#Blogmas Day 13: Short Stack Editions

My best friend Cate shared these super cute cookbooks from Short Stack Editions with me this past week, and I was totally inspired. They include recipes centered around a specific ingredient which would be perfect for someone with a favorite food (did someone say broccoli?) or for people with a CSA box who knows without a doubt that there will be tons of surplus fruits and veggies during various parts of the season. But most importantly, the covers on these are beautifully illustrated. I would love to have each and every volume in my kitchen, but could easily pick and choose the ones that will work best with my own cooking lifestyle. These are one of my top gift ideas this season, and super affordable at $14.00 each! How about you guys? What's your favorite food to cook with? Leave a comment below!

1  Eggs  |  Volume 1

2  Buttermilk  |  Volume 4

3  Lemons  |  Volume 13

4  Prosciutto de Parma  |  Volume 14

5  Brown Sugar  |  Volume 12

6  Corn  |  Volume 10

#Blogmas Day 11: Holiday Wish List - 2016 Planners

It's that time of year where you really start to wrap your head around the fact that it's about to be a new year. Whether you start getting your resolutions ready, or you at least try to get your affairs in order, a new year totally feels like a new beginning. And sometimes even just the feeling of a new beginning is important for keeping things in a busy, overwhelming life feel fresh, new, and fun. This also happens to be the perfect time to start the new year right with a planner. In the digital age, I know my phone and computer calendars keep track of my appointments and office obligations, but there's just something so charming and fun about keeping personal plans, birthdays, and other fun fetes in a beautiful agenda book. And why stop there? There are meal planners, diet planners, grocery planners, even content planners for bloggers and vloggers and people who work from home. I put together a few planners that I either have and am currently using, or have had my eye on for a while now. They would make excellent holiday gifts for someone special who's looking to grab 2016 by the horns and live their best-ever life!

1  Kate Spade 2016 Planners  I'm currently using the gold polka-dotted planner and it makes me so happy to look at it every day.

2  Skinnytaste Meal Planner I've blogged about this before, and I'm loving using it to plan out my meals (and grocery shopping/cooking schedule) for the week.

3  The Erin Condren LifePlanner This planner has a huge cult following on the internet. People create products specifically for it, they blog and vlog about it in Plan With Me videos on YouTube – it is kind of like the Rolls Royce of agendas.

4  Ban.do 2016 Agenda  These are so cute, and the design is flawless. I love the look of these planners, and they come with super cute stickers. This would be an amazing gift for someone in high school or college, but hurry because they are selling out fast!

No Takeout November | Skinnytaste Meal Planner

Hello, November! I can not believe how quickly time is passing these days. Sunrise/sunset... Okay, moving on. I have a friend who's doing a No Spend November and she is basically my hero. If any of you have done something like this successfully, and saved a quick and easy thousand dollars in the process, my hat's off to you! Truly, I think I would die. But the idea inspired me to take an honest look at where most of my money goes each month (cough, cough, takeout/restaurants/bars) and I've isolated something I can SAVE BIG on without going berserk.

No Takeout November, for a New Yorker, is definitely still a sacrifice in order to save big. I typically buy breakfast, lunch, and usually dinner from various restaurants ranging from Dunkin Donuts (coffee + breakfast at work), to my favorite local Mexican restaurant (a dinnertime favorite), to Domino's Pizza (yes, I am the worst New Yorker ever...my boyfriend will be the first to point this out). Hear me: It is ridiculous to eat 3 meals out every. single. day. And, trust me, it adds up fast. Also, when left to my own devices and spur-of-the-moment decisions, I am just NOT a healthy eater. So cooking healthy for myself is a secondary benefit!

My go-to website (and cookbook) for healthy, easy, delicious recipes is skinnytaste.com and so imagine my surprise when I found that she recently released a companion to her amazing cookbook that was a tool specifically for meal-planning and calorie/activity tracking. Enter The Skinnytaste Meal Planner. It seemed like perfect considering my No Takeout pledge.

Image from Kittsona

It's got a spread at the beginning of each week to plan your meals, which I'm using to establish which nights of the week will be "cooking nights." Since I am still as busy as I ever was, and life doesn't take a back seat to my No Takeout plans, I will try to keep these to 2-3 a week, maximum and try to knock out the bulk of my planning and shopping on Sundays.

Then for each day of the week, there's space to track everything you eat (amazing if you're trying to be cognizant of that) as well as a cute space for activity tracking! Sure hope I manage to do more of that as well, but I also know the importance of focusing on one goal before conquering another.

I'm very excited about this No Takeout November project, and will definitely let you all know how it goes! Wish me luck!

Meal Planning 101

A recent obsession of mine is weekly meal planning. I've known people, mostly married couples and young families, who were able to save a ton of money by planning and cooking each breakfast, lunch, and dinner for their week. But as a young professional, a New Yorker, and unfortunately a certified takeout queen, could I ever pull this off? The answer is a resounding yes!

I'm more than 3 weeks in now, and have already saved hundreds of dollars, since I was used to buying breakfast ($5+), lunch ($10+), and dinner ($15+) out every single day. Believe me when I tell you that ANYONE can do this, and the savings alone makes it worthwhile. But there are plenty of additional benefits like added nutritional value (this is amazing for dieters), less urge to snack since you know what and when your next meal is coming, and the satisfaction of both learning new recipes and taking pride in everything you put into your body. I am a meal planning believer!

I've been scouting Etsy for some cute printables that will help me in my meal planning endeavors, and I've displayed a few of my faves below. I may eventually DIY something of my own, but wanted to share for those of you who aren't graphic designers!

This week's meals included:
Sweet Cucumber, Red Onion & Dill Salad (Eat Yourself Skinny)
Clean Egg & Zucchini Muffins (Eat Yourself Skinny)
Spinach Lasagna Rolls (Skinnytaste)
Easy Crust-less Spinach & Feta Pie (Skinnytaste)
Squash-tastic Shepherd's Pie (Hungry Girl)

Customizable PDF from AtomicaPress - $6.00

Handmade Item from askingfortrouble - $8.62

Instant Download from SweetPaperTrail - $3.00

Instant Download from LauraDraytonCreative - $10.00

Instant Download from TinyStripes - $5.00