..The Dabo's..

.ORGANIZE ME.

{Dinners}

The more kids we have and the older they get, we are coming to the realization that we can't eat out as much as we would like. I have always loved eating out. No preparation and no cleanup! But those eating out days are getting fewer and fewer. It's just getting very expensive.

So that means I have to cook. Which is fine for I have always liked cooking. The hardest part is the planning of the meals for sure. And I am still learning what works best for me. I would LOVE to only visit Harmon's twice a month but I can't figure that out yet. Especially when produce goes bad so quickly and I don't love to freeze meat. I like things fresh! So I am at the store on a weekly basis. These are some things that help me with meal planning:

-I ALWAYS have a list. I am a list maker with my whole life so of course I am the one at the store with the list, talking to herself, reading the list.

- Don't over buy. I guess it's different for every family but there are those days we order pizza, have date night, or things just come up. So I don't have 7 dinner's planned for the week. I do about 4, then the other 3 nights I wing it or those are the days we eat out (days of Costco shopping we always end up with polish dogs and churros). Otherwise food goes to waste.

-This is my favorite website for recipes:

www.allrecipes.com

This website has every recipe you can think of. Then they are rated. So only attempt the ones that have hundreds or thousands of ratings and they are all mostly 4.5 to 5 stars. So you know those are going to be good recipes. You can just search like enchiladas, then push best rated and you will get the best rated enchiladas. I don't like wasting my time or money on recipes that you have no idea if they are good or not. I also will look at what the people's comments are. They might of tried something a little different that you would like. Then you can save your recipe in your recipe box on the website. And this is all free.

-So when the time comes to make my grocery list I just go to the website press on my recipe box and write my list! It's so simple. Plus my family doesn't have to eat the same dinner over and over. All the recipes I have tried on the website have been great.

I hope this helps a little with dinners. It has me. And my family thanks me.

This recipe was one of the winners at our Ward chili/soup cook-off. Actually I am making it again tonight because we barely got any since it was gone so fast. It's way yum.

Baked Potato Soup