Katin joins gatheredtable

September 11, 2014September 12, 2014 Katin 4 Comments

I am excited to announce that I have joinedÂ the team at gatheredtable! This amazing company shares a similar mission and vision with katincooks – to get more people in the kitchen, preparing simple homemade meals for their family. And gatheredtable gets you one step closer by providing a weekly menu plan that is customized to you! Seriously, no two customers receive the same plan!

I urge you to check out gatheredtable today -Â they are offering a free 6-month membership for a limited time (a $60 value), so you need to act quickly!

It’s easy: just sign up, answer a few questions about your cooking preferences, and start receiving customized weekly menus full of tasty, tested recipes. You can even addÂ some of your family’s favorite recipes to your recipe library, and they’ll be added to your weekly menu rotation! With a web app and an iPhone/iPad app, you can edit your menu on the fly, and use the smart shopping list to stay organized at the grocery store (or even have your weekly groceries delivered – yah!)

While I plan to continue to post at katincooks about recipes, cooking and food in general, I have putÂ my meal planner tool on hold.

I couldn’t be happier to be joining the awesome team at gatheredtable. Hopefully you’ll come along with me!

The steps to making a plan

July 26, 2014September 11, 2014 Katin Leave a comment

Just make a plan, how hard can it be?

Well actually, it’s not as simple as it sounds. If you start with a blank sheet of paper and try to just write out your plan, you’ll likely find yourself short on inspiration and walk away with no plan and boatload of frustration.

When it comes to meal planning, it’s the same thing. You often need to be ushered through the planning process if you hope to come out the other side with a solid plan that you can stick to. Let me help!

Here are the steps to creating a weekly meal plan:

(more…)

Plan your snacks, too!

July 20, 2014 Katin Leave a comment

When making a plan for your weekly meals, do you plan snacks too?

I recently came across this great post from the kitchn that reminded me of one my favorite tricks to healthy snacking – always have snack foods prepped and on hand! And how are you to have the ingredients for those tasty snacks unless you add them to your weekly plan and shopping list?

You’ll notice on my “This Week’s Menu Template” a section for lunches and snacks. Fill it out and give it a try!

New printables section

July 12, 2014July 12, 2014 Katin Leave a comment

I’ve just added a new Printables section to the blog. To start, you’ll find two simple resources to help with your family’s food planning:

Weekly menu plan that you can hang on the fridge so your whole family knows what’s for dinner
Shopping list template thatÂ that’s organized by grocery department to save you time in the store

These are just a start! As you might imagine, these basic sheets will be some of the building blocks for the final meal planner. Over the coming weeks, I’ll explain more about how and why you should use them, collect feedback from you, and show how IÂ use them myself. So stay tuned forÂ tweaks and improvements.

Check it out!

Cooking for the season (CSA bounty)

June 26, 2014June 26, 2014 Katin 2 Comments

For the summer months, I am a member of my local CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) which means I get a weekly box of local, mostly-organic farm-fresh fruit, vegetables, eggs, bread and cheese.

While I love getting all of this wonderful produce, it can prove to be a challenge fitting these fresh ingredients into my meal plan. Especially since most of what I get in my “share” are ingredients I would usually not choose at the grocery store (like turnips, garlic scapes, and so much cabbage!!!)

So, I pickup my share on Thursdays, make a plan on Friday, pickup any remaining items I need on Saturday at the Farmer’s Market or the grocery store, then start cooking! So, a Thursday CSA share usually lasts me through the following Friday/Saturday.

The trickiest part of the whole thing is “making a plan” – it includes checking my pantry, searching for recipes, and making creative substitution so I can use all of the fresh ingredients.

Meal planning should be easy. Let me help.

June 23, 2014June 30, 2014 Katin

I’m building a set of tools to help take the challenge out of meal planning.

Once you stock your pantry with the right ingredients, grocery shopping will be a snap. Just replenish your pantry & buy 4-5 other ingredients per week. Youâ€™ll be able to make loads of recipes without seeking out the obscure (use-it-once then let-it-sit) ingredients. Heck, you might even save some money.

I’ll help you with every step of the process:

Build an affordable pantry, full of flexible ingredients
Select delicious recipes that have complementary fresh ingredients
Make a weekly plan that is both doable and family-friendly
Organize your shopping list to save you time and money in the store
Learn how to make substitutions while you cook, allowing you to customize for your preferences
Cut cooking time in half (or more!)

If you’d like to be notified when my Meal Planner is available, just add your name to the list.

Meal planning should be easy. Let me help.

Is this thing on?

June 21, 2014 Katin 2 Comments

I am happy to rejoin the world of personal blogging, as of… right now. katincooks.com unfortunately took a back burner to my work at Springpad, and even more to the arrival of my two sons.

But, now that Springpad is shutting down in just a few days (Learn more at http://springpad.com/blog) my online home will once again be katincooks.com. Over the coming weeks I’ll try to replace the now-defunct Springpad links in my old posts.

I’ve got some exciting stuff in the works and can’t wait to share it with all of you – so stay tuned.