Works For Me Wednesday: Mastercook

I stumbled upon a cookbook software a few years ago and I have to say that not a few days go by that I don't use it.

Mastercook has become a life saver for me. It comes with its own recipes (over 8000 actually!), but what I like it best for is to create my own cookbooks. I have one cookbook for crock pot cooking, one for Christmas cookies, and now I'm starting one for dairy free meals.

It manages shopping lists too. In fact, I made a dairy free recipe today. Instead of writing out my shopping list, with one click, I added the ingredients necessary to create my meal. I was able to delete the ones I had at home too. The coolest thing about the shopping list is that it automatically sorts the items by location in the store. No more wandering aimlessly in the grocery store.

Meal planning is something that seems like it would be a good idea, but I just can't get my act together to do it. But when I do, the software also does that.

All that and more for only 20 bucks.

Another piece of Chocolate cake...

As I said on Works for Me Wednesday, I shopped online at Chocolate Cake Club for some Christmas gifts. I've been really a happy with my purchases there and was happily surprised that Sue Kirchner, the founder of the Chocolate Cake Club, was kind enough to stop by and leave me a comment thanking me for the endorsement.

I want to make clear that I don't work for Chocolate Cake Club. I have not been paid, encouraged or threatened to make this post. I have never met Sue or anyone else that works for them. I am just a happy consumer.

That all said, I thought I'd share what I did buy from them. I first found them because I was looking for a 2007-2008 planner. I bought the one I used the year before at Barnes & Noble, but they didn't have this years version and I wanted to start using it. I did a google search for the planner and up came their website. So, in my first purchase, I bought the Mom's Plan-it™ 2008 Engagement Calendar. I also added the Baby Daze™ Sitter Slips because we were starting with a new sitter and I thought they'd come in handy.

For Christmas, for my 6 year old niece, I bought the Playful Chef Kids Cooking Kits. It is adorable and she loved it. I got my nephew, her twin, the I Dig™ Tyrannosaurus Rex Skeleton Excavation Adventure. I cannot begin to say how much he loves this set. Any little boy who loves dinosaurs would love it. I also got him this Dinosaur Kids Talking Alarm Clock.

For me, I bought the Retro Take Out Menu Organizer Binder. Like most people, (I hope it isn't just us!), we have a junk drawer (or two or three or four) that was overflowing with a bunch of crap stuff. Our takeout menus seemed to multiply in the drawer. We had more than one copy from each place we order from. I don't know if they were having little menu babies in the darkness of the drawer when we weren't looking or what, but it was getting way out of hand. Now our menus are organized, all in one place and we only have one copy each.

Of course, I have a whole other list of things I'd like to buy. One day, one day.

Works For Me Wednesday: On-Line Shopping Edition

I'm jumping on the bandwagon again. Obviously, I'm still new to this blogging thing, but I had so much fun with the giveaway from Rocks In My Dryer that I wanted to join her other things.

So, today is Works For Me Wednesday. The theme is On-Line Shopping.

My absolute favorite place right now is Chocolate Cake Club. They have really cute gifts and toys. My kids as well as my sister's kids all loved their Christmas gifts from there. They have good quality stuff and incredible fast shipping. (you can now see what I bought.)


One of my favorite places to shop for toys is For Small Hands. They focus on Montessori toys and many of the things they sell, the girls have used in their classrooms.

My girls are little Disney princess freaks, (yes, sue me, I give into the whole Disney thing. I might even enjoy it myself.) so I shop occasionally for Disney stuff.

For cloth diapers, I like Cotton Babies and Tree City Diapers. I like Tree City Diapers because she has a lot of other cool stuff too.

I think Amazon is where I do most of my browsing along with Overstock.

And I should probably give an honorable mention to one of the loves of my life, LUSH. I go there to browse still, but now that a store has opened up not ten minutes away (aren't you so jealous?), I don't online shop there anymore.