About

Hey there, I’m Erin Penor. Welcome to my blog, Wholly Delicious Dishes. Here, I can share recipes and menu ideas to help save you time and money by creating easy, flavorful, budget-friendly dishes you can make at home using more whole, fresh ingredients and less of the processed stuff.

I am a wife to an amazing man, (that’s what he tells me, anyways), a mom to four crazy but cute kids and a new Grandma!  I love to cook and bake, a good thing since my kids like to eat all the time. I enjoy learning about nutrition and gardening. However, I have not always used my knowledge or passions to prepare meals for my family. I have read countless books teaching me about good nutrition but when dinner time rolled around, I would pick up the car keys or a big box of processed something or other, always believing I was too busy to cook healthy dishes. There was no way I would have the time and energy to put together a meal plan. The preparation is too complicated. The ingredients are too expensive. The excuses went on and on; I got a million of ‘em.  Weight has always been an issue for me. I have gone to some pretty drastic measures in order to lose the pounds I gained from years of yo-yo dieting and consuming flavorless diet “food”.  My family has not been spared from my quest to obtain a healthier lifestyle. We have been carnivores, vegetarians and wannabe Vegans. Eating fat-free, sugar-free, taste-free food, that was no better than what we had been consuming to begin with. I want to eat good food; you know, like real food. So, enough with the gimmicks and dieting and all the other crap. Time to start listening to my body and using that common sense my mom spent years telling me to use.

Some things you should know is that this is not an all things healthy blog. While I try to be as healthful as possible, I also really like cake. I try to use moderation and make responsible choices about what my family eats without having to cut all the foods we enjoy out of our diet. My budget is pretty tight, (these kids are expensive!), most of the featured recipes are on-the-cheap but I do like to choose organic, fresh ingredients grown locally whenever possible. Lets face it, fast food is well, fast. We like our meals quick and easy so the dishes I create are just that and you should be able to find the ingredients at your local grocery store. I don’t use a lot of fancy equipment. I don’t own a food processor, my favorite pan is my big old cast iron skillet and most of the mixing I do for my baked goods is with a wooden spoon and a little elbow grease. Yes, we do eat meat, just not every night so you will find a good mix of vegetarian and non-vegetarian fare but you can easily adapt your meal to include whatever you like. Last but not least, the only license I have is to drive a car so any nutritional information I may write about is personal research that I would like to share with you.

If you have any questions, have a great idea or just want to chat, feel free to leave a comment. I would love to hear what you think. Thanks for so much for stopping by.