If you’ve followed Dine & Dish for any length of time, it’s probably pretty obvious that I love the peace bullet journaling brings to me. In fact I wrote an entire blog post about how keeping a bullet journal in a simple Leuchtturm Notebook has been a great way to keep track of everything in my life. As a working mom of 4 and business owner with a traveling husband, there are a lot of irons in the fire at all times. This system is the only one I’ve managed to use and keep up with through the years.

As a self proclaimed planner addict, I’ve had my fair share of Erin Condren, Commit 30, Passion Planners, Happy Planners, Day Designers and more. I have a drawer full of barely used planners…purchased with the greatest of intentions. The perfectionist in my had a really hard time with the less flexible structure of traditional planners. If I’d miss a week or two, It would bother me too much to pick it up again with those blank pages. Every time I’d open it up, those blank pages screamed “failure” and I just couldn’t deal with it. The only traditional planner I’ve been able to stick with is the Nourished Planner – but I use that one solely for Dine & Dish stuff….

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Oh friends… I don’t know about you, but this time of year I just feel like money is seeping out of my bank account in giant floods. From holiday shopping, to donations here and there, to random household expenses, money just seems to get tighter and tighter.

Because of all the unexpected expenses, I try to really buckle down on planning our meals in December. There’s a cookbook I’ve been using that has helped me a ton, and I thought I’d share it with you! Good Cheap Eats by Jessica Fisher is full of delicious, budget friendly recipes as well as tips and tricks for getting the most bang for your buck when shopping and preparing food. …

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I have a lot of really talented friends. It’s made apparent to me as I browse the internet and see recipe after recipe, or beautiful photograph after beautiful photograph, by friends of mine. My mailbox each week is also a representation of how awesome my friends are. Several times a week I have cookbooks, beautiful cookbooks, delivered to my door. It amazes me to think how far some of these bloggers have come to create these stunning books! Although I know I don’t have it in me to write a cookbook, I have a ton of respect for anyone who does.

My friend Shawn, from I Wash You Dry, is one such friend. Her cookbook Express Lane Cooking  was released this summer and I’ve been cooking from it off and on ever since. The concept behind Express Lane Cooking is simple, yet brilliant. Basically, Shawn takes 5 ingredients and provides 3 delicious recipes using those 5 ingredients. …

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We are almost three weeks into our summer and we have probably had our best one yet. I was worried about not doing our Summer Bucket Lists this year because I know how much fun we have had the past three years checking things off, one by one. There is, however, a certain kind of freedom to not having a “list” hanging over my head to get done. Instead, our summer so far has been full of fun and spontaneity. It’s been full of me saying “yes” a whole heck of a lot and us deciding that day what we’re going to do. It’s been amazing and I’m loving it! (Hopefully you are following Dine & Dish on Instagram and seeing all of our fun shenanigans.)

I’m taking the same attitude with Dine & Dish this summer… not that I’ve ever had a real strict schedule or expectations for myself, but things around here are going to be more relaxed than normal. For the most part I’ve decided to take the work part of summer off. I, of course, have my favorite long term clients I’ll continue working with, but I’ve said no to taking on anything new and will just be posting what moves me, when it moves me. I am so excited to have this summer be one where I get back to my roots here on Dine & Dish and fall in love with doing this blog thing just for the pure joy of it… not because I have work obligations to fulfill. …

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Now, more than ever, it’s time for us to Reclaim the Kitchen. 

When I was a kid, eating out was a special and very rare affair. We ate together as a family most nights, created the meal together and cleaned up after dinner together. My siblings and I were involved in sports and other activities, but family mealtime – at home – was always a priority for my parents. We adjusted our schedules to make sure that eating out rarely happened and that we were all together as a family each night for dinner.

Did you know in 1900, as a society, we ate 98% of our meals in our homes? Today, it’s less than 50%. Times have certainly changed! This is why we believe it’s time to reclaim the kitchen. I’ve partnered with Wolf to help families put down the remote, avoid the drive-thru, and get back into their kitchens to cook and enjoy meals together. Watch this short video to learn what reclaiming the kitchen is all about.

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Can we talk about bologna? We can? Good. I have to get something off my chest. So…I love bologna.

Bologna seems to fall into 3 categories. 1 – people who love it. 2 – people who hate it. 3 – people who just want to ask you “do you know what part of the pig bologna comes from?”. For the record, I don’t want to know, but thank you.

I don’t love bologna in an eat it every day kind of way. I love bologna in a nostalgic, sandwich from my childhood on Wonder bread and American cheese kind of way. I remember specific events that happened in my life and when I think back I was often holding a smooshed bologna and cheese sandwich on white bread in my hands. We even had a fried bologna and cheese type sandwich on our school lunch menu. Can you imagine Michelle Obama allowing that now?…

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Man… I’ve had the hardest time getting back into the swing of cooking and blogging this year. That’s probably obvious by my lack of blog posts lately, isn’t it?

The problem is that unlike my slow start to 2014 with reading, I have already read so many great books this year! The kind that you don’t want to put down and just want to ignore life and read all the time. I haven’t been totally ignoring my family and reading… but I have ignored going to the grocery store and cooking and blogging for the most part and instead have been devouring these books! I’ll write a post about the books at the end of January, but if you are curious what they are…this book was a page turner. I couldn’t put it down! Along the same lines, I couldn’t wait to get to the end of this book so I could see how it unfolded.  This book was incredible and so well written, which shouldn’t surprise me since I love everything by this author. And this book…well, I listened to it on audio and loved the narrators and it kept me on the treadmill, even when I was tired of running. They were all so good!

So if you are looking for some really good books to start your year of reading off on the right foot, I highly recommend those ones. I’m so excited as I have a stack of books to get through that I think are going to be really great. So I may not be blogging, but I am doing my due part to read books so I can recommend them to you 🙂 You are welcome. …

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You know what I have a talent for? I have great skills at taking recipes that probably should be good for you and turning them into something not so much. Take this Saucy Chicken and Spinach recipe. The first time I made it my intention was to just do a simple baked chicken with tomatoes and spinach. Then the next time I decided that it needed a sauce of some sort, and of course, a cheesy sauce was absolutely what it needed. At least I didn’t take it one step further and suggest it be served over pasta…(which would be really, really good, not that I’m recommending that or anything).

This Saucy Chicken and Spinach recipe is not the best for you, but it has some healthy elements… so don’t give up on it! It’s a tasty addition to your weekly menu plan and one of those recipes at least the grownups in your house will love. (2 out of 4 of my kids loved it…and my husband and I both love it). I think you’ll love it too!…

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