Week Seven Meals

Making It Easy for Mom

I'm just a mom on a budget, trying to keep my family healthy.

My son's shopping list:  He changed the worksheet because he said the items in the box weren't all healthy.  If a six-year old can recognize that, we have no excuses not to as well.

"Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food."  Hippocrates

Featured Food:  Fruit Salad

I have no idea why, but my kids are really, I mean really, into eating fruit salad lately.  So, for those of you with picky eaters, maybe changing up the presentation might help.  If you add a citrus fruit into the mix, your other fruits won't brown quickly.  If citrus fruits can slow down oxidation of fruits, imagine what great antioxidant help they give your body too!

Grocery List:  This is based on a family of four.

Produce:

-Bag of organic apples

-Bag of organic pears

-Bunch of bananas

-Bag of clementines

-1 lemon

-1 box of poultry spices

-Bag of organic carrots

-10 large baking organic potatoes

-4 yellow onions

-Bag of organic garlic

-2 limes

-Container of organic spinach

-2 red onions

-5 large tomatoes

-5 avocados

-4 organic red peppers

-2 jalapenos

-1 organic yellow pepper

-1 organic orange pepper

-3 stalks of organic celery

Cold Stuff:

-3 dozen cage free or organic eggs

-Container of cream cheese

-Box of organic butter

-14 Probugs (for the kids to have with breakfast)

-Loaf of Udi's white gluten free bread

-Container of organic sour cream

-Container of organic heavy cream

-Bag of organic shredded mozzarella cheese

-Bag of organic Mexican shredded cheese

-2 bags of sprouted grain corn chips

-Box of Van's gluten free waffles

Meat:

-2 packages of bacon

-1 roll of Jimmy Dean natural sausage

-2-3 boxes of Hormel preservative free lunch meat

-Large whole organic chicken (Costco sells 2 for the price of one in a regular store.)

-4-6 pork chops

-1 lb mild Italian sausage

-1 lb organic or grass fed ground beef (Costco sells it for $4.00 per pound.)

Dry Stuff:

-Box of Mary's Gone Crackers (Costco has a big box for about $7.00)

-Gluten free flour

-Box of Panko gluten free bread crumbs

-1 jar of organic pasta sauce

-1 can of organic pinto beans

-1 can organic corn

-1 can organic black beans

-1 can organic diced tomatoes

-1 packet original taco mix

-1 packet of organic ranch mix

-1 bag of nuts (pecans, walnuts or almonds for your salads)

-Bag of organic white rice

-1 Box of organic chicken stock

-1 small can of organic tomato sauce

-1 bag of organic pinto beans

Check Your Pantry/Fridge:

-Kosher salt

-Organic olive oil

-Vegenaise

-Italian seasoning

-Oregano

-Turmeric

-Pepper

-Cayenne Pepper

Breakfast Options:  So my blog inspiration (my best friend in Chicago), the very one that didn't have time to eat breakfast a few months ago, offered a great idea for those of you without time to cook eggs daily.  (She's come a long way, huh?!!) She has discovered that if you make your eggs in a muffin or cupcake tin, then you leave them already cooked in the fridge and can warm up one or two quickly for breakfast.  Bake them at 375 degrees for 20-25 minutes.  

Monday:

Breakfast:  Eggs with bacon

Lunch: Meat roll-ups

Use about 5-6 pieces of meat and roll each one up with some cream cheese.  I like to eat these with Mary's Gone Crackers.  Make sure to eat some fruit too.  

Dinner:  Roasted Chicken

Put your chicken in a pyrex and squeeze a lemon over it.  Put the lemon pieces inside the chicken.  Then rub it down with kosher salt.  Then mix your soft stick of butter with a about a half a cup of olive oil and the poultry spice mix and brush that on the chicken.  Cut up four carrots, four potatoes, and two onions and place them all around the chicken.  Put in the oven until the chicken is cooked.   Cook at 450 degrees for 10-15 min and then reduce the temperature to 350 degrees and roast for 20 min. per pound.  

Make a spinach salad with a dressing of one freshly squeezed lime, two cloves of pressed garlic and some olive oil. Season with salt and pepper.

Make a fruit salad for dessert.

Tuesday:

This is a typical breakfast in our house.  

Breakfast: Eggs with veggies (like kale)

Lunch: Using some of the leftover chicken from last night, make a chicken sandwich on Udi's bread. I like to use Vegenaise instead of mayo. I would also put spinach on the sandwich too.

