small things

Simplified Dinners {giveaway}

Today’s giveaway is from Mystie, author of Simplified Dinners.  Mystie is a homeschooled homeschooler, married to her high school sweetheart, educating their five children ages ten and under.  She writes at Simply Convivial and Simple Pantry Cooking about homemaking, homeschooling, and managing a home and family well.  You can also find Mystie on Pinterest and Twitter.  Today she is here to share the practical, sanity saving guide she created to help you simplify meal planning!

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Have you noticed that most home management systems claim that having a menu plan is essential? It’s true. Knowing what is for dinner and having the ingredients on hand promotes peace in our minds and homes. But we usually make it harder than it needs to be. With Simplified Dinners, your grocery list never changes and you always have flexible dinner options on hand. This cookbook is intended to provide the home cook with plenty of options for simple but delicious home-cooked meals that require little preparation time and can be made out of a simply, frugally stocked pantry.  And for those of you eating a gluten and dairy free diet, there’s a special guide available for you too!

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I started creating this system six years ago after I gave birth to our third child. I enjoyed cooking, and shopping frugally was one of my hobbies, but after baby three was born, I no longer had the mental energy to page through
recipe cards, cookbooks, bookmarks, keep track of ingredients needed, and remember it at the right time. While I used to be able to keep information in my head, now I found myself lacking the brain power and the energy.
Paring down my pantry, purging my recipes, and printing out the processes freed up my mental energy for other things in life – even making it easier to let the children help in the kitchen!

Being able to walk past 90% of the grocery store’s contents with a peaceful, “Nope, that’s not part of the plan,” is freeing. It even makes shopping with kids easier, because you’re making few decisions on the spot, so you’re more available and present rather than wrapped up in comparing salad dressings or wondering if this or that is a good deal.

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For today’s giveaway Mystie is offering one winner a download of both the regular, gluten- and dairy-free editions of the book.  In addition, receive 30% off the e-book using the discount code smallthings through November 22nd.
For your chance to win, simply leave a comment on this post.  Comments are closed and the winner is Mary, who commented, “I’d love to win.”

Thanks, Mystie!

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  9. This sounds intriguing… I would love to read the guide. I too have just had my 3rd kid and don’t always keep good track of ingredients needed… but my family still loves variety! I would like to see how she balances between simplicity and variety. 🙂

  21. My husband has started work and now, with both of us working, dinner has become a bit of a bad eating experience. This is exactly what we need! Thank you!

  25. Great idea. We have gluten free, dairy free needs, so great that that is included. Thanks for the chance.

  28. I am a celiac with additional allergies. I would LOVE the gluten-free/dairy-free resource! And I need the guidance of the “normal” planning for the rest of my family…

  30. Too much pressure at the grocery store to buy,buy,buy. I am guessing this system would save me a bunch of money! Thanks for the opportunity!

  37. This sounds really interesting! We have been working on transitioning to making all our food from scratch, but it would be great to get another perspective on how to do this.

  39. Your ideas sound great… good strategy for the grocery stores where *everything* calls out to us to buy, buy, buy!
    Thanks for offering the give-away, I’d love to win!
    Lynn in TX

  46. Wow this is a great idea, especially for those of us who loathe cooking. Thanks for the giveaway!