Last month I received a lot of flack from my dear friends for not posting recipes along with my monthly dinner menu post. Posting recipes is tricky because I’m certain to infringe on copyright laws if I post recipes from cookbooks that aren’t readily available online. For example, Biba Caggiano only publishes select recipes online but not all of her recipes.
Rather than fry my brain trying to figure out what or what not I’m allowed to post, I gathered recipes from my magazine subscriptions – Real Simple, Martha Stewart, Sunset, Bon Appetit and Better Homes & Gardens – that are posted online and inserted the recipe links on their website on our October menu. I haven’t made any of these recipes. I may tweak them as I go. If the day does not have a link, the specific recipe is either not available online or the plat du jour is too simple to require a recipe, so either find an online recipe or use your own recipe.
Despite my efforts in planning our dinner menus since we moved to Spokane, I have not stayed on track. I’m getting better and hope October proves to be a month of homecooked meals – except for the two nights when we know we’ll be dining out for fundraising and to get our pizza fix.
Magazines alone only provide recipes for five meals a week, I still haven’t figured out why. My super fabulous menu provides for seven dinners a week, with the most difficult recipes on weekends and easier, time saving recipes during the week. My formula is simple – one soup, one meatless, one fish, a pasta, two poultry, and one pork or beef. In addition to what’s listed on the menu, I always serve a vegetable and/or a salad. I try (TRY) to serve something each person likes and have emergency protein rations on hand in case someone goes sideways.
I hope your time spent with your family enjoying these delicious dinners is time well spent. Fall is in the crisp cool air and this month of dinners reflect our need for warm and hearty meals. Happy October!
After opening the October 2013 link, Copy and paste the recipe link into your browser, otherwise you may end up on some weird sites. Good luck!
multi-hyphenated-me 
Two words: ummmmmmm!! 😉