What's for Dinner?

I'm just now trying to get back into the swing of cooking real meals with real food after the strike I was on during/following this last pregnancy. My goal is to do this six times a week, but right now I'll settle for five. And when I say "real meals with real food" I mean very few shortcuts (processed)--preferably zero, but let's be realisitic. The few cookbooks I own tend to be loaded with shortcuts, and I just reorganized the Hoosier and left very little room for new cookbooks. So, that leaves me surfing for ideas...

There's tons of places for ideas, but this one appeals to me: Meals for You. One problem I've been having is the inability to make decisions; no time is this more evident than when I'm trying to plan meals. So, the folks at Meals for You have done the planning for me. At the top of the homepage, I just click "meals", select my "meal plan" on the left, and viola! a whole list of meals appears for me to browse. When I select a meal, I get the recipes for all the courses. I can add it to my "cookbook", add it to my "shopping list", etc....it's a miracle, I tell ya. (Yes, I know...sites like this have probably been around forever, but it's pretty new to me.) You can print them right there, but I had problems getting some of the meals on one page. So I copy and paste the recipes into a Word file and fix it so it all fits on one page, print it off, hole-punch and stick it in my kitchen binder. Genius, I know. Oh yeah--the coolest part is this: you pick the number of servings and the recipe automatically adjusts itself. Amazing.

This has been a great tool for me. I've done three meals this past week from the low-carb/low-sugar category and they've all been very good. The best was tonight's meal: Easy chicken with vegetables (delicious & VERY easy), Pasta with lemon butter (I used couscous), and Mediterranian corn salad (excellent!). Everything went so well together and it received our highest rating. (I should note that I'm not afraid to tweak recipes to my liking, and I have no issue with using real butter, salt and pepper.) I know a lot of husbands aren't usually game for trying out new fare too many times in one week, but when you've gone as long as Brewmaster without regular real-food meals, they'll be up for anything!