Ever cringe at how much of your monthly budget goes to restaurants? Yeah, been there - and so has CJ, creator of the food and book blog, A Well-Read Tart and a self-described former “restaurant rover and takeout queen.”

While CJ and I both know how easy it is for eating out to become the default solution for everything from boredom to overwhelm to lack of planning, over the past couple of years the so-so nutritional value of many restaurant meals, a desire to keep our budgets in check, and just one too many underwhelming and overpriced eating-out experiences have helped push us both toward a new default: eating almost all of our meals at home.

In this episode, CJ shares how she and her husband transitioned away from relying on restaurants to preparing most of their own meals, how she overcame mindset hurdles, what her planning process looks like, and the small, satisfying ways she still treats herself without defaulting to a restaurant menu.

Whether you’ve been wanting to cook more at home or are just curious about making a similar shift, the tips, encouragement, and resources in this episode might just get you on your way.

Recipe site and cookbook recommendations from CJ | A Well-Read Tart:

* How Sweet Eats

* The Girl Who Ate Everything

* Pastry Chef Online

* Smitten Kitchen

* Dessert for Two

* Allrecipes.com

* Taste of Home Cookbook

* Taste of Home Website

* The classic Betty Crocker Cookbook

* The Betty Crocker website

Recipes we talked about on the show:

* Quick Chickpea Curry

* Shrimp Turmeric Curry

* Chicken Caesar Pasta Salad

* Grilled Spiced Skirt Steak

* Lemon Piccata Flounder with Herbed Couscous

* Baked Flounder with Shrimp Stuffing

* Loaded Turkey Nachos (for the homemade taco seasoning we talked about!)

* Quick and Easy Black Bean Burgers With Peach Guacamole

* CJ’s Easy Homemade Fruit and Nut Granola recipe

* My “so good I eat it everyday” granola recipe

I hope you loved listening to this episode as much as I loved making it. As a reminder, while these mid-month conversations are still totally free (and ad-free), my Journal episodes - which come out on the first of each month - are a benefit for paying subscribers to The Kettle.

In future behind-the-paywall posts and episodes I’ll be sharing more tips on eating well at home as well as a peek at my experiment in small-space living - including adventures in baking sourdough bread in a tiny RV kitchen!

Upgrade your membership now to make sure you don’t miss a thing.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit meaganfrancis.substack.com/subscribe