Nine For Dinner's 1st Birthday!

Last year on April 22nd, I posted 5 recipes.  I was so excited, because I had been working on the design and ideas for this blog for a few months, and it was finally up and running!  Now it has been a year and there are 237 recipes and tips for the kitchen as well as strategies for economically feeding a family.  It has been a creative endeavor which I have enjoyed.  My favorite thing is to have someone tell me they use the blog, for it is really to share and be useful that I write it.

One of the questions I am asked most often about what appears here is, "Does it really serve 9 people?".  In answer to this, I remind people that half of my family are still little children, which somewhat offsets the fact that the other half are all the size of full grown adults.  I have one teenage boy with the appetite of a wolf, and an 8 year old who is super small and skinny, but could eat all the pasta in Italy for dinner.  There are also times when we are not all at home. So, yes, after a fashion, this feeds us.  One of the tricks I learned from my mother about feeding a large family is that it is all in the side dishes.  Put on a main dish, but surround it with a variety of breads and fruits and vegetables, or a salad. Finish it off with dessert and no one will go away hungry. (Well, maybe the teenage boys...but they have a way of sneaking back into the kitchen to sustain themselves.)  Also, often I post the original recipe here, but I will double it for our family.  I am constantly adjusting the amounts of things in recipes to serve our growing needs.  I can tell we need another adjustment when I keep running out of milk before I run out of week.  It is a never ending battle at this point.

One thing about the blog that has been fun for me, is to see patterns in my kitchen in what we eat and when, I expect to see this more clearly as we go through a second round of seasons. Food is so much fun! I just want to take this opportunity to thank those of you who follow, who share recipes and ideas or encouragement. Thank you!

Jenny