Recipes Ideas for Meal Planning

{Available at Amazon.com}

I've already told you why I love meal planning but I wanted to give you some additional tips that helped me especially when it comes to recipes.

Make a list of all the recipes you know how to cook. This was extremely helpful to me in the beginning. I made a list and cooked through all of those recipes one-by-one. Then, I started over. This also saved us from recipe burn out.

Use AllRecipes.com Ingredient Tool. This site is awesome. You can enter a list of ingredients you want and the ones you DON'T want. It will present you with a list of recipes which meet your criteria. This can be quite helpful for locating recipes that match up to the ingredients that are on sale this week.

Make it your own. I don't always follow a recipe to a T. Sometimes I make substitutions with ingredients I already have on hand or I leave out ingredients that my family is known to dislike. Often times, I find that I like my version better.

Keep a recipe box. Honestly, I just have a thing for recipe cards and cute little boxes. I also use my recipe cards to write down "my version" of recipes that I have seen in a cookbook or online.

Get a magazine subscription. Two of my favorites are Kraft Food & Family and Simple and Delicious. The Kraft cookbook that you get with the magazine is amazing. I started earmarking pages and realized I had done that with every single page! F&F also has coupons. Simple & Delicious has so many quick recipes and the middle of the magazine comes with convenient recipe cards.

Do a recipe book exchange. I know that I get worn out on my recipe books but I hate spending the money to buy new ones. Check with a friend and see if they would be interested in swapping recipe books for a while.

Make your own recipe book. I'm so excited that my MOPS group is doing a new recipe book this year. We are using Morris Press Cookbooks. It's so easy for everyone to enter their recipes online and the books are reasonably priced. This is also an awesome fundraiser opportunity that you could do with your organization.

I hope these ideas help you find some new and delicious recipes to try with your family. Remember, I will be posting some of my own favorite recipes in the near future.