Surrounded by countless back issues of Gourmet (rest it’s soul!), Food & Wine, Bon Appétit and Cook’s Illustrated, and armed with a sharp knife and a three hole punch, I began pouring over the pages, carefully slicing out the recipes that peaked my interest and inserting them into a massive 3-ring binder. I organized mine by publication (sub categorized by date), and cut out the cover and table of contents for quick reference. I could almost hear my husband's sigh of relief as the number of massacared magazines began to grow in the recycling bin, and I admit that I took a lot of enjoyment out of organizing all of the recipes and ideas into one conscise location as opposed to an endless search through towers of dusty back issues. Tonight I am planning on going through and flagging the recipes I would like to try right off the bat so that I don’t have to rifle through to make a shopping list.
A catalyst for this project came from a discussion my husband and I had earlier in the day as we sat down to take a hard look at our finances- a chore that is never fun- and realized that we are spending too much. This is primarily a result of not really thinking about our spending, and getting carried away in our new city and wanting to experience the most of it. Before I was hired on at my new job, I was extremely cautious (if not obsessed!) in regards to not spending money, and I think that once I became employed, I went a little far over to the other side, and have since realized that I had lost my focus. In an effort to curb some of our frivolous spending, we have taken our joint credit card out of our wallets and vowed to only pay cash (or use debit cards) to make purchases, and cut out all unnecessary spending, focusing that money instead on knocking out our credit card balance. This is not to say that we are going to give up all spending, but rather re-focus where we were spending our money to better plan for our future. As a part of that, we are challenging ourselves to eat in as much as possible. It is something we have always done in the past, especially when finances are tight, and a practice we both enjoy. Upon both becoming employed, we were excited to go out and try our new city’s restaurants (and there are a good deal of fantastic restaurants in Newport!) and bars without really thinking about how much we were spending. Once we looked at the breakdown of where our money was going, we were quite surprised, to say the least!
So with our new spending plan in hand, I have decided to take up home menu planning, a tool I have seen a lot of other bloggers use. I think it will be a great way to not only go through my freshly created magazine recipe binder, but also streamline our grocery shopping to be more time and cost effective. I will be the first to admit that I am guilty of wandering the aisles of the market aimlessly; picking out various items that look enticing and tossing them into the cart. I really do love taking “found” ingredients, getting them home and playing around with them, so I want to make sure that there is plenty of room to let creativity flow. On the flip side, I also want to ensure that we are getting the most bang for our buck at the store, and also make sure that we aren’t wasting any of our food and using our pantry staples to the best of their ability. The local farmer’s markets are just starting to wake up from the long winter around here, and I’m also looking forward to implementing lots of local fresh produce into our diet- a great way to fuel creativity and support the local economy. As a direct result of all of this menu planning/recipe collecting/at home eating plan, I forsee a lot of posts in the upcoming weeks, and I am really excited to share all of the new dishes and ideas along the way!
After our big financial talk and diving into the recipe book project, it goes without saying that we both needed a little culinary therapy, so we headed off to Anthony’s Seafood Market to pick up some salmon to try our hand at making salmon sausages. We had a lot of fun (and a little frustration!) in our first go at using collagen casings, but in the end I think we ended up with some wonderful sausages that I plan on cooking up tonight, and will be posting on soon. There really is something to be said for diving into a kitchen project after a big day, and sausage making was the perfect thing to do on a breezy Sunday.
So keep your eyes open for new posts regarding weekly menu planning, savvy wallet friendly recipes and first attempt meals inspired by my fancy new magazine cook book. Happy Monday all, and happy eating!
I've been using the same binder system (one binder per magazine, organized by date, with saved recipes checked off on the recipe indexes, which are kept at the front of the binder) and menu planning for almost seven years. Not only does it save you tons of money, but it makes you an even better recipe selector because you have to think through which recipes you want to keep, why and when you might use them. I swear by it! I hope it works for you too! And, yes, I know I'm a bit compulsive. ;-)
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