If you’re wanting to make some gradual improvement to your diet or kitchen routines in 2013, there are several ebooks that can help.
Wanting to stop relying on premade mixes or other processed food? Easy Homemade by Mandy Ehrman is a super-useful compilation of homemade recipes for lots of kitchen basics – drinks such as lemonade and smoothies, seasoning mixes like taco or chili seasoning or Italian dressing, condiments including ketchup or barbeque sauce, and lots more.
I like the book because, while I could search online for any of the recipes she includes – this way I don’t have to; they’re all there in one handy package. The time-savings for that is worth the $3.99 price alone. I’ve had the ebook for a few months and haven’t begun to try everything included, but what I have has been tasty. The organization of the book is clear and well-done, and there are lots of full-color pictures. Additional tips and hints are scattered throughout the text as well. All in all, it’s been a handy purchse for me.
Ready to begin (or streamline) your meal planning? Plan it Don’t Panic is really helpful – whether you’re brand new to the process, or need to get back into it. It includes various methods of meal planning, ways to simplify it, how to save money by doing it, some sample menu plans, and lots of printable planning pages.
If you’re an experienced menu planner and your system works well, there isn’t anything revolutionary in the ebook and you probably won’t get that much out of it. But, if you’re new to it, or if your previous methods aren’t working well for you, this might be the ticket to an improved system that works well for you.
I’m trying to cook and eat more “real” food, so this last recommendation is more of a “I’m doing this now” versus a “I’ve been doing this” variety. Trina Holden’s book Real {Fast} Food helps make the whole real food thing doable, even if I don’t have all day to spend in the kitchen sprouting grains and making my own kefir (or whatever it is I think those real food folks do all day.)
The recipes are good, but the instructions and tips are even better as far as I’m concerned. As I get a little farther along in my efforts to eat this way I may think that the instructions are obvious, but for a true beginner like me, they’re invaluable. The Facebook page is great too. 
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Planning for 2013: Meal-Time Help originally appeared on The Deliberate Reader on December 20, 2012. Consider leaving a comment!