Hi, I’m Debra, and most of my time is spent running my Contextures website (Excel tutorials and videos).
I’ve spent decades deciding what’s for supper tonight, and then cooking it! Back when I was a young mom of two, it was quite a challenge, especially with a 20-pound “helper” on my back!
Now that my husband, Keith, is retired, he does most of the cooking. He likes recipes that are quick and easy, but he tries complicated recipes sometimes!
Changing Our Food Choices
We still eat some of our long-time favourite recipes, but we’ve had to make changes in some things, with a goal of staying healthy.
When I cooked for our family of four, the goal was to make a filling and nutritious meal, that kids and adults would both enjoy (usually). So, we had lots of pasta, chili, pizza, fish and chips, and other familiar foods.
Now, we limit our salt intake, and we use cheese more like a seasoning than a key ingredient. We don’t eat processed meat either, except for a rare treat.
So it’s a challenge to find new recipes that we both enjoy, and meet our changing requirements. But it’s a fun adventure too!
Make a Meal Plan
Every week, I make a meal plan in Microsoft Excel, and post it here, with links to the recipes.
Those links are handy at the grocery store, when we want to check a recipe’s ingredients. And at suppertime, we click the link to follow the recipe steps!
I hope you find my meal plans and recipes helpful too!
What’s For Supper – History
Way back in March 2008, I started a What’s for Supper? blog, on the free WordPress site.
For the first 8 years, I posted our favourite recipes, new recipes that we wanted to try, a few restaurant reviews, and notes on what we’d had for supper.
Then, in March 2016, I posted my first weekly meal plan. That week started on Easter Sunday, so we had baked ham on the menu, and a variety of recipes for the rest of the week.
At the end of every week, I update the meal plan post, to show what we actually had. For that first week, we went way off track!
But that’s how life goes sometimes, so we don’t worry about it. It’s fun to see the changes though, and our notes on why we changed things.
Planned Vs Actual
And because I’m a big Excel nerd, I started keeping track of planned versus actual meals, starting in March 2018. (March seems to be a “do something new” month for me!
Some planned suppers rarely change to a different recipe, but some poor dinners have a low rate. Those get dropped from our rotation, or we try to improve on those recipes.
My Excel records also show how many times we’ve had a recipe in our meal plan, and the date that we last had it. If you’re a spreadsheet nerd too, you’ll understand why I enjoy keeping track of those things.
Moving Here
After consistently posting on my old blog for 17 years, I decided to upgrade to this new blog. On this site, I’ll be able to use fancier features, if I’d like to, and have better control of the content and setup.
Gradually, I’ll bring recipes over from the old site, and update them, and add more details, where needed.
I’ll be adding lots of new recipes too, so keeping checking here for the new content!