Thanks sissy-boo!

I can't tell you how much I admire my sister. She's one of the strongest people I ever met (except perhaps when there is a spider around.) You have to be strong to be the spouse of a serviceman, especially when he is deployed and she does it with grace.

One thing I especially admire is her dedication to take care of her family, starting with meals. I always struggle with getting meals on the table, which makes me feel like a failure because I am a SAHM and it seems like this is part of the job. Anyway my sister has told me before it's all about having a plan which she lays out in a helpful post on her blog here.

For Christmas, she gave me a fantastic gift, a binder full of recipes she's already made for her family; complete with a dry erase page where I could work out a meal plan for the week. (Also she handmade me a beautiful apron.) Above is a recipe for Sausage Ratatouille. Mine even looks like the picture!
Super easy and yummy... a medium eggplant diced, two zuchinnis slices, a bell pepper, an onion, three minced garlic cloves, sauted. Add sausage (in this case I used pre-cooked polish kalbiesa because it was on sale, but the original recipe calls for sweet italian sausage) add a can of diced tomatoes and a couple of spoonfuls of tomatoe pasted and some seasoning and presto dinner.

I'm told my nephews even eat this meal, but I wasn't so lucky with Jack...sooooooo picky! I just served it with crusty bread, but it would be good noodles too.I was so inspired I even bake a spice cake, simple box mix and store bought frosting. I just added some nuts to the side to make it a little fancy. With myy first week of meal planning under my belt, I feel ready to puruse my cookbooks and make some more culinary plans.