Three Plus Two

Plan It, Don't Panic: A Meal Planning Challenge

Keeper of the Home is hosting the "Plan It, Don't Panic: Meal Planning Challenge" for the next six weeks to give those of us who need it (ahem) some accountability in the meal planning process.  Lately life has been so busy that grocery shopping gets smushed into whatever time slot happens to be available, and meal planning has been rudimentary.  As a result, we've been eating way too much pizza, and I end up feeding the kids toast for breakfast every day.  A low point happened at Costco two weeks ago when I bought a giant box of packaged granola bars to feed the kids snacks in the van on the way home.  Obviously they did not need 60 + granola bars to eat on the way home, so they ended up gorging on them for breakfasts and snacks, at which point it became apparent that my boys had eaten 60+ granola bars in less than a week.  (Like -- a lot less than a week.)  Granted, we were just coming home from vacation, but 60 granola bars??

I signed up with the Plan It, Don't Panic Challenge as soon as I saw it.

Our vital stats:

• Family of 9
• 6 boys, ages 14-1
• 1 nursing mom
• grain-free diet (at least for some of us)

Since I know that people are curious about the grain-free diet, I thought I would try to blog this challenge in a little more detail.  I hope to post not only my meal plans, but what we (and I, the most grain-free of our family) actually ate during the week.  As usual, I'll be keeping it real.  I like Mark Sisson's "Don't Let the Perfect Be the Enemy of the Good"  and 80 %  principles when it comes to eating a grain-free/paleo/primal diet.  I am not perfect.  I have 7 kids. Things are going to fall apart sometimes.  They probably fall apart at your house, too.  But that's okay.  You don't have to be a superhero to make changes in the way you eat.

This what I'm hoping to accomplish with this challenge:

•  Stop eating so much pizza for dinner just because I haven't figured out dinner or managed any prep work.
• Make better use of my (minimal) garden produce as well as the store produce
• Start working in more grain-free breakfasts and lunches for the kids.
• Make it a regular habit to have some real snacks on hand that are a change from the everyday fruit and cheese, which are starting to get a little boring. In addition, I need snacks that I can eat, with a bit of protein in the afternoon.
• Start making my own yogurt and kefir again.
• Keep the grocery budget at a decent level.  I'm not aiming for the lowest level, but I do want to keep a top on it by weeding out the impulse buys (like 60+ granola bars). 

 So how am I doing this first week?

Thursday night I sat down and got some coupons together.  I don't spend a lot of time couponing, and am probably one of the more un-extreme couponers you'll find, but I do find that coupons help us on paper and cleaning products and our Whole Foods shopping especially.  I wanted Andy to make a run to Whole Foods after work on Friday, so I had to get everything together for him.  Our standard Whole Foods run usually includes whole fat yogurt, unhomogenized whole milk (not raw), good quality heavy cream (minus the carageenen), and whatever organic fruit is on sale for a good price.  We also stock up on free-range chicken and pastured butter if we need any (we didn't this week).  This week, in addition to the dairy, Andy bought a little over 4.5 lbs of plums, some chocolate for coconut bark, and got a deal on Clif bars by stacking some manufacturers coupons with Whole Foods coupons.  (He'll take the Clif bars with him when he travels.  No, they aren't grain-free.)   

 On Friday night I watched the videos from the Cook More Real Food Challenge (taking inventories of pantry, freezer, and fridge, and meal planning, all of which are good), so I was ready to jump in Saturday morning as long as Katydid and Andy helped by watching Leo, who was sick and prefers to live outside these days.  (Fortunately, they came to my rescue).  I finally got around to cleaning out the fridge, which I have needed to do for a few weeks now.  We recently bought a second fridge to store veggies and milk and cut down on trips to the store, but the luxury of space brought with it a disturbing habit on the part of all of us to disregard all former organizational rules for using the fridge in the kitchen.

(There are some pictures of a seriously organized fridge and freezer in this post from I Heart Organizing.  My fridge does not look like that, but it's a lot better.)

On Saturday afternoon, I finished up the grocery shopping at Kroger.  (Sure seemed like they raised their prices again.  Their "mega-event" didn't seem so mega to me.)

Stuff in the fridge and freezer I'll be using in my meal plan this week:

• black bean salad (homemade)
• romaine lettuce
• carrots that are looking a little hairy
• baby carrots in a giant bag from Costco (mainly for lunches)
• shrimp stock (freezer)
• chicken broth (freezer)
• stew meat (from a side of beef, freezer)
• gluten-free chicken sausages (from that Costco trip)
• almond flour (which I buy in bulk from Honeyville Grains)
• raspberry "syrup" -- organic frozen raspberries from Costco that had thawed and refrozen into a giant block, cooked down with honey because I had to do something with 3 lbs of raspberries at once... a yummy and sugar-free topping for yogurt and pancakes

Snacks and sweet stuff for the week:

I have the Healthy Snacks to Go e-book and am excited to try many of Katie's ideas.  But... everybody in the house (including me) is sick right now with a cold, so we'll see how much gets accomplished. 

Some simple ideas for this week:

• hardboiled eggs
• chicken broth (good for a cold!)
• apples and bananas with peanut, almond, or sunbutter
• applesauce rollups (from the Healthy Snacks book)
• coconut bark (from Primal Blueprint Quick and Easy Meals)

A Note on the Calendar:

Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday are Ember Days in the Church.  We'll be meatless for those days. Meatless and grain-free can be difficult, especially when your family doesn't like beans or lentils.

Breakfasts:

I am not awake enough in the morning to cook.  What I am aiming for this week is to grind up some nuts and seeds ahead of time in order to make grain-free porridge, which will be a nice change from my regular eggs.  (Our chickens are only beginning to lay, so I'm still buying cage-free eggs from the store.) Hopefully some of the kids will enjoy it, too.

Lunches:

My goal is to have leftovers.  With 6 boys, sometimes you plan for leftovers and in spite of your best efforts, you realize what you have left over is crumbs.  My own go-to lunch for days when there are crumbs is a peanut or almond butter/coconut milk smoothie.   

In other words, I'm still working on lunch.  I'll be getting up to speed on dinners first.

 

 

Dinners:

Sunday -- Black bean soup (leftover black bean salad, stew meat from the freezer)

(I did make this and it turned out well, but the little boys refused to eat it again for lunch on Monday and had cheese sandwiches instead.)

Monday -- chicken wings with baby carrots, fruit, possibly some bleu cheese dip if I feel up to it

Tuesday -- shrimp bisque (I'll be altering this recipe, since I don't have cognac or sherry, and I won't be adding flour) and salad

Wednesday (meatless)  -- Spanish Omelet (I add some cheese to mine, and of course, I use more eggs!), roasted eggplant from the garden, fruit

Thursday  -- gluten-free chicken sausages, green beans from the garden, fruit

Friday (meatless) -- almond