Kathi Lipp - The Whats for Dinner? Solution: Quick, Easy, and Affordable Meals Your Family Will Love

HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS

EUGENE, OREGON

Cover design by Left Coast Design, Portland, Oregon

Cover illustration Krieg Barrie

Published in association with the literary agency of WordServe Literary Group, Ltd., 10152 S. Knoll Circle, Highlands Ranch, CO 80130

THE WHATS FOR DINNER? SOLUTION

Copyright 2011 by Kathi Lipp

Published by Harvest House Publishers

Eugene, Oregon 97402

www.harvesthousepublishers.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Lipp, Kathi, 1967-

The whats for dinner solution / Kathi Lipp.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-7369-3837-2 (pbk.)

ISBN 978-0-7369-4209-6 (eBook)

1. Dinners and dining. 2. Quick and easy cooking. 3. Cookbooks. I. Title.

TX737.L57 2011

641.5dc22

2011008138

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any otherexcept for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Printed in the United States of America

11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 / LB-SK / 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To my four favorite food testers:
Amanda, Jeremy, Justen, and Kimber.

Roger and I consider it among our hugest blessings
that the four of you will still come home for dinner.

LaRae Weikert, as well as Brad and Arlene Moses, for brainstorming with me and Roger and being the encouragers (and instigators) that you are.

Momfor teaching me there was more to cooking than baking, and for feeding me and my kids when my life was at its hardest. Coming home to dinner made many things OK during a pretty rough time.

The Lippswho love us and feed us when we travel.

Betty Dobsonwhos given Roger his food culture of noodles and mashed potatoes (the one point in our marriage where we will never agree).

Brian, Lucinda, and Elsawho love food as much as we do and share their love (and goodies) with us.

To every woman who contributed her wisdom and recipes to this book, especially Ruth Shave, Regena Florenti, Vashie Miller, Ann Stea, Linda Carlblom, Martha Orlando, Robin Dilallo, Amy Redelsperger, and Linda Jenkins.

Some of my favorite six chicks (and a dude)Tonya Walters, Vikki Francis, Shari Wideman, Penny and Elliot Sands, Kelli Simmerok, Lynette Furstenberg, and Melanie Bernard.

My amazing teamSunnie Weber, Monica Trevino, Ginny Chapman, Angela Bowen, Kimberly Hunter, and Linda Jenkins.

My editor, Rod Morris, whose infinite patience was constantly tested during this editing, and who still makes the process fun.

Rachelle Gardner, my super-agent, who kept telling me (almost always at dinnertime), Would you hurry up and finish the book? I need it.

Erin MacPhersonmy foodie friend and a constant encouragement.

Lonette Whitaker and Debbie McDonald, who have invested time, wisdom, and countless lunches in me. Im proud to call you friends.

Rogermy favorite BBQer, hole-in-the-wall finder, salsa and guac maker. You like food spicy; I like it when my food doesnt hurt. With food and with life, you challenge me to try new things, be adventurous, and kick it up a notch. Love you, baby.

Cooking is like love.
It should be entered into with abandon or not at all.

HARRIET VAN HORNE

Are you traumatized by dinner?

Oh, I know. You know that dinner is supposed to happen every single night. You know that around six oclock, hungry mouths are going to turn to you to feed them. Everyone is looking to you and asking the same question: Whats for dinner?

And they are expecting you to have an answer.

But thats not when the panic sets in. No, youve been thinking about dinner for a while. There was a brief nod to it this morning as you were running out the door to work, but no time to really do anything about it. OK, that eliminates anything that required defrosting.

And at lunch, you thought, Maybe I should look up some recipes online for something for tonight. But you cant remember what ingredients you have at home (and more importantly, what condition theyre in), so you go to plan Cdrop by the supermarket on the way home.

So there you are at 5:15 at the grocery store with no doable plan, just a hope and a prayer for some inspiration as the prospect of yet another rotisserie chicken looms large.

Or maybe youre a stay-at-home mom who thinks, I have all day to get dinner on the table, but why does it have to take me all day to do it? (Perhaps its the two toddlers hanging off your legs? But I digress)

I want you to stop the madness.

Like me, you may love to cook, but the problem with dinner is that it comes every single night. Doesnt matter whether I feel like cooking or not. Doesnt matter whether Ive found a great new recipe that inspires me. Doesnt matter if anyone will actually eat it or not.

I love cooking. I really do. But sometimes I just dont love to cook.

Dinner is just sowell, daily.

If I dont go into my week with a plan for dinner (its a lot easier to wing it for breakfast and lunch around our house), we usually end up eating a lot of takeout and fast food with a huge side of guilt.

But when I go in with a plan, that all changes:

I dont spend my day worrying about what were going to have for dinner, because I already know what were having.

I dont spend my lunch hour looking for recipes that require little more than baking soda and batteries (the two things in my fridge I know havent expired).

I dont feel guilty about running past my freezer with all the meat in there waiting to be defrosted.

I dont spend money on non-nutritional dinners from places where I have to order through an intercom.

So how does this all work? Glad you asked. Heres the plan. By the time you finish this book, I want you to:

Plan your meals for a month, and then eat (most of) them at home.

Get out of your cooking ruts and put all your tools to work.

Have a kitchen that works for you.

Have some fun along the way.

(I promisethey really are easy!)

1. Read through the entire book.

This is your chance to get a feel for the master plan. Go ahead and make notes in the margins, change up some ingredients in the recipes, whatever!

2. Find two friends (at least) to plan with you.

It doesnt matter if theyre phone friends, Internet buddies, or face-to-face girlfriends you meet with at Starbucks down the street. Location is not important; company is. Figure out a time to spend together (after everyone has read through the book) to come up with a plan for when and how youre going to plan your meals and make it happenmaybe a joint cooking day or a freezer-meal swap? These friends will be the ones who share their favorite recipes with you, while you let them know when frozen chicken breasts go on sale.

If youre doing this as a group, be sure to check out all the free group resources on our website: www.ProjectsForYourSoul.com. There are lots of helpful tools, forms, and other fun stuff to make this a great group project.

3. Decide on a start date.

Your start date can be tomorrow or two weeks from now. Mark it in a big bold way on your kitchen calendar. Set up reminders on your computer. I definitely recommend that you give yourself a couple of days to get ramped up and pull together a plan that youre excited about.

4. Come up with your plan.