Dinner: Pork chops, mashed potatoes and avocado salad

First I peel my potatoes (we use about 6 organic brown baking potatoes) while I boil a large pot of water.  When my potatoes are boiling, I begin to get my pork chops ready for the oven.  I use 1-2 pork chops for each adult and my kids usually share one pork chop.  I first get my bowls ready.  Bowl 1 is about 3 eggs beaten.  Bowl 2 is some gluten free flour.  Bowl 3 is a mixture of Panko gluten free bread crumbs, italian seasoning, salt and pepper.  I then dip my pork chop in bowl one, followed by bowl 2 and finally bowl 3.  I fry them in a bit of olive oil to brown them.  Then I stick them in the oven for about 30 min. at 350 degrees.   While they are in the oven I am getting my avocado salad ready.  You cut up into thin slices red onion (maybe half a red onion) and then thinly slice some tomatoes and avocados.  Next lay the tomatoes on the bottom of a dish, followed by the avocados and on top the onion.  I dress the salad with some freshly squeezed lime juice, olive oil, salt and pepper.  Your potatoes should be done by now, so I use heavy cream, sour cream and butter when I mash them up.  Not too much of any of the three.  There you go.  Dinner is served!   If you are craving sweet after, have some fruit.

Wednesday:

Breakfast: Eggs on toast with salami (my husband's favorite)

Lunch: Leftovers from last night

Dinner: Stuffed Peppers

This is my six year old's favorite meal.  Take 3-4 red peppers and cut them lengthwise, and place them in a baking pyrex.  In a pan brown your mild italian sausage; you can also use ground beef or ground turkey.  If you don't use italian sausage make sure you season your meat with italian seasonings.  Drain the fat and when it's almost cooked, add one cubed yellow onion.  Then add some fresh (or dried) oregano.  Enough to make it pretty green and smell good.  When the onions are transparent, add about half a bag of shredded mozzarella cheese.  Mix it all up so it looks cheesy.  Then fill the peppers in the pyrex with the mixture.  Use a jar of organic pasta sauce and pour over each pepper.  Then top each pepper with some more mozzarella cheese.  Bake in the oven at 350 degrees until the peppers are soft (about 40 min.).  While the peppers are baking you can make a small salad and cut up some fruit.  Your kids should love this one too.

Thursday:

Breakfast: Eggs with bacon and veggies

Lunch: Meat roll-ups

Use about 5-6 pieces of meat and roll each one up with some cream cheese.  I like to eat these with Mary's Gone Crackers.  Make sure to eat some fruit too.  

Dinner: Taco Soup

This is a favorite in our house, and so easy to make!  To make taco soup, put one can of pinto beans, one can black beans, one can corn, one can diced tomatoes, one pound of ground beef browned and drained, and one packet of original taco mix and one packet of ranch mix into the crock pot.  Make sure you dump the juice from the cans too.  You could add a little water too, to make it the consistency you'd prefer.  Cook on low for 6-8 hours.  I then cut up avocados, jalapenos, onions and some cheese to put on top right before you serve.  Remember the corn chips?  Those are great to make and serve with the soup too.  Fruit for dessert.

Friday:

Breakfast: Fridays are our fun breakfast day when we pancakes, waffles or some other gluten free sweet.

Lunch: Salad

A great time to use up all your veggies and lettuce.  Pour some nuts and avocados on that salad too.  You can also add a hard boiled egg and some cheese.

Dinner: It's Lent, so being Catholics, we don't eat meat on Fridays. Here is my awesome rice recipe. I brown one cup of white rice with one tablespoon of butter. Then I cook it according to the directions using chicken stock as the liquid. In a pan, I saute one cubed red onion, one cubed yellow pepper, one cubed orange pepper, one pressed head of garlic, two large cubed tomatoes, and three cut up stalks of celery. I add about 3 tablespoons of tomato sauce, and season with salt, turmeric, and a little dash of cayenne pepper. Once the rice is cooked, I add the pan of veggies to the rice and stir it all up. It's so delicious! I usually make a pot of pinto beans to eat with this.

Pinto Beans: Boil water with about 1 Tbsp of kosher salt. When the water is boiling, add the beans.  When the beans begin to boil, transfer this to the crock pot.  Cook on high 4 hours.  

Rice and beans can also be served on tostadas or in a corn tortilla.