The New York Times Motherlode blog is running Dinner: The Boot Camp next week with Jenny Rosenstrach, author of the new book Dinner: The Playbook “A 30-Day Plan for Mastering the Art of the Family Meal”.
Here is the free shopping list and weekly dinner meal plan [pdf] for Sunday night 9/7 through Thursday night 9/12 (you get to go out on Friday). Just shop once on Saturday/Sunday, and the meals are meant to be easy-to-make and tasty. Check in the day after each meal on the Motherlode blog to share experiences.
Inspired by Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma, we’ve been trying to shift our eating our habits to the theory that as long as you make it yourself from scratch, it’s healthy enough and cheap enough. Think of “processing” as the middleman that shaves off quality (and replaces with salt and sugar) while increasing cost (have to make a profit, right?). Cut out the middleman.
Our overall goal is to cook ourselves using raw materials 5 days a week, eat “food-in-a-box” dinner once a week, and eat out (or take-out) from a restaurant once per week.
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You had me at “Sausages with Smashed White Beans and Spinach.” Nom!
You should check out SavingDinner.com! Leanne Ely offers weekly menus and shopping list subscriptions. We love the Crock Cooker menus, but have used others. You can get sample menus before you commit to a subscription to if they work for you. We’ve found that we save money, too. It’s amazing how much less you spend when you shop less often!
Thanks for the recommendation. I’m trying to build up enough recipes that we like in my head so we can whip something up based on what is on sale and seasonal at the store.
I just finished buying the groceries for this boot camp thing and am making the barley now. Never made barley at home before.
Note: Asparagus is needed for the salmon recipe but is not including in the shopping list at the bottom.
The first day’s recipe, chicken burrito bowls, was quite good. We’ll make it again. The shopping list didn’t include salsa however, which they recommended in the recipe.
We’re sort of following this as well this week, it’s a pretty good meal plan for a week, though as a family of two I don’t think we have some of the meal organizing difficulties that those with kids have. Will probably find out one of these days. Also, personally I would (and did) switch the Sunday & Monday dinners, fish should be eaten the day you buy it if at all possible (though 1 day after isn’t bad) and the burrito bowls make a better pairing with Monday Night Football, though we may be the only couple following this meal plan who weights that factor.