Dinner Daily article

As some of you might know, I also run a food blog, called Dinner Daily. A while ago I was contacted by the Life and Style editor of the Newcastle Herald newspaper, wanting to do an interview about the blog. "Well of course!", I replied. "Bring it on!"

So, without further ado, I am pleased (and just a little bit excited!) to present the article to you all.

Cyber food. One woman's menu for the world.

A month-long plan for simple meals with supermarket ingredients, and even the shopping list's done. Jenny Tarran is blissed out.

At last, recipes for the suburban kitchen

Last week hundreds of families around Australia were dishing up sweet potato and split pea soup with feta bread on Monday night, followed by Greek pastries with roasted root vegetables and maple syrup salad on Tuesday.
Then there was shepherd's pie with minted mushy peas on Wednesday, followed by cauliflower, broccoli and gruyere bake with braod bean toasties on Thursday and a slap-up dinner of chilli polenta chips with a green salad on Friday.

The reason behind this culinary co-ordination is that home cooks have been turning to Dinner Daily for some Monday-to-Friday meal inspiration.

Dinner Daily is a blog written by Melbourne mum Leisl, who each Saturday fires up her computer and works out a menu for the week.

Not only are there recipes involved, but most of the meals comes with photographs and she also includes the shopping list for the meals, broken down into fresh produce, dairy, dry goods and kitchen staples.

And it all came about because she and her husband decided it was environmentally better not to have a car.

The only problem with doing away with the car was that Leisl found that grocery shopping was difficult, so she decided to do the bulk of the shopping once a month, and then ony do short runs to her local shops that she and her toddler could turn into a fun excursions.

"We didn't want to always be begging friends or relatives for their cars so we could hit the supermarket, so I devised a plan", she said.

"Each month I sat down and figured out a monthly menu.

"I happened to mention our monthly menu plan to a few friends, and the response was always 'what a great idea', and most were flabbergasted to know that over the month we didn't eat the same meal twice and quite a few asked if I could share my recipe plans."

So she set up the Dinner Daily blog and, true to her word, has been sharing her recipes and shopping lists with the world.

"After having a think about it, I thought 'Why not!', and decided the best way to do it was to set up the website," she said.

"Also, eating meat has a huge impact on the environment, so I thought that putting some great vegetarian recipes out there might inspire people to reduce their meat consumption. Every little bit helps!"

So now Dinner Daily is being read by thousands around the world and giving the home cook a little bit of inspiration that comes from a domestic situation, not a huge corporation, and done with children in mind as well.

"I've had some amazing feedback from people, with quite a few admitting that now they just print off the shopping list each week and away they go," she said.

"One lady in New York actually prints copies out for her friends!"

"From a personal point of view, it's thrilling to know that people are inspired by the recipes, and find themselves happy to be in the kitchen trying new things."

The site: dinnerdaily.blogspot.com

How about that, hey? Wheeeeeee!