Feeding the Family: Semi-Monthly Menu Musings #5

Thinking ahead saves time.  Thinking ahead saves money.  Thinking ahead saves energy.  This is why I am enjoying sharing our Loose Meal Planning.  Life doesn’t always allow me to think ahead as we run along life’s vast trail, 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.  And yet, I will remain flexible to the possibility of major menu modifications, sudden outings, sickness, dinner dates, potlucks, etc….

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

Every week is crazy and unusual.  I can’t say that there is a week that we aren’t busy.  Can you?  This last weekend has been no different as I directed the choir at our kids’ school, Evangel Classic School, while we sang in a fundraiser for Ethiopian orphans through YWAM.  A sweet time, but we were gone for a while.  Plus, I’ve had an odd headache, and with homeschooling and taking care of the house, etc.  I have a late menu this week-I am sorry.  I missed having it on time, because it really helps guide me, and I hadn’t thought through my food making for the next couple of weeks.  Let me know if there are typos-my head is still fuzzy.

I keep reading little articles here and there that are so encouraging to me in the Real Food Movement, and I thought this would be a good place to share those since I am musing, reflecting, and thinking on feeding the family in these posts anyway.

I was tickled that our local newspaper, The Everett Herald, featured an article on the front page of Friday, March 15th’s paper about the town North of us, Arlington, starting to use local produce in their schools.  In the article entitled, “Lunch fresh from the farm” Herald writer Gale Fiege talks about a program called Fresh Food in Schools Project in which the Arlington School District starting participating in last year.  There are many things that make this great, but some of the most beneficial are that this puts more money into our local economy and farmers and students are offered more nutrient dense food options.  The Arlington School District was named the Western Washington Fresh Food in Schools Champion two weeks ago by the Sustainable Food and Farming Network!

Re-capping Our Menu the Last Couple of  Weeks:

The day my dad made a soup, he called me, and that’s what we ate that day and a few days later.  The family loves grandpa’s soup!

Our church has this awesome fellowship time where twice a month we don’t have a night church service.  Instead we are invited to invite people in our homes (I know that sounds funny) for food and fellowship.  Life is always crazy busy, and we were used to going to night church every Sunday night. So Family Fellowship gives us a built in opportunity to share life with others without adding extra outings for us.  Plus, we all have to eat, right?  And isn’t that what this life is all about?  Sharing life, growing together and helping each other grow.  I believe it’s a great way to connect to others we might not normally see since there are plenty of people we don’t connect with in the church doors each week.  Sometimes we have people over right after church, and you better believe I often have the crock-pot going while we are at church (or two of my crock-pots on:).   I served a Tortilla Soup made in the crock-pot and a crock-pot bread, a friend brought a salad and we had a Dairy-free Grasshopper Pie for dessert.  It’s just so easy to have the tortilla soup and bread in the crock-pot ready three hours later after church.  Practically perfect.

I also took this Risotto Recipe and made it with lemon and dairy-free, using sweetened coconut milk.  I should have used unsweetened but I didn’t want to open another coconut milk.   I also was experimenting making a bigger quantity.  I still need to work on it since the rice didn’t cook evenly-I had the crock-pot open too much, but the lemon was a great start, and I thought it was really creamy.

So for the few weeks here are my plans.

BREAKFAST:

• Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls: Ellie’s Birthday is on Easter, and she asked for the Cinnamon Rolls already.
• Granola & Cereal: I made a quadruple batch of Homemade Granola with my Ellie-girl yesterday in two crock-pots.  Hopefully that will last close to four week like it did last time!  We will also have commercial cereals like Mom’s Best and Kroger’s new Simple Truth Organic Cereal for the other days.
• Steel Cut Oats: frugal and fiber-filled, with fruit, nuts, cinnamo n,  honey, and Bragg’s Apple Cider Vinegar with the Mother mixed for many immune boosting and health benefits.  We have this every Tuesday with leftovers Wednesday and even enjoyed some this morning.

 
• Smoothies or sorbets: We are either having them as part of breakfast, as our mid-morning snack, or as an after-school snack.  It depends on the day of the week.  They really are such an easy way to get more greens and fresh produce into our diet lifestyle.

