Thinking ahead saves time.  Thinking ahead saves money.  Thinking ahead saves energy.  These are all good reasons why I am enjoying sharing our Loose Meal Planning.  Life doesn’t always allow me to think ahead as we travel along it’s vast trails, twists and turns, but I at least try to think ahead most of the time.  The following recipes are all possibilities for these next couple of weeks as I aim to make the best of the resources that God has given me, yet remaining flexible to the unknown.

Scroll down and you will find the actual food in bold if you want to skip all of the musings.

Enhancing the Health of Processed Food

I was a consistent coupon-er for most of our marriage, well over ten years, and I even grew up using them.  I still use coupons now, but it might be one or two coupons a month, so at this point I don’t think I can call myself a true coupon-er.  Anyway, all of that couponing helped me keep a well-stocked pantry.  The problem was, a lot of those foods were the wrong kind of food items to stock.  I had lots of cake packages, brownie packages, and overly-processed cereals, meals-in-a-box, salad dressings with unknown ingredients, and more.  We have either used up or given away most of the processed foods, but I still have some processed items left (mostly chicken noodle and tomato soups), as they have a long shelf life.

To be transparent with you in our transition to whole foods, I wanted to share a bit about making those processed foods a little healthier if you are insisting on eating them, like I did this week. Continue reading →