The only kind of meal planning that I’m marginally good at is picking which restaurant I want to eat at on any particular day. I love eating out but we’ve been trying to eat healthier lately and it’s pretty close to impossible to do that at restaurants. We changed our buying habits at the grocery store and have started to really enjoy eating at home. I’m going to print and laminate this meal planner for our new place. I’m not sure if it’ll be a long term solution but I’m willing to try it because I don’t want meals to get boring or too redundant. Click over to Ollibird to download the full size image.

Matt has always been an excellent cook but he’s expanded his culinary horizons lately. We love barbeque and have only found one place that we really like here in California. Even so, it is not Oklahoma barbeque! Yesterday Matt bought a Boston butt (ha!) and roasted it for 12 hours at 210 degrees. Let me tell you, it literally fell apart and was so moist. We dug in last night and it was delicious! His next step is to learn to make barbeque sauce that we like. I can’t wait until he gets his recipe right.

We are also planning to find a Tikka Masala recipe we love. Anytime we crave Indian food, we head over to All India Cafe in Pasadena. We probably won’t be back in Pasadena all that often once we move so we’re hoping to recreate our favorite food from there.

OH YEAH! I made a delicious mango salsa the other day and a couple of people have asked for the recipe. Here it is:

1 mango, diced
1 avocado, diced
2 Roma tomatoes, diced
1 jalapeno pepper, minced
1/4 c. red bell pepper, diced
1/4 c. orange bell pepper, diced
1/4 c. red onion, chopped
1/2 c. fresh cilantro, chopped
3 tbsp. fresh lime juice
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1/4 tsp. salt

Mix together and let sit in fridge for 30 minutes before serving.

A couple of days later I made it again but used about a 1/2 c. diced cucumber instead of the avocado and it was really, really good. I’m not sure which I prefer, so we just go back and forth between the two. So good!

[Meal Planner via: decor8 : birch & lily : How about orange]