Six dinners, six lunches, and anywhere from two to seven breakfasts we cook at home. Over the past two years we've gotten on a very consistent eating out (or takeout) and at-home cooking schedule and on a typical week get dinner out one night and one lunch at a restaurant.
The rest of the time, I'm working off of my meal list I create the following week and the groceries I get on Sundays. I have a running list of our favorite meals and the recipes if I need them, but I love to try new things - especially with produce that are in season - so I'm often diving into cookbooks and Pinterest to find inspiration and how-tos.
Below are a list of my favorite cookbooks, favorite recipes from them, and a few other places I like to look for recipes.
Half Baked Harvest
If you're not familiar with Half Baked Harvest or Tieghan's incredible kitchen skills, I'm sure her 2.7 million Instagram followers would be happy to clue you in.
Her account is genuinely lovely to follow and is filled with incredible, easy, and delicious recipes. She now has two cookbooks on the market - I have her Half Baked Harvest one that I use ALL THE TIME! But the Super Simple cookbook looks like it has some winners too.
Some of our favorite recipes from the book:
- Healthy Chipotle Turkey Sweet Potato Skins
- Easy Coq au Vin with Brown Butter Egg Noodles
- Gyros with Roasted Garlic Tzaziki and Feta Fries
The Lost Kitchen
A chef that settled in Maine, using only the freshest ingredients on hand to create simple and stunning dishes that are surprisingly easy to recreate?
That's the beauty of The Lost Kitchen. Featured on the Magnolia site, my mom gifted me the cookbook for my birthday and it's the only cookbook that I have actually read cover to cover like a book. The photos are stunning but the recipes are easy to follow and so unique.
A few of our favorites are:
- Pork Burgers with Grilled Peaches, Bacon, and Blue Cheese
- Cornflake Fried Chicken
- Lavender Sink Scrub ( for cleaning!)
Honorable Mentions
- The Borough Market Cookbook – stories and time-honored recipes from London's oldest market
- The Laura Lee Balanced Cookbook – easy, family-loved recipes that are both healthy and nourishing
- The Mocktail Manual – the cutest little book of recipes for non-alcoholic drinks, coffees, smoothies, and juices
Other Recipe Resources
At this point, if you don't use Pinterest to search for recipes, you're missing out on a whole wealth of amazing information. A few of my favorite recipes have come from Pinterest searching and I've perfected what to search in the app to find winning dinners.
- Looking for something seasonal? – Search "winter dinner recipes"
- Looking for something healthy? – Search "healthy chicken recipes"
- Looking for something to meal prep? – Search "meal prep recipes for the week"
- Fun snacks or appetizers? – Search "easy and fun snacks to make"
- Something for two? – Search "date night dinner recipes for two"
- Dinner in a hurry? – Search "fast and easy quick dinner meals"
- Veggies only? – Search "best vegetarian recipes easy"
- Craving a salad? – Search "salad recipes for dinner meal"