Juicy, distinctively fragrant and citrusy-tart lemons, when added to your favorite desserts, heighten their swooning sweetness. The potently flavored lemon peel punctuates cakes and quickbreads, the lively fresh-squeezed lemon juice enhances the natural sweetness of pies and crumbles, and the unmistakable aromatic lemony scent infuses every dish containing this bright yellow citrus. In addition, lemons adds vitamin C to your treats.

How to juice a lemon

No store-bought lemon concentrate or lemon juice can beat the invigorating flavor and essence of freshly squeezed lemon juice. Fresh squeezing your own lemons is near effortless and a fun activity to teach your kids.

Always start with room temperature or warm lemons because they juice easier. Squeeze the lemons on the counter, rolling them back and forth to break up the membranes to more easily release the juice.

Lemon wedges: An easy way to add a little lemony flavor to food and drink is to cut a lemon into wedges and use your fingers to squeeze out the juice - be sure you catch any seeds that try to escape.

Whole lemons: However, for recipes requiring more than a squeeze, you will get more juice much quicker if you juice whole lemons (otherwise you will be squeezing wedges all day!).

The fork method: To juice a whole lemon, you can simply stick a fork deep into the flesh and, while wiggling with fork back and forth, squeeze the lemon with your other hand, letting the juice drip into a bowl. This method is great for keeping seeds inside the lemon instead of in your juice.

The juicer method: Alternatively, you can use an orange or citrus juicer - a bowl with a long, wide, pointed center. Cut your lemons in half crosswise and, one half at a time, place flesh side of lemon onto the center, press down and squeeze the lemon half, turning it back and forth, letting the juice and seeds flow out. Once you have the juice you need, strain out the seeds and you have lemon juice to use in any number of recipes.

You can store lemon juice in an airtight container in your refrigerator for up to five days.

Lemony dessert recipes

Melissa Murphy, author of The Sweet Melissa Baking Book, uses lemons in a variety of to-die-for desserts, from scintillating strawberry lemonade that is a light and refreshing sweet beverage to luscious lemon bars that will buckle your knees. There seems to be a universal love of lemons by people of all ages - your family will especially enjoy these lemony desserts courtesy of Melissa Murphy.

Strawberry Lemonade

Makes 1 1/2 quarts of lemonade

Ingredients:
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup very hot water
1 cup fresh lemon juice
4 1/2 cups cold water
1 recipe Fresh Strawberry Sauce (recipe follows)
Confectioners’ sugar, for the glasses
Fresh strawberries for garnish

Directions:
In a pitcher, combine the sugar and hot water and stir until the sugar has dissolved into a syrup. Stir in the lemon juice and cold water.

Add the strawberry sauce and stir to combine. Pour lemonade over ice into tall glasses rimmed with confectioners’ sugar and garnish glasses with strawberries. Strawberry lemonade keeps at least three days in the refrigerator.

Fresh Strawberry Sauce

Makes 1 cup sauce

Ingredients:
1 dry pint fresh strawberries, rinsed, hulled
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons cold water

Directions:
In a food processor or blender, puree the berries, sugar, juice and water until smooth. Strain the berry mixture into a clean bowl and discard the seeds. Stir in additional sugar, if needed. Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Lemon Bars

Makes 1 dozen bars

Ingredients for the crust:
2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup confectioners’ sugar
1/2 cup sliced blanched almonds, toasted
1/2 teaspoon salt
20 tablespoons (2 1/2 sticks) cold, unsalted butter, cut into 1/4-inch pieces

Ingredients for the lemon filling:
4 large eggs
1 3/4 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup confectioners’ sugar for sprinkling

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. and spray a 9 x 13-inch pan with nonstick cooking spray. Make a parchment (or foil) sling by cutting two pieces of parchment (or foil), measuring 16 1/2 inches long by 12 inches wide. Place one piece across the length of the pan and the across the width of the pan, with the excess hanging over the edges. This will allow you to easily lift the finished bar from the pan. Spray the sling with nonstick cooking spray.

