Dinners that Don't Require Recipes

If you are in charge of cooking or planning dinners at your house, you should have this page somewhere in your kitchen!  I keep mine in my dinner cooking notebook.

(If you missed my post on cooking notebooks, you can read more HERE.)

The purpose of this page is to keep track of all the dinner ideas that I don't use recipes for... basically the easy ones that I always forget about.


My list contains:

• Dinners that are so easy you couldn't possibly need a recipe for them (BLTs)
• Dinners that I've been making for so long that I don't even have a recipe for them (spaghetti) 
• Dinners that you don't need to follow a recipe to make because you can make them with any ingredients you want/have (wraps)  

When I'm planning the week's meals, this is the list I go to for days when I know that my husband and I will both be home late, since most of the ideas on here are either very easy, or very familiar and don't take too much effort to make.  I save the complicated or new recipes to try on days when I know I'll have a little more time.

If you want to make your own list, you can download the printable template HERE. 

Happy meal planning!

Easy Excel Address Book Template

I don't use an actual address "book."  What's the point?  People change their addresses all the time.  Instead, I have an excel spreadsheet saved on my desktop, titled, "address book."  It's really easy to change an address when someone moves, or to add more people whenever you want to.  It looks like this:

I have separate categories that fall under Her (that's me) Him (my husband) and Together for people that we've met together since being married.  I find that it keeps us more organized to have separate categories for his family and my family, his childhood friends and my childhood friends, etc. 

I also use my address book to keep track of things like party invitations and Christmas card mailings.  This template contains columns for 2014, 2015 and 2016.  I just go down all of my addresses and add a 1 next to every person that I want to send a Christmas card to (or invite to a party, etc.) 

At the bottom, you'll see a total, so that you know how many guests to expect, or how many cards you'll need.  The bonus is that every name and address is right there on the same document.  

Happy organizing!



DOWNLOAD THE ADDRESS BOOK TEMPLATE HERE.

Note: You will need to click to make a copy of this file in your own Google Drive. 

Super helpful wedding planning spreadsheets

I created these Excel documents when I was planning my wedding, and just thought I would share them with any future brides out there.  They were an organizational lifesaver for me!

Wedding Guest List Template

Click HERE to download the wedding guest list template.



















Use this template to keep track of all invited guests and their addresses.  The sheet will add up all of your totals for you.

I love this template because you can also use it to keep track of RSVPs, create a wedding shower or rehearsal dinner guest list, and any other sublist you may need to keep track of.  It's as easy as changing the category names.  Just click on the totals tab for an easy overview.

Wedding Budget Template

Click HERE to download the wedding budget template. 




Start with the estimator tab.  Identify your spending range by filling in the low budget and the high budget boxes.  Then adjust the percentages that you would like to spend on each category.  (Suggestions are given.)

Now move over the the budget tab.  Your spending goals for each general category will appear, and if you want to get more detailed, you can set goals for specific items.  Otherwise, just record expenses as you have them, and the sheet will add everything up for you to help you stay on track.  It's also easy to add or delete items as needed.

I know these templates both helped me a lot when I was planning my wedding.  I hope you find them just as useful!  Let me know how it's going.  Happy planning!

Cooking Notebooks

I work full-time.  So does my husband.  I'm also in grad school.  So is my husband.  When it comes to planning meals and cooking dinner, we don't have time to mess around looking through shelves full of cookbooks.

Which is great, because we don't have any shelves full of cookbooks.  Years ago, I decided that cookbooks were meant to be ripped apart page by page.  Really.  Every cookbook/cooking magazine I own will eventually be torn apart.  I keep the good recipes, and I throw away the ones I will never try.  The good ones get put into one of my four cooking notebooks:

These notebooks are full of page protectors and recipe card holders, so when I find a recipe that I like, no matter what format it's in, I can put it right into the notebook.  No copying recipes onto tiny cards.  Who has time for that?  Here are some of the recipe types you'll find in my notebooks:

I love that last picture because it shows a scrap of paper where a friend scribbled down a recipe for my husband one day.  I really don't rewrite anything- I just throw it in the notebook.  

I also don't put recipes into my notebooks until I've tried them at least once.  Every time I find some new recipes I would like to try, I stick them in the front pocket of the appropriate notebook.  I don't put them into the notebook until I know we like them.  And if something doesn't turn out well, the recipe goes in the trash.  Why bother keeping a recipe you're not going to use again?  :)

My dinner notebook has been especially helpful for planning meals.  When it's time to go grocery shopping, it's really easy to grab the notebook and page through it in order to choose dinners for the week.  It's great to know that my husband and I both like every recipe in there (unlike a regular cookbook.)


I hope I've given you some ideas to think about.  If you decide to make your own set of cooking notebooks, let me know how it turns out.  Happy organizing!