My hubs in his infinite wisdom, really it was just thriftiness, suggested that we use what we have but don't buy more. OK. I'm good with that. I have not used refined sugar since the beginning of the year as an additive myself. Hubs made pancakes the other morning substituting for the sugar and 1/2 honey, 1/2 brown sugar combination. They were tasty and I think the brown sugar could easily be substituted with either honey or maple syrup and still taste great.
Add to this real food process, the desire for me to teach my kids better nutritional habits, and hubs and I both wish to lose weight. So our biggest change is the lack of deserts we've had. We were a desert every night kind of family, often 2 times a day. But I want to really focus on good nutrition and limit this kind of thing. Monday, little girl had to make fudge pops. We used 100 days of Real Food's recipe, and it was delish! And there's still more in the freezer.
I've been baking bread every couple of days. I have a recipe that actually calls for potato flakes, gluten, and vinegar as a dough enhancer. But all the potato flakes I found had other additives so I've been leaving them and the vinegar out. I've also been purchasing Bob's Red Mill Organic Stone Ground flour. Although I do want to get back to grinding my own.
Two Thursday's ago, I had a fail at making pita's. Well, I thought it was a fail. They wouldn't rise - I'm blaming the cold house and a late start, so hubs did have to stop and buy some on the way home. I put the dough in the refrigerator and on Sunday I pulled it out and had a go at finishing them. They were the absolute best pita's I've ever had. Little girl called them inflate-a-bread.
I used a Mediterranean spice mix I made up a couple of breasts, then we cut them into small pieces and cooked. The vegetable mix was onion, garlic, red bell pepper, mushrooms, 1 zucchini, 1 summer squash, (all very small dice) and 8 spears of asparagus (cut into 1/2" pieces) and cooked. Yummy! I think we found a new sandwich. Sorry I forgot to take a photo until I was 1/2 way finished. I had stopped to add some tzatziki sauce to it from our previous gyro dinner.
The kids even had apples cooked with honey and cinnamon in one later for desert. And topped with vanilla ice cream.
I usually plan meals right around the payday's 1st and 15th. And I plan roughly for the 2 weeks. Although I always try to have planned until the Friday after a pay period. I've found I really like shopping without kids on Saturday mornings. This should be my big planning and shopping weekend, but hubs had an evening out this past period and I had some extra meals built in, not knowing if we'd have leftovers and not knowing how many lunches hubs would need.
So for tonight, I'm blessed with leftovers from earlier this week.
Friday night, we're planning on having steak, roasted asparagus, spinach with garlic and mushrooms. Hubs wants a baked potato with his. But not for me.
Then dinners for Saturday - Friday, in no particular order
Pan-fried chicken Thighs with corn
white beans and cabbage (can't wait, my sister has said it's really good for breakfast with a runny egg the
next morning), green vegetable, fresh fruit
spinach polenta bake, corn, fresh fruit
chicken with mushrooms, buttered noodles, and green beans
wild rice soup with rolls
deer burgers, roasted sweet potatoes, corn
leftovers
White bean & tomato gratin (staple meal meaning I already have everything I need for this dish)
And depending, upon how much spinach and tomatoes are left - either pasta, chickpeas, and tomatoes or chicken Florentine soup
Lunches
salads, soups, and leftovers.
Snacks
Fruit
cheese sticks with grapes for kids
apples with turkey
And I have a very small shopping list this week. That's always a blessing!
What's cookin' with you?
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