In the Kitchen: Menu Planning, Spice Organization, and a New Recipe

Having some type of a menu plan especially helps me to be more consistent with cooking for just the two of us. Of course, it definitely helps when cooking for a crowd, but I need it just as much for a meal for two. 

The photo above shows the menu planner that I am using this year; sitting on my kitchen counter, ready and handy to refer to. The photo above was taken on Feb. 13, with the recipe written in for that day - a delicious new recipe I tried. We loved the Creamy Tomato and Spinach Tortellini Soup we had that evening. 

On the post-it notes you see the other two recipes that I had selected to use that week for main dishes. I made Teriyaki Salmon the next day (Valentine's Day!), a favorite of my hubby's. We love that recipe!

I like to be flexible with my menu plans, usually waiting to fill in the daily squares as I go through the week. But having the recipes picked out ahead of time helps so much, also gives me the time needed to shop for the groceries. And I like the flexibility of using the post-it notes. 

And on the additional days of the week when I am not preparing one of the recipes that I have picked out to use, you will most likely find us heating up a homemade freezer meal. I usually have a ready supply of those on hand in our extra upright freezer. This happens naturally as I continue to prepare my recipes as they are originally written, even though there are just two of us at home now. Instead of down-sizing them for just two of us, sometimes I will even double the original recipe so that I will have a number of freezer meals - for us, and also to share.

Last month we gave our kitchen a little new year gift! Our spice collection was becoming a bit of a mess. So many spices, and it was becoming a challenge to quickly find the ones that a recipe called for! 

So it was the right time to purchase some new spice racks, and also some new spice jars! I used my label maker to make the labels that you see on the jars. The round labels on top came with the purchased jars. Why did I wait so long to do this?! Click to see the spice racks (I purchased two of these), and the spice jars that I purchased from Amazon. And click for the label maker that I purchased a few years ago, and that I use often!

And back to that new recipe that I tried out mid-February ... here's a photo of it! I put several meals of it in the freezer, and yesterday we pulled out one of those freezer meals to use. It was just as delicious after being frozen, thawed, and heated up in the microwave as when I made it fresh earlier this month. Click here for the recipe: Creamy Tomato and Spinach Tortellini Soup.

(A few changes I made to the recipe: I doubled the recipe, and also substituted 1 can of crushed tomatoes for 1 of the cans of diced tomatoes ... also used chicken broth instead of vegetable broth. I chose to freeze it with the tortellini already added to it - instead of how the recipe describes doing it. The recipe also suggests adding cooked sausage to it, which also would be delicious!)