on the list for desserts & snacks, but I mainly created that for dinners. It's a good way to make sure that we stay within budget, we eat aren't eating junk all the time, and that I have the ingredients I need for dinner each week.

(The Happy Housewife has some great posts on meal planning... if you have never read her blog before, you should check it out!)


And, regardless of where I get a recipe originally or how much I've altered it, I have the original source in my Recipe Manager. So, give credit where credit is due. :)