new widget: meal plans

you may notice i added a new widget to the blog, on the bottom right (i may move it up if it generates any formal interest). it's our meal plan for the upcoming weeks. i usually meal plan for two weeks at a time, based on what we have, what's going to be on sale, and what is currently striking our fancy. more often than not, we use recipes as guides and inspiration, knowing we can do better (not to be conceited or anything... just truthful). i've noted where the recipe is a loose inspiration - in these cases our finished dish will probably vary wildly from the given recipe, but be similar in concept. and just because i haven't noted a vegetable or starch in all of them means we'll be skipping them - it just means we'll make whatever sounds good that day, whatever we have on hand. it's important to note that while some things look more involved than one would necessarily tackle during the week, we occasionally do some prep beforehand (like cooking a giant batch of tomato sauce and freezing it to use in the months to come^*, or roasting a whole chicken on sunday so we can use the meat during the week, or cooking a braised dish the night before since they're so much better after a day anyways), and there are certain things we've already made and keep on hand (especially canned items like homemade pickles, cranberries with port, pickled red onions, and escabeche). that's just the way we roll around here.

i do this because i've had requests in the past for access to my meal plans, so hopefully this helps satisfy some curious folks. and i figured, we used to document nearly all new meals we did with pictures, recipes, and reviews, and i've dropped that business like a hot potato due to a complete and utter lack of time. it's hardly a complete view into how i menu plan, and won't reflect any of my cherished tips to menu planning and food shopping in general (such as buying seasonably, and planning based on sales, which i cannot possibly predict outside of the stores we actually shop at, and some of the prep and storage i mention above). if anything, i hope it provides inspiration, and a few rumblies in the tumblies.

now let's just see if i can keep up with it.



^{* um, yes, god may actually strike me down if i were to buy jarred tomato sauce. seriously. what is wrong with you people?}

she's crafty

my super friend danielle found this super cool menu magnet project, and me being me, said, "oooo, crafts AND food? awesome!" and of course, me being me, decided to make it way more complex than the original.

the gist of the project is to print out meal/food names and stick them onto magnets, so you can do a menu on your fridge. i thought to myself, wouldn't this be a perfect opportunity to create a learning tool for oliver? and thus decided to add pictures of each food item. and since our family cooks many and varied offerings, i had to print out roughly 200 different things. which meant buying magnets (instead of using extra ones, like the original project suggests). and i thought, well, printed paper glued onto craft paper won't possibly be strong enough to hold up... i better glue it onto foam board and then exacto knife all 200 pieces out.

yea, what was i thinking?!

it took me roughly forever to complete the project. but it turned out really cute, and oliver is pretty intrigued. mom had suggested she let me laminate my print outs, and while i initially thought they still wouldn't be strong enough, in retrospect, it probably would have been perfect. yet another lesson that one should always listen to their mothers. if you do this project, skip my steps 6, 7, & 8 and get thee to a laminating machine!

so here's what i did:
1) made a table in Word and typed out a bajillion food items
2) added pictures from the interwebz
3) printed and cut them out
4) glued them onto scrapbook paper
5) cut them out
6) glued them to foam board
7) cut them out, a la exacto knife
8) covered them in contact paper
9) glued a magnet on the back
10) had a beer

the result? a big mess of cute little food cards.



yea, i really wasn't exaggerating when i said 200. this basket is about 8" deep.



i also made a cute "what's for dinner?" header and the days of the week, so that you can organize and display on your fridge like so:



cute, right? now i just have to find the time to change them up every week. hmmm, i'm starting to think i didn't think this project through completely.

and to be completely honest, i'm still not 100% done. i have about 5 more cards i need to get onto foam board, but i ran out. and i also bought some neat white board paper, so i want to make some large magnets with that, so we can write our actual menus on them. but i'm going to take this time to revel in completing this much of the project, and it being actually usable.