To make the crust, pulse flour, sugar, almonds and salt in a food processor until combined. Add the cold butter in pieces and pulse until the dough comes together in a ball. Turn the dough out and press evenly into the bottom and 1 1/2 inches up the sides of the prepared pan. Cover the dough with a piece of parchment or foil and fill with pie weights or dried beans. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until golden. Remove parchment or foil and continue to bake for 10 to 15 more minutes. Remove pan to a wire rack to cool.

To make the filling, in a medium-sized bowl, whisk together the eggs and sugar until smooth. Add the almond extract and flour, whisking until smooth. Add the lemon juice and whisk to combine.

To complete the bars, pour the lemon filling into the prepared crust. Reduce oven temperature to 325 degrees F. Bake for 30 minutes or until the filling is firm and lightly golden. Remove to a wire rack to cool.

When cool, use the sling to life the entire bar from the pan and onto a cutting board. Slice into twelve 3 x 3 1/2-inch bars. Using a sifter, dust the bars with confectioners’ sugar. The bars keep in an airtight container for up to two days. You can also wrap well and refrigerate for five days or freeze for three weeks.

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During the spring and summer, we picnic quite a bit. Between evenings at the baseball field and days and dinners at the beach, we’ve refined our ability to be ready for a picnic quickly.

Tips to being picnic ready

Being ready really is the key. The difference between a successful picnic and a challenging meal outside can be as small as having a dry place to sit and a napkin. To that end, we get a bag ready at the beginning of baseball season, and keep it ready every day through the summer.

• Dedicate a bag or two.
  We have one large canvas bag for most of our picnic supplies and one for transporting the bulk of the food. The supplies bag should be ready and conveniently located – and I often fold the food bag and put it in the supplies bag so I know where it is at all times. Then I carry it up from the basement all together, open the food bag and start filling it.
• Don’t forget the cooler.
  Although I try to keep items requiring chilling to a minimum, you always need a cooler. Ours is medium-sized and perfect for waters, yogurt, boxed milks and the occasional bottle of white wine.
• Reclosable, stackable plastic containers are your friend.
  Putting your food in plastic containers makes organizing your food bag easy, and helps keep the food bag clean. Stack, stack, stack.
• Acquire a waterproof picnic blanket/spread.
  These are available many places but you can even make your own by sewing together some sheet plastic and a sturdy material such as canvas. The waterproof element makes a huge difference.
• Invest in reusable items just for picnicing.
  I have a set of melamine plates and bowls and plastic cups that stay with the picnic bag (aside from cleaning). I have enough for two meals for our family – and often use them all if we picnic on the beach with guests. I also have inexpensive cutlery in a handled caddy, and I have a rotating stash of fabric napkins.
• Don’t forget the details.
  Even though we have fabric napkins, we always seem to need paper towels, so I keep a roll in the bag. If the meal is messy, I moisten several and keep them in a reclosable plastic bag for instant “wipes.” I also keep three plastic grocery bags in the canvas bag – one for recyclables, one for garbage, and one for the dirty dishes and cutlery so I can transport them home without mucking up the canvas bag. If you have bottles of any kind with your picnic, be sure you have a way to open them. Keep a bottle opener and/or a corkscrew with the cutlery caddy. And don’t forget the utensils you might need to serve food — trying to portion out chicken salad with a teaspoon doesn’t quite cut it.
• Do it all over again.
  As soon as you get home from your picnic, wash the bits that need to be washed immediately and replace them in the supplies bag, rotate out dirty fabric napkins and reorganize the bag to be ready for your next picnic. A couple of times a season, I wash the picnic bags, but get them ready again quickly.

With this simple planning, I can get all the elements into the car and ready to go very quickly.

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I think I’ve joined, completed my membership obligation, quit, then joined again the cookbook book of the month club five or six times. I’ve had subscriptions to four or five cooking magazines at a time. I’ve sought out regional cookbooks while on vacation. I always stop in the cookbook section at Borders.

Obviously, I like the kitchen stuff. What else would you expect from a woman who waxes poetic about kitchen gadgets and sings the praises of novelty bakeware?

Of the cookbooks lining my kitchen bookcase - and yes, I do have a pretty good sized bookcase in my kitchen - there are recipes in each and every one that I consider core, can’t live without recipes. When I am looking for a new recipe, I have a strategy for how I look through existing cookbooks, too.

