Yesterday, I made lasagna for dinner, and to toot my own horn, it was pretty darn good. Lasagna is one of those foods I consider "risky." There are so many versions of it, from super simple to super complicated. I made one once where I had to make my own bechamel sauce. And I didn't even know what a bechamel sauce was. Hmmm... come to think of it, I still don't.
In any case, the lasagna was a hit! And of course, my pasta-loving daughter thought it was super yummy. We had leftovers for lunch today.
I would say that this version of lasagna was simple, but not overly so. Plus I changed it up a bit to make it a little healthier. I used chicken sausage instead of Italian sausage (also because we're not big fans of Italian sausage) and I used whole grain egg pasta instead of the typical pasta. No one was any the wiser to my changes, and it was enjoyed by all. I would share the recipe, but I got it off a proprietary site, so I'm not sure I can post it.
Speaking of eating and meals, like many households, we've had to really watch our budget around here. This means cutting back on the going-out-to-eat that we tend to do. A lot. So I've put on my apron and decided to cook more. But I'm terrible at meal planning and shopping for groceries, etc. I thought, surely someone can do this for me?!?!
Thanks to the age of the internet, THERE IS. I use a site called Relish! (www. relishrelish.com). It's so affordable and very flexible. The way it basically works is that you use their database of hundreds and hundreds of recipes to create a meal plan for your week, tell it how many people you'll be cooking for, and voila! It creates a shopping list for you. Here, I'll show you why I love this thing (click on each of these screen shots to see it larger and more readable):
A) This is the list of the new and featured recipes for the week. It gets updated every week, and the recipes are all added to the recipe archive if you want to look for them again any time later. I know it's kinda hard to see here, but each recipe is labeled with some initials after each one. They range from "LC - low calorie," "KF - kid friendly," "V - vegetarian" and "SG - simple gourmet," to name a few. It's a great at-a-glance to know what kind of recipe it is.
B) This is the column where you'll build your weekly (or bi-weekly, or however often you want do to it) menu to create your shopping list. You can add to this column from all the areas of the page. When you're done, click on "Create shopping list" and it will ask you how many people you're cooking for. Then click "Create weekly menu" and voila! There you have it. The shopping list automatically scales to the number of people you entered.
C) If there are particular recipes you've found to be especially liked, you can add them to your "Favorites" section here, and you'll always have easy, one-click access to put them on your weekly menu.
D) These are some additional menu options that are further sub-categorized, such as "budget friendly," "brunch & lunch," "crock pot" and more. These are updated every once in awhile, not weekly.
E) Now this feature I haven't tried yet, but it looks like you can even add your own recipes! Cool!!
F) Search function, so you can always find any recipe in their database that isn't immediately on this page.
If you're wondering what a recipe entails before you add it to your weekly menu, you can just click on it, and it will bring up a pop-up card of the recipe. You can even print out that recipe from here. (I blurred out some stuff because I wasn't sure I could share it -- yep, this is that proprietary site that I got my lasagna recipe from.)
And voila! Here's what your shopping list looks like. See? They even split all the items by grocery section! How cool is that?
I know you're thinking, this sounds expensive because it does so much stuff. But it's really not. You can pay monthly, quarterly or yearly. I'm not sure what the rates are for monthly and quarterly. I pay yearly, and it's $58.80. That's less than $5 per month!
I know I'm sounding like a cheesy infomercial, and you're now asking yourself "what's in it for Cathy?" Absolutely nothing. There's not even a "Refer a friend" program where I'll get stuff. I just wanted to share this totally useful website that I've been using. It's been working for the Fabers, so maybe it'll work for you.
Happy Eating!
Cheers,
