Day 5 of the challenge is to share a blog of one of your blogger friends! Seeing as how I am still very new to this whole blogging thing — I didn’t even know I could make blogger friends!! — I was pretty excited about this one

My friend Nikki writes the coolest blog. She’s just a super cool person in general I “met” Nikki almost two years ago (wow that long already!) when we were planning our weddings. I had joined theknot.com and got linked up with other “month” brides. At the time, we were planning a July 14, 2012 wedding. So was Nikki. Even after we had to change our date (to September 1) I stayed in the July group. It had been a whole year of getting to know the girls, and helping each other out. Those girls were my family

She writes about weight loss, being healthy, being a newlywed, sharing recipes and all in the best “writing” voice. She cracks me up and I always look forward to her new posts.

So please, go and check out her blog! Oh and tell her I sent you

I love to cook. One of my favorite things to do is (obviously) search Pinterest for new and yummy recipes to try. (OK, seriously, what did we ever do before Pinterest??) I’m a firm believer that if you can read and follow directions, you can cook.

My problem lies in the fact that I never want to make the same thing twice. I’m actually quite weird when it comes to that. (I also dislike wearing the same thing twice, but that’s a whole other topic.) Anyway, I am constantly on a hunt for new recipes. And every day around 4pm panic sets in that I still don’t know what I’m making for dinner. So in an effort to stop this vicious cycle, I’ve decided to change this. I’m going to become one of those nutjobs smart women, that actually plans out our meals a month in advance. I’m hoping this solves my constant “what’s for dinner?” dilemma and will save me time prepping and time grocery shopping. Sometimes I’m at the grocery store three-four times a week. It’s insane.

My goal is five categories: Mexican, Asian, American, Italian and Wildcard. Then sides, preferably a starch and a veggie. We eat no bread and very little pasta now that we are a gluten-free family! This means that I technically need 5-6 recipes in each category, so we can swap them out and not eat the same thing every single week.

American
Steak/Beef Tips
Meatloaf
Shepherd’s Pie
Pulled Chicken/Pork
Pot Roast
Chili

Italian
Lasagna
Chicken Parm
Chicken Piccata
Pizza

Wildcard
Buffalo chicken
Chicken cutlets
Grilled Chicken
Meatballs — with marinara or gravy
Crockpot chicken and broccoli
Garlic and lemon chicken
Crockpot Greek Chicken Salad

Asian
Chicken or Tukey stirfry
Orange Chicken
Beef and Broccoli
Crockpot sweet and sour chicken
Crockpot honey sesame chicken
Bacon wrapped chicken with rosemary

Mexican
Fajitas
Chicken/Beef tacos
Chipotle Chicken Salad
Enchiladas

Seasonal: steaks, burgers
Soups: crockpot potato, hamburger, bean & sausage, chicken noodle, broccoli cheddar

Sides
Oven roated potatoes
No-fry fries
mashed potatoes
baked potato
Rice/Risotto
Broccoli&Cheese balls

Veggies
oven roasted brussels sprouts
oven roasted broccoli
steamed/sauteed green beans
steamed/roasted carrots
salad
roasted zucchini

I put all our meals into a spreadsheet and sent it over to Keith and he was shocked at how huge the list was! We’ll leave one night a week open for eating out (since we really love going out to eat, and it gives me a cooking break!) but the rest of the week we’re going to try to stick to this! My goal is to make enough for me to bring to lunch the next day, and saving even more $$ on not-eating-out ALL week long.

I’m hoping that several of these meals can be made ahead of time and frozen, so I can just throw them in the crockpot in the morning and not have to worry about dinner

My new motto in life is simplify, simplify, simplify. I’m looking for ways to save time, save money and make my day less stressful!

If you have any ideas for me, or want my recipe breakdown, leave me a comment! As always, thanks for stopping by!