Iron Chef Kathy

Last week on Oprah, they had 3 tv chefs who were trying to help some pretty pathetic families with their meal planning. (Sorry if you were one of those families, but come on people, who spends $400/week on takeout, and who serves the exact same supper 3-4 times/week because she only knows how to make 3 meals?) It was actually really annoying to see these obviously-well-to-do families in their massive kitchens, whining about how "nobody likes my cooking, so I just order out every night." Boo hoo, good thing Oprah and Iron Chef Cat Cora swooped in and saved the day! Meanwhile, the rest of us are trying to make healthy meals for our families in a cramped little kitchen, with no room in the budget for luxuries like take-out or frozen Lean Cuisines. I'm telling you, get me on Oprah. I'll knock some sense into the whole lot of them!

That being said, I swiped Cat Cora's 7-day meal plan plan and I think I'll give it a try this week. There's nothing on her menu that really jumps out at me, and I think it's quite likely that my children will hate a good portion of the meals. (Suck it up, kids, cuz when Mommy makes Iron Chef meals, you're darn well gonna eat them!) But the recipes look entirely different from the things we usually eat, and I always think change is good in the kitchen. Plus, I like the fact that there are 7 breakfasts, 7 lunches, and 7 suppers that apparently will cost less than $150 for groceries. I know we won't be making the breakfasts and lunches very often (if ever), so if I can stretch those into supper meals, we're looking at almost 3 weeks worth of suppers for $150.

So stay tuned this week to see if I actually stick to this meal plan, and to all my faithful readers I say, "Allez cuisine!" (If you don't watch Iron Chef, just ignore that.)