Using what's in the pantry

Image via WikipediaOne of my goals for 2009 is to cut back on expenses. In doing this I am trying to cook at home more using what's in my pantry. Translation: more "home-cooked, made from scratch" meals instead of "pop-it-in-the-microwave/oven/
toaster-bam-it's done-type" meals.

Do you know how difficult this is?!? I actually have to PLAN MY MEALS! No more waiting until 5:00 to decide what we are going to eat at 6:00! Geez...what was I thinking?

Thank goodness there are helpful websites out there that I am relying on daily to lead me in the right direction in this new undertaking of mine. My prayer is that this WILL get easier as I continue to do it. I am actually thrilled that I haven't gone grocery shopping in a few weeks but we are not starving to death...and I am still managing to crank out healthy meals every night.

Here's some of my favorite websites I use for recipes...what are yours?
Supercook
AllRecipes
Betty Crocker
Meals For You

Oops, it's 5:20 - guess I better go figure out what to make for dinner tonight!

Eating in vs. Dining Out

I love going out to eat. We go out to eat a lot! In 2007 I kept track of where all of our money was spent (at least the money that was spent using Visa check cards/debit cards and the cash that had receipts turned in - dear husband still doesn't have the whole "turn all the receipts in" down pat yet so my record keeping is off a little bit.) Anyway, after running the end of the year report in the program I use I was astonished to find out that we spent close to $5000 last year just on dining out in restaurants or fast food joints! That works out to $400.00+ a month! That's a whole bunch of Happy Meals!!Needless to say, now that I have a year's worth of income/expenses to look at I can see where we need to "trim the excess spending" and this is the FIRST PLACE we are starting. So far in January of this year we spent $150.00 and in February we spent $250.00 (but we were out of town on that Marriage Retreat for a week too.) I am shooting for even less in March!

Last night I made this delicious homemade pizza crust that I "stole" from Monica's blog - The Full Table. My husband could eat pizza every night of the week and we generally order it from Pizza Hut at least once a week. I made two pizzas last night because Dakota had a friend spending the night so there would be 6 people eating - we all ate and had some leftover. My husband said this pizza was way DELICIOUS!!! I'll definitely be making it again!

I didn't have tomato sauce so I substituted this:
1 can of Italian style diced tomatoes on the boys pizza - since they don't like to "see" tomatoes I blended them up in the blender to make it into a sauce; then the toppings I put on theirs was ground turkey I had browned and plenty of cheese.
Garden style Ragu - spread parmesan cheese on the crust first, then small bit of Ragu, then fresh spinach leaves, fresh mushrooms, and topped it off with cheese.
Thanks Monica - it was great!!