365: No Repeats!

Thank you so much for visiting my blog! I have been inspired by a movie called Julie/Julia (which I admit at this point I've only seen the previews for) to attempt to go through Rachael Ray's entire cookbook titled "365: No Repeats". Now that I am a stay at home mom, we are cutting corners every way we can to save money. One area that will be drastically affected is our naughty eating out habit, which we got into almost a year ago when I got pregnant and was too tired, sick, or on bed rest to cook. I've been a Rachael Ray fan for years and have 5 or 6 of her cookbooks. She took me from making pre-packaged frozen lasagna to homemade goodness in 3o minutes per meal! I have her knife set, pots and pans, and even her tongs. I'm not an obsessed fan by any means, but her cooking style suits me perfectly.

My husband, Matt, has agreed to try everything I make, which is a huge thing for him since he has the taste buds of a child and has rules like "I won't eat anything that swims, is a fungus, or is squishy". This makes dinner time difficult when I haven't been able to cook with tomatoes, mushrooms, or seafood! He seems to be as excited about this as I am though and I'm sure will be a good sport (he may even acquire a taste for things that he doesn't think he likes!).

I've done most of my grocery shopping this morning to get my "staple items" that Rachael recommends. I'm going to hold off until Monday before I get any produce though since that will be my official start date. The picture you see is my pantry which I've completely cleaned out and rearranged. Having it look so nice and neat inspires me to cook! I don't want to wait until Monday but we're having dinner with friends tonight and tomorrow night, so I guess I'll have to be patient. I'll post a picture of my fridge when I get the produce on Monday, and will try to post a picture of every meal I make.

I'm not going to kid myself into thinking that I can go 365 days straight without a break for going out to dinner with friends or going on vacation, but I do plan on going through the entire cookbook. Please follow me on this journey to see how long it takes to get through it!