This is the chili that snagged me a man. Kind of. When I started dating my husband, I was so excited to have someone to cook for. Once, I told him I was making chili. He sounded disappointed. He said he didn't like chili. He loves this chili and it's not even a pity, "Dinner was good" sort of thing. He says we could have it every week and he'd be fine with it. We joke it's the chili that made him know I was the one. I started perfecting this recipe shortly after I graduated from college. I don't like chunks of onion or peppers so this recipe doesn't have any of that. You certainly can add that in if you're into that kind of thing. This is a great basic chili recipe that isn't too spicy. My husband likes it best served over pasta with cheese but we've also had it over rice, tater tots, hot dogs, French fries...the possibilities are endless. One note: I am a recipe skimper. When I see a recipe online and I see an ingredient I don...

One of the projects I've wanted to do since before I started this site was to teach people how to meal plan. There's TON of meal plans on Pinterest, but none of them fit every family's needs. Every family is different in their budget, tastes, time available, stores near them, and dietary needs. Over the next several months, I'm going to teach you a way to meal plan that focuses on your family first. Here's a little preview of what's to come: Part I: Making your master meal list Part I continued: My master meal list Part II: Finding your meal planning style Part II continued: Sample meal plan Part III: Making your shopping list You need a master meal list so that you remember all of the meals that work for your family. Eventually, you'll get to the point where meal planning is as easy as choosing meals off a master list! But it can take a bit to come up with and to refine the master meal list. Before you start, figure out your family's par...

Right around the time a more expensive chain bought out our favorite affordable grocery store nearby, an Aldi opened 20 minutes away. I gradually transitioned to shopping only at Aldi, and doing it every other week. With the driving distance, it doesn't make sense to me to take a chunk out of every weekend. This means some sacrifices. Aldi doesn't have everything. They don't have the name-brand of pasta sauce we love. I can't pin any recipe and buy the ingredients for it. I have to bag our own groceries. I go shopping at Aldi every other weekend with the goal of spending under $200 for everything except pet supplies and a small handful of personal care items and and cleaning supplies we get through Grove Collaborative (that order is about $15 every month or every other month). In between Aldi trips we often have to stop to stock up on bread, milk, eggs and the occasional item Aldi doesn't have. We buy diapers, wipes, trash bags, dishwasher detergent, toilet ...

I've been talking to a coworker about meal planning recently and her biggest issue is that she doesn't have enough time. When she gets home from work, she spends the evenings at sports practices with her kids. While I still have the relative luxury of a quiet few hours of home after work before my son goes to bed, I can sympathize with her. After all, I don't want to spend those precious few hours in the kitchen. My style of meal planning might be too much for someone who is used to getting a majority of their meals on the go, but here's some baby steps toward meal planning and prepping ahead of time to save time and money throughout the week. 1. Prep produce on the weekend. If you have older children, have a kitchen party for an hour each weekend and chop up salad ingredients, veggies for wraps, fruit for fruit salad and snacks, veggies for snacks, etc. 2. Boil, roast, or blanch some veggies ahead of time then refrigerate or freeze them so all you have to do i...

The Instant Pot is a kitchen gadget that seems too good to be true. It claims to be able to replace several other appliances and cook time consuming things like sweet potatoes in only a few minutes. It's not too good to be true. And for a working mom, it's a necessity. When I do the bulk of my cooking on the weekends, It's not unusual for me to use my Instant Pot four times each weekend day! If you're not an Instant Pot owner already, at the very basic level, it's an electric pressure cooker that also has a saute mode and a slow cooking mode. You can cook rice, hard-boiled eggs, pasta dishes, soup, a whole chicken in it and more. If that's not enough to convince you, maybe this recipe for chocolate peanut butter banana steel cut oats will. This recipe is my version I've perfected over a few months, using bits and pieces of other recipes. And of course, all of the ingredients can be found at Aldi. I add a little bit of sugar to it when the bananas are...

Going back to work after baby is a huge adjustment when you just went through an adjustment just a few weeks ago! You have a few precious hours to soak up your baby in the evening, during the witching hours nonetheless. What’s key to your survival is meals that are filling, simple, don’t require a lot of  prep time and can give you leftovers so you don’t have to worry about lunches. You’ve got enough to think about so I’ve done the work for you. Each meal should make enough for two people to have for dinner one night and leftovers for lunch the next day. Sunday : Chili. I have my favorite technique but I never measure spices or make it the same way twice. I just dump. This recipe is similar but you can easily adapt chili to add any veggies you like. I rotate between using ground turkey and ground beef. Serve it over pasta or rice with cheese and other toppings. No matter how hard we try to finish a whole pot on our own, we always have to throw a serving or two away. We ca...