Recently I sat down and did full-scale meal planning for the upcoming week. It was quite ambitious given that the baby teeters between happy and fussy every night starting at 6, but it ended up working out just fine. Jim and I have arranged for ourselves a good after-work groove. He comes home, gets changed, and then happily receives the baby while I retreat into the kitchen to cook. And I'll tell you what, I have LOVED having this time to myself. LOVED it. It's almost as though I'm getting out of the house! It's just me, the stove top and some cathartic veggie chopping done with my own TWO hands. It's my new definition of freedom.
I have been getting Real Simple magazine for several years, and decided this year not to renew my subscription. My favorite part of the magazine has always been the food section and we've made some great meals (many of which I've posted here in the past- check out the "Featured Recipes" tab above). The rest of the magazine I have enjoyed- the organizing and fashion sections, or reviews on facial cleansers. But with baby has come a decreased interest in this season's hot nail polish colors, and I realize that I probably won't get to that "Easiest 10 minute pedicure YOU can do at home!" for some time. Hence I've said goodbye to my monthly Real Simple's, and instead opted for what I think is a good compromise. Real Simple has come out with a $5 food app called "No Time To Cook" for the iPhone, iPad, and Android, and I decided to give it a whirl. This led me to my successful week of meal planning, so I give it two thumbs up.
The app has a great layout that allows you to search through the types of meals you want (poultry, vegetarian, etc) and the amount of time you have to spend on cooking (20, 30, or 40 minutes). What I really found handy is that you can add recipes to a favorites list and a grocery list. The grocery list is divided by section in the grocery store. I found the meals I wanted for the week, added them to the grocery list, and then went onto Peapod.com to buy the ingredients. A nice feature of the list is the ability to check off the items you already have, so each time I added an item to my virtual grocery cart at Peapod I checked it off the list.
Some reviewers of the app have complained about the pop-up ads. Each time you open the app, a full page advertisement for Hillshire Farm sausage comes up, but there is an easy way to "X" out of it at the top of the screen. I agree that there shouldn't be those types of ads for a paid app, but I haven't found it to be super annoying.
One of our meals was this fantastic minestrone soup. It was incredibly yummy, and I'm usually not a fan of soups that are alllll vegetables. I gobbled this up!
And of course, this is what happens when Daddy comes home to hold the baby :-)
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