• Saturday Morning Special: We are TOTALLY enjoying sourdough waffles I plan on sharing in the next month.  I have made these over six times in the last three weeks.  I ended up borrowing a waffle iron, and then Jonathan bought me a new one because my other one died.  I love my new waffle maker!  If you want a non-sourdough recipe, here is one: Waffles with 100% white whole wheat flour (it’s all whole wheat flour).

LUNCH:

• Fruit
• Crock-pot yogurt for the family with honey and walnuts.  No yogurt for me:(
• Scrambled eggs with lots of veggies
• Tuna Lettuce Wraps
• Quesadillas
• Nachos (my #1 go-to lunch meal) can use a no-cheese cheese for me, and real cheese for the fam.  I coat them with organic greens and organic salsa.  Homemade salsa is something I will only make during tomato season, so I buy the Organic Salsa from Costco during the off-season.
• Leftovers from dinner like soups

DINNER:

• Chicken Noodle Soup: Time for Chicken Noodle Soup with a little one who has been napping like crazy with a headache.  I made it yesterday, and it should last us a few days.  She’s actually perked up now, so praise the Lord!
• Quinoa Black Bean Burgers and Sweet Potato Fries: We have sweet potato fries cut and ready to bake.  When we are getting food prepared, it just makes sense to keep cutting to make two or more servings and save yourself the cleaning and getting everything out again.  We’ve been eating the fries with Quinoa Black Bean Burgers.  We even had the fries as the main dish once!
• Lemon Olive Oil Noodles: I didn’t try the noodles with olive oil, a drizzle of lemon, roasted garlic cloves last time, so I am hoping to make it the second half of the month.
• Sourdough Pizza: Since we had Sourdough Pizza last week, I have a spaghetti sauce opened that I need to use.  Lasagna Soup would be good for the family.
• Crock-pot Chicken:  I need to freeze some chicken in cooked portions since I used some up on our soup last night.  We had our friend’s amazing barbecue chicken pizza tonight along with the chicken noodle soup, and she doesn’t know this, but a couple of days ago I wrote a recipe for homemade barbecue sauce I want to try and tweak this week.  I didn’t think about using it on pizza, but now it will be one of the first things on which I experiment!  Thanks Jolie!

• Sourdough Bread: I will be making some homemade $0.61 sourdough bread at least a couple of times in the next two weeks.
• Salad: We will continue to have salad with almost every meal.

• Easter Dinner: I am still not sure what we are doing for Easter since it is on Ellie’s birthday and we may be having separate celebrations.  But if I get to host Easter, I will be crock-potting a ham, making crock-pot mashed potatoes, serving bread or rolls and a salad.  You can go here to my 24 Easter Recipes: 12 Crock-pot & 12 Not for some more ideas if you are in need.

SNACKS & DESSERT:

• Chocolate Cheesecake, Dairy-Free: On Easter Sunday we are having at least 14 people getting baptized.  Very exciting!  So we are having a little reception, and I am bringing a dairy-free “cheesecake” in order that the few of us who can’t have dairy can still celebrate and enjoy dessert!
• I will admit I’ve been buying those big $5 Plus Pound Dark Chocolate Bars from Trader Joe’s, so I haven’t been making as many dessert as I have been. 
• No Flour Chocolate Chip Cookies:  Abbie has been asking for cookies.  I don’t have a oatmeal cookie recipe, but I’d like to experiment if anyone has whole food suggestions.  We plan on making some chocolate chip cookies that are gluten-free and egg-free.
• Apples with Nut Butter: Currently Trader Joe’s sells the perfect small little size of organic apples for the tiny people who like to eat them in our family, so almost everyday this is part of the routine.

• Granola Bars: Yesterday Ellie and I also made a batch of 4 ingredients peanut butter granola bars and 4 ingredient almond butter granola bars.  These are some of the best snacks to have around for our family.  Totally beats Quaker in all ways!

Do you menu plan?  What are you planning to make in the next couple of weeks?  I’d love to hear!!  See other menu plans here.

Do you need some other culinary inspiration?  Go here for the complete list of recipes.

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Sonja

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