Bread.

This morning I woke up to rain. A gentle thunder storm and the drip-drip-drop of July showers coming down outside my window. I rolled over and looked at the clock. 8:00 am. I pulled Felix into bed with me around 4:45 am to make the last part of our night a bit less stressful. Side nurse. snuggle. Side nurse snuggle. "Yes, he slept in" I thought.

Big blue eyes sleepily opened and a grin that won't stop beamed up in my direction. The morning was lazy. Oatmeal with blueberries and walnuts, and coffee while Felix played and practiced crawling. A skype date with my good friend Liz and a bit of cleaning during Felix's first nap. Lunch with Josh. Felix tried pears, and loved them. All while the pitter patter of scattered storms kept me feeling cozy in my home. I decided today was a good day to make bread and to stay inside.

Kneading sticky dough. Adding a bit more flour. Knead some more. Let rest and rise. I lit a woodwick candle to pretended I have a fireplace. Vacuumed and swept. And then an afternoon walk with a friend morphed into an afternoon tea and chocolate with a friend on the living room floor. Felix wiggled about working out some of his little boy energy.

Two hours and some soul sharing later the dough was now twice its size. Ready to be formed and then rise again in bread pans. Baked till crunchy and golden brown on the outside. The gentle smell of yeast mixed with salt, water and flour. The most basic of ingredients. Timeless and warm. With the candle, the rain and bread all going at once, I almost felt like Autumn was in the air.

Sigh.

I love autumn. I'm so looking forward for this season to be over. This literal season of hot summer (even though as far as Tennessee summers go, this one has been mild) And the metaphorical season of life. This life season has pretty much beaten my entire family to a pulp and it's time for a fresh start. Fall always seems to bring a new beginning in my heart, so even though the temperature was in the high 80s today I mentally shifted into cooler weather.

With the aroma of bread filling my house, a sleeping baby, and the soft roll of thunder outside I took a deep breath in. Closed my eyes and breathed out July. Said goodbye to one of the most difficult months of my life and cut a slice of still warm home made bread. Bring on August.

Fresh 20: Fail

You Guys, look at this amazing Fresh 20 meal I made.

Just kidding. It's a Freschetta Frozen pizza with some added grape tomatoes and parsley as a garnish to throw you guys off. I posted last week about how awesome Fresh 20 is and how much we love it and how I planned to share some of our meals with you guys and then this week fell apart.

I was a good girl and went to the Franklin Farmers market on Saturday while Josh was out of town to pick up some of our ingredients for the week. Then Sunday afternoon got away from all of us with another epic post-church nap (why are those the best) and we never got the remaining ingredients for the week.

Enter Monday - Felix isn't napping so all hopes of making it to the grocery without a melt down are shot and the rest of the day is history. We wound up at Blue Coast burrito for some Baja Fish tacos and then Tuesday night we sort of just chose an easy route because we had lots of errands to run, Josh was meeting up with a friend and we weren't super hungry come dinner time.

But that's ok. Life is crazy and we are flexible! We used some of the grape tomatoes form this week's menu on our frozen pizza and we have plans to eat up the "Turkey" (read: chicken) cutlets for tomorrow nights meal. Stay tuned. I'm sure a riveting post about cutlets will be coming your way, or not. ;)

The Fresh 20

Food is important around here. In the past Josh and I would end up eating out for dinner probably 3 times a week and even though we are wanna-be foodies, we don't have the budget to hit-up every fusion, french or fancy restaurant in town. So we often times would resort to pizza, chipotle, chick-fil-a, or subs from somewhere quick.

We decided recently that this was NOT a good plan for our waist line or our budget and we wanted Felix to grow up in a home that had meals around the table together, so we committed to eating at home more often.

Now, this was a good idea in theory, but I lacked imagination in the meal planning department and had no knowledge about how to do this in a cost effective way. Often times I would plan a meal the day it was to be eaten and then go out and buy all the ingredients for said meal. Ending up in about 30 bucks spent at the grocery store. We would have left overs, but in my head if I was spending that much on one meal for 2 at home and still dealing with clean up afterwards, we may as well be eating out.

Enter a few weeks of feeble attempts and frustration that led to a random discussion on Sunday afternoon about meal plans, a quick Facebook post asking for some advice and my friend Amanda suggesting The Fresh 20. It was down hill from there.

Being food lovers, busy and on a budget the Fresh 20 was perfect. It compiles a weekly menu (5 nights a week - not the overwhelming 7 like other meal planners) then gives you an itemized grocery list of 20  ingredients to purchase for ALL your meals that week. That's it. 20 items. Some ingredients are in multiple dishes, others are used up on one night. And because the list includes in-season items that you use multiple times throughout the week (so you can buy in bulk) it helps save money  So far our weekly dinner costs on the Fresh 20 has been about 70 dollars or less and many times the meals have leftovers to carry our lunches as well.

Meals like garlic chicken with massaged kale and avacado salad, Grilled sausage pizza with homemade pesto sauce and cantaloupe, or grilled chicken tacos with pineapple salsa are a few of our favorites. I'm loving it. I'm trying new dishes that I would never come up with on my own. And they are WAY healthier than my regular go-to dishes but these are still packed with flavor. I'm hoping to document some of our meals and share them here on the blog. Stay tuned!

How do you meal plan for the week? What are some of your go-to dishes?