For general how-to, you can’t beat The Joy of Cooking. It’s a classic for a reason.

For appetizers, I have a few Junior League cookbooks from around the country. There’s always something good to be found in one of those. And the Silver Palate books.

If it’s pasta I crave, I go straight to The Silver Spoon. It’s a recently translated Italian cookbook with some really interesting meal options. Only look through the “Variety Meats” chapter if you are feeling adventurous and open-minded. You’re going to look anyway? Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

For meats that need to be done perfectly and presented, I go to Julia Child’s The Way to Cook first, and I’m Just Here for the Food by Alton Brown second. Sometimes I sit with both of them and compare. Nothing beats the “critter maps” in Alton Brown, though, for knowing exactly where to find a cut of meat. Awesome Food Network show, too.

For vegetable side dishes, it’s The New York Times Cookbook by Craig Claiborne, the books by Sara Foster of Foster’s Market (a former haunt), or an old Victory Garden cookbook by Marian Morash.

I have Moosewood cookbooks for vegetarian cooking, of course, and a couple of books focused on cooking with the kids.

For general desserts, I go to The Martha Stewart Cookbook. For more specific desserts, I go to Rose Levy Beranbaum’s The Cake Bible and The Pie and Pasty Bible. There are great basic cake and buttercream recipes in the Rosie’s Bakery All-Butter, Fresh Cream, Sugar-Packed, No Holds Barred Baking Book. Rosie’s Bakery made my wedding cake, so I tend to trust them on the subject. The Rosie’s Bakery cookie cookbook is the source of my favorite holiday cookie, the Chocolate Snowball.

There are several restaurant cookbooks in there. I love that I have the recipes for specific favorite dishes, particularly the White Chocolate Challah Pudding with Bourbon Sauce from Figs.

If I’m trying to find something kid-friendly, I start with a cookbook called One Bite Won’t Kill You. It’s reassuring that my kids are not the only ones who refuse Brussels sprouts.

We have a couple of cookbook collections. Years ago Williams-Sonoma had a bunch of single topic short cookbooks. I could probably weed out a few, but the pasta books and the chicken books have yielded some good dinners.

We have a larger collection of recipe annuals from Sunset magazine, and were so disappointed when Sunset stopped producing these several years ago. When I need general inspiration, I go here first, and Sunset magazine continues to be a regular recipe source for me.

Eating Well is gaining on my list, too. Sometimes the ingredients are a little obscure, especially when considering the kids, but they often sound really, really good – healthy, too.

Then there are the passed down recipes. We have a few longtime family favorites from generations past.

It’s an eclectic grouping on my shelf. It helps me maintain a variety of options for meals, though some might say too many options. The books are like my old friends. When I look through them, I often find notes on recipes I tried once or twice and think to myself, “Oh, yeah, those corn fritters were pretty tasty.” I do clear the bookcases every now and again, sending mostly unused books to the swap shack at the transfer station. It can be hard to say goodbye to some old friends, but if someone else in town can make more complete use of them, then that’s better.

I hope you have built a cookbook and recipe collection that feels that way to you.

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One of the foods we always, always have in the refrigerator is yogurt, and usually more than one kind. When the kids want a snack, I direct them to fruit or yogurt first. When they want to make a smoothie with frozen fruits and juices, there’s plain yogurt to blend in with it. When Sunshine was about a year old, we used to joke that her four major food groups were peach yogurt, pear yogurt, banana yogurt and vanilla yogurt. She still eats two to three containers a day.

Thicker, richer, creamier

In the last eight months or so, we have become big fans of Greek-style yogurt. Greek-style yogurt usually is made with milk that has a higher fat content than typical American yogurts (though nonfat Greek yogurts are still very, very good), and it’s strained to filter out some of the excess water. It’s thick and rich and creamy. It’s dessert, almost! We drizzle honey on it. We use it to garnish soups. We mix it with cereal and fruit. We use it in cooking and baking (it easily replaces sour cream in several family recipes). We use it as part of a favorite summertime appetizer. It feels so decadent.

