What's For Dinner?

That's not going to be a question anymore around here.

Typically, I'm scrambling between 3 and 4, trying to decide what we should have, if I thawed any meat yet and what we have going on for the evening. Not anymore.

I'm (along with a few like-minded friends) planning monthly menus for our household. And to be honest, though I initially was a tad bit skeptical, now that I did January I'm getting excited and thinking why didn't I do this years ago?

Tuesday evening was the first night of my 'planned monthly menu' and I thought it went really well and I was actually alot more relaxed about cooking and dinner simply because I had it all planned out already.

Sesame Ginger Pork Chops. And despite T's initial "eww" he ate them. Ok so maybe he doused it in ketchup, he still ate it.

Yes we had seating for six, since we had a special guest for dinner, my dad, of course.

Though we do a family sit down dinner just about every night, there is something about sitting in the dining room that makes it different and more deliberate family time. It also helps me to not use the dining room table as my catch-all.

We decided that we'll be sharing our monthly menus over at a new blog site. Please stop over to see not only my menu but other (more healthy, creative and delicious) menus too.

You'll notice right away that my menus are pretty basic and don't have any recipe links. (Well I suppose that is an understatement compared to my foodie friend Melissa. If only I could have captured my husbands look when he saw the other monthly menus. He's a tad bit jealous of their cooking.) But I'm hoping that over time, I too, get out of my very-small food comfort zone and try preparing new things, beyond the basics, and maybe enjoy it too. I've always been wary of not only new foods and recipes, but new kitchens, restaurants and whoever might be preparing my food. And again my husband might say this is an understatement, but I'm not going to elaborate or argue right now.

I'm just going to go with it and see how my kitchen skills change because for now at least I know I can prepare a killer apple pie.

And we all know that a dinner's not a dinner without dessert.