Triple Chocolate Cherry Bars

I made Triple Chocolate Cherry Bars to share with my playgroup. I found the recipe on the Betty Crocker website, my favorite site for recipes. This easy recipe will not appeal to those who prefer to not use packaged foods, such as dry cake mix and canned cherry pie filling, unless you are able to adapt the recipe.

Photo by me

The Triple Chocolate Cherry Bars turned out yummy and were fun to share; however, they did not turn out as dreamy as I thought they would. I guess I used the wrong sized pan because my bars were thick, more like a cake than a bar. The chocolate chips are barely noticeable in the bars and I found that I don't really care for the "whipped" frosting called for in the recipe. If I was to make them again, I would use regular sized chocolate chips and plain chocolate frosting.

Notable Websites Series – Simple Mom

I thought that I would start on a website review mini series. I will write one post per my favorite websites. These are websites that I frequent or have found useful and may be of use to you.

The first website I want to review is Simple Mom. This is a blog that is on its own domain. The blog is updated with a new post frequently. The author of Simple Mom is known in the blogosphere as Toblerone. In her words, the blog “is a cross between a mom blog and a productivity blog.”


It is the Simple Mom site that first introduced me to Dave Ramsey and his Total Money Makeover. However, this site is not solely dedicated to finance. The focus of the blog “is for the mom who needs that extra nudge of motivation to manage her home in a productive and balanced way.” Topics to look forward to on Simple Mom include: managing the household, budgeting and family finances, healthy cooking, quality entertainment, organizing, sewing, gardening, and living greener.

Meal Planning

I would like to start meal planning. I know that if I plan meals and write out a grocery list according to those planned meals, we would likely save some money and answer the nightly question, "what's for dinner?"

Photo by secret.genius

Grocery shopping may also be more of a pleasure if I have a list and know what to buy before I go into the store. It’s not that grocery shopping is an uncomfortable experience, but it often goes something like this:

DJ: "Do we have chicken?"
Me: "Yep, we have plenty. Do we need mayo?"
DJ: "I can’t remember, we better get some."
Of course, when we come home we discover that we have plenty of mayo.

I have an idea of what to do, but I don’t know where to start. Do you do meal planning? Do you know of a great blog about meal planning that I should read? Have you posted a blog about meal planning? How about any useful (free) sites on the topic?

I look forward to your comments…