While it is a little expensive, I’m not so averse to buying the larger cartons at Trader Joe’s. And one individual container per week per person as a treat is not the worst thing in the world. When I bring home the containers of Fage, usually Woody is the first one to ask if can have it, even before he asks for chips or cookies or some other snack. I’m investing in his longer term health, I say to myself.

One of my favorite appetizers in the summer is a dollop of Greek-style yogurt and a smear of herbed Chardonnay jelly on a Melba round. The combination of sweet and creamy and tangy and herby and crunchy without being too heavy is wonderful hot summer evenings. If you can’t find Greek style yogurt, you can make yogurt “cheese” with plain American yogurt.

Yogurt and Chardonnay Jelly with Crackers

Thick Greek-style yogurt, or strained American yogurt “cheese”
Herbed Chardonnay Jelly (we get ours from Westport Rivers winery, but there are other sources)
Crackers (we prefer Melba rounds)

On a large serving plate, place two small bowls. Put the yogurt in one and the Chardonnay jelly in the other. Arrange the crackers. I find a small knife is best for spreading the yogurt and a small spoon best for adding the jelly on top. Set out several completed crackers so that guests know what to do with the ingredients.

Yogurt “Cheese”

One 32-oz container of plain lowfat (not nonfat) American style yogurt
Cheesecloth
Strainer
Bowl
Plastic wrap
Honey (optional)

Line the strainer with cheesecloth and place over the bowl. Dump in the entire contents of the yogurt container, cover with plastic wrap and put in the refrigerator at least over night and up to two days.

Carefully lift the strainer out of the bowl and dump out the excess water and whey. Dump the now very thickened yogurt out of the strainer and cheese cloth into this or another bowl. Drizzle honey over the yogurt and mix well.
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Store in the original yogurt container in the refrigerator for as long as the yogurt would have been good otherwise.

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Something that intrigued and amused me about my husband when we first started dating and first started cooking together is his attention to detail. Specifically, that he almost always garnishes the food he makes. Me? I’m rushing to get dinner on the table. Him? He’s holding back an extra minute and using that saved spring of basil to decorate an otherwise boring plate of pasta with pesto.

Does it have height?

I started teasing him about this occasionally, but really I was envious that I didn’t have the patience or presence of mind or whatever to do that. Most days it didn’t – and still doesn’t – occur to me. To my husband, a radish may be a potential flower; to me, it’s a radish, a vegetable I don’t like all that much.

Several years ago, my husband’s garnishing ways were put in perspective when we were watching a cooking show. The garnishing of dishes on this show was over the top. Of course every dish on the show was garnished, it’s that they were all garnished with tall elements. Indeed, that seemed to be the point of each garnish, to give the dish more height. There were potato lattices and fountains of chives and all sorts of tall food – often on top of food that already was stacked in some way for effect. It was absolutely crazy. It made my husband’s garnishing look like accidental herb droppings, and it set the stage for a long running joke in our kitchen.

When we are cooking together now, and especially when we are cooking for company, we have running silly commentary about the height elements in our food. Does it have height? How can it have more height? Shall we fry up some eight-inch long potato lattices? Would a stalk of celery look nice in that? It can get ridiculous – but it’s fun.

Give garnish a try

On most weeknights, I still don’t give garnishing the dinner a single thought. Garnishing food is one of those things that’s a nice, sometimes fun extra. Presentation is part of the complete effect of a meal, of course, but I’m just as happy with horizontal elements as skinny herbs rivaling my wine glass for height. I am more concerned with taste! If you are going to garnish, make sure the garnish actually complements the dish. Garnish for the sake of garnish only rather defeats the purpose, I think.

There are many fun ways to garnish out there…

>> Try these garnish ideas!

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A sucker for kitchen gadgets!

There’s nothing like a new gadget to perk up my cooking, if only for a short while. Any excuse to use it – any excuse at all – and I’m there. I love to peruse cooking stores and websites for new gadgets. I’m a sucker for new tools, and a complete idiot for those tools in funky colors.

Last year when I picked up a mango splitter, I proceeded to buy many overpriced mangoes for weeks just so I could use it. I figured out just the level of ripeness of the fruit that resulted in the best split. My kids thought this was just the best thing ever as they love mangoes and I would buy them only rarely. We had many smiles around the dinner table, and many mango fibers to floss out of our teeth.

I was equally excited when I received a microplane grater as a gift. I sought out all my recipes that contained grated citrus peel or fresh grated nutmeg. Fresh tangerine tart out of season? Eggnog in July? Why not! Then I started using it to grate Parmesan onto pasta. Those thin ribbons of cheese melted so easily, and prettily. I was in heaven.

Any excuse for a new gadget…

Even my new garlic press has me excited. Our 15+ year old garlic press gave up the ghost recently, so I got to pick out a shiny new steel one with these lovely rubber grips. There are so many things I could press with that. What to try, what to try…

There’s that new avocado slicer around that looks very interesting. Although I don’t often slice avocados (I usually smush them into guacamole) and don’t find it onerous when I do, it’s awfully pretty.

The pineapple slicer looks like lots of fun, too. Except that we have a fresh pineapple once or twice a year. Mere details!

My oldest son has inherited my love of cooking gadgets. He has short fingernails and asked for a citrus peeler for Christmas. Seriously, he did.

As you can imagine, my drawers are overfull with seldom used items. But when I do want that gadget, no other will do. Whether it’s the apple corer, melon baller, bowl scraper, or one of a dozen others, I love them all.

Tangerine Tart

Think of tangerine as the starting off point for this tart. Pink grapefruit, lemon, or lime also work.

Crust

2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup powdered sugar
2 tsp grated tangerine peel
14 tbsp unsalted butter, cut into chunks

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

In a food processor, combine the flour, sugar and tangerine peel. Whir together about 10 seconds. Sprinkle the butter over the top of the flour mixture, then pulse the food processor until the dough just holds together. Press the crust into a 10-inch tart pan with a removable bottom. It will be a bit crumbly.

Bake 25-53 minutes until crust is light brown.

Filling:

2 large eggs
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup fresh tangerine juice
2-3 tsp grated tangerine peel
1 1/2 tbsp lemon juice
1/4 cup half-and-half

Keep that oven at 325 degrees.

With a mixer on high speed, mix all ingredients until well-blended, a minute or so. Pour into the baked crust, and bake 30-40 minutes, until the filling no longer giggles. Cool about 1 hour.

Topping:

3/4 cup whipping cream
2 tbsp powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1-2 tsp grated tangerine peel

Beat cream, sugar, vanilla and tangerine peel together until just shy of soft peaks. Mound spoonfuls on the tart as you serve it.

Jen’s Guacamole

I’m not a big pepper fan, so this version has none. The focus is the lovely creaminess of the avocados.

3 perfectly ripe avocados
1 plum tomato, seeded and chopped fine
2 tbsp finely chopped red onion
juice of half a lime
generous pinch of kosher salt

Peel and mash the avocados well. Add the tomato, onion, lime juice and salt and mix/mash well.

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For the love of dairy
When my husband and I first started dating, there was an evening we bought a pint of premium ice cream to enjoy while watching a movie. As I set up the VCR, he went off the the kitchen to dish the ice cream.

Upon returning to the couch, my beloved handed me a bowl with one and a half delicate scoops of ice cream. I looked at him and said, “What the heck is this?” What, did he think I was chubby or something and needed to watch what I ate? Over the next several minutes of (mostly) good-natured bantering back and forth, I learned that the way my family consumed dairy products in general and ice cream in particular might not be the norm. Oh no. Apparently we consumed far more than the average person my new boyfriend knew.

Now, I didn’t need an entire pint to myself, but scoops when I was growing up were never dainty. There was quantity and quality to our bowls of ice cream. And glasses of milk and the amount of cheese on our pizza, and so on. It was a running joke that we were from Wisconsin cheesehead stock and needed to keep those dairy farms going as our personal mission. I’m not saying it was exactly healthy on balance, but it was just the way were were. We did enjoy our dairy.

Imagine the challenge when my sons were infants and I figured out that they each had less reflux when I abstained from dairy products. I mean really abstained: no butter, no cheese, no milk, no nothing. It was torture, even if I did lose the baby weight rather quickly. I dreamed of dairy products. Seriously, I did! From custards to cream soups to milk in my coffee. Both my sons outgrew the sensitivity and are now hearty ice cream eaters like their mom’s side of the family. And thankfully my daughter offered no such feeding challenges: she’s been a dairy queen from day one, like me.

Milk delivery service
When we moved to our small town, we discovered that there was a local dairy that would deliver milk in glass bottles to our door once a week. I thought I’d moved to heaven. As a bonus to supporting local farmers and a local business, the cows aren’t fed any artificial hormones and the milk is slow pasteurized so even the gallons of low-fat milk have a swirl of cream at the top when first opened. And it tastes so darn good!

Then, just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, the dairy expanded their offerings to items like corn cob and hardwood smoked thick-cut bacon and ham steaks, turkey pies from a local turkey farm, sandwich bread from a regional bakery, and…ice cream. I told my husband we could never move because I couldn’t live without my weekly dairy delivery. I could almost cook for a week off the dairy order form!

To be honest, I don’t consume quite as much dairy as I did when I was growing up. My diet (and my kids’ diet) is a little more weighted to fresh fruits and vegetables. But the dairy we do have we enjoy very, very much. It’s all about balance, of course.

And, yes, the cost is slightly higher than if I bought milk at the mega-mart every week, but not dramatically so. To me, the quality of the product and supporting a local business offsets that slight cost (really, it’s only a couple dollars at most per week!). When I do web searches on “milk delivery”, I see that almost every area of the country has at least one dairy that delivers. I hope you will seek out your local dairy and try it!

Four or five years ago now, I gave my husband a small home coffee roaster and some green beans as a Father’s Day gift. Some friends had introduced us to the idea, and it seemed like something we could really get into. We do love our coffee.

To say that we have enjoyed it is an understatement. While I admit I am not the actual expert roaster or green bean selector, I am an enthusiastic gifter of items coffee roasting-related and happy taster of all roasts. It’s not particularly hard to learn how to do, either. I could learn to roast quickly, but my husband already is so good. Why mess with perfection?

It took some initial testing to find the right roast level. We burned our share of beans – no, scratch that. We did not burn them, we created extremely dark roasts with hints charcoal. We learned about first crack and second crack and letting the beans cure for 12 hours after roasting before brewing. And we have enjoyed some really delicious coffee.

We have given home roasted coffee as gifts – to friends, neighbors, the kids’ teachers. When friends come over, some will ask timidly, “Do you, uh, have any of that home-roasted coffee, by chance? Please?” before we even have a chance to offer it. Others just chime in with a firm and enthusiastic, “Yes!” when we do offer it, and usually before the word have fully left our mouths.

We are also thoroughly spoiled, it’s true, but in a good way. I think I drink less coffee overall because so few sources out in the world beyond our front door can live up to what we have at home. And on the rare occasions we don’t reorder beans in time or don’t realize we don’t quite have enough beans roasted for the morning? We do have a stash of commercial roast beans in the freezer, but it’s not quite the same.

If you want to try it yourself, there are more and more websites devoted to home-roasting at which to learn more. Sweet Marias is our favorite, but there is also Coffee Bean Corral and U-Roast-Em and Burman Coffee.

Good luck and have fun!

Although Sunday is meal planning and grocery shopping day, I start thinking a little about meals for the following week on Thursday. Thursday is when the market circulars are delivered to my mail box.

Where to shop
There are five grocery stores within about a four mile radius from me. That may not seem like a lot, but I’m in some outer suburbs, and it’s pretty good for around here. It means competition, and that’s a good thing.

Two of the stores are part of large multi-state chains, two are part of smaller regional chains, and one is part of a two-store chain, so it’s almost an independent.

The large chain stores have the best selection on grocery items, and claim they have the best prices on everything. They certainly have the highest ad budgets. Of the two smaller chain stores, one actually does have the best prices, and one has the best meats, though neither has the selection of the larger stores. The almost independent store is more a cross between a gourmet store and a regular store. The prices are okay, but it’s not an everyday place. Because it’s the only market within my town’s boundaries, I do make a point to make at least one smaller purchase there once a week. Trying to support the local business owners and all.

How to shop: Step-by-step

1. When I open up the circulars on Thursday evening, I generally look for two things first: who has boneless skinless chicken breasts on special and what produce is on special.
2. Then I look for specials on other basics: orange juice, pasta sauces, cereals and yogurt.
3. Then I decide where I am going to shop that week. It usually reaches critical mass for one store on these items – items the store discounts heavily in an effort to draw shoppers in, sometimes even negating profit on a particular item.

Efficient shopping that’s cost effective
I do not separate my grocery list into different stores. The driving and time spent going to all of them would probably negate any savings. Instead, I choose the place that has most of our basics on special, and maybe make a side trip for meats. The marketing department at the store that has good meats probably cringes when my shopper card gets scanned. More often than not, I come in for the meat and the meat only, buying a couple weeks worth to stash in the freezer. The “amount saved” listed at the bottom of my receipt typically exceeds the total bill.

If no store reaches that critical mass, I shop at the regional store with the best overall prices and adjust the menu plan so I don’t need some specialty item they may not have.

It seems like so much work to do this, but it’s become a habit. Now that I am in the habit, I can scan the circulars in less than five minutes, and usually while there is a lull in the dinner preparation. The circulars from the stores deemed “not this week” go straight to the recycling and the remaining circular is placed with the cookbooks and menu pad until brought out again on Sunday before shopping. I’m definitely using market competition to our advantage.

I remember taking home ec in seventh grade. I can’t remember the teacher’s name, but I can see her face. She was teaching everything I wasn’t going to need.

Or so I thought.

I was going to be different, you see. I was going to be so sharp and creative and together that none of the mundane cleaning or cooking or home organization skills would apply to me. I would be able to whip up gourmet meals out of thin air! Dust bunnies wouldn’t dare to exist in my world! I would be different! And fabulous – oh, so fabulous!

Stop snickering. And please don’t look under my couch.

Lucky lady
For several years when the boys were small, I didn’t do much grocery shopping or cooking. Hubby and I fell into a routine that we called “I take care of the babies and he takes care of me.”

The situation arose when Hubby was working quite long hours and often getting home at or after the boys bedtime. I would get home from work first, and get the boys fed and bathed and to bed – a process which often lasted until about 10PM. When I would come downstairs I was hungry but tired and had no energy left for making an additional meal. So Hubby started cooking when he arrived home, and when I’d make it downstairs after bedtime, we’d eat. It was great. He also did all the grocery shopping to support this. Yeah, I pretty much had it made.

Several years ago, when I went from working full-time to part-time, things shifted. There were three weekdays that I was home during the day, and one that I was the first parent home in the evening. I slowly took over meal planning and preparation and – gasp! – have been working at refining my meal planning ever since.

Organized meal planning
Yes, that thing that I swore I’d never do as I sneered at my home ec teacher. Turns out I was, uh, not so fabulous as I thought I would be.

Things became a little easier on that front about a year and a half ago when I acquired a pad of meal planning pages. I’ve since used a couple different meal planning pads and they each have their pluses and minuses. So then I had how to organize meals set – but there was still the matter of what to eat.

Figuring out what to put on the meal sheet proved the much bigger challenge. We had a repertoire of meals that were (mostly) accepted by the kids, but they were in a dozen different cookbooks at least and remembering which was where? Nightmare.

Finally I bought a package of index cards. Over several weeks, as we ate a meal that was a standard or tried something deemed “make again” by my picky crew, I wrote that meal name on an index card. Now, on Sunday afternoons, as I make out the weekly menu, I toss the pack of cards at the kids. I tell each of them to pick one meal (though I do get veto power, else Woody would choose pasta with pancetta and cream twice a week). Hubby gets to pick two. I fill in with my choices based on what is on special at the local market.

Everyone wins
The upshot of this that there is less negotiating at the table about the meal (though not none, dang it), and we eat as a family more often than not. Oh yeah, and a more reasonable monthly grocery bill because we’re not dashing in every other night to pick up one thing but coming out with five or six because we’re already hungry.

Some of you may be continuing to laugh as you read. Go ahead – I don’t mind. It’s so obvious, I know. I never claimed to be an actual master of the whole housekeeping thing. But it has helped us.

These sites might help you!

• Knock Knock
• MomAgenda
• Brainiac
• Meal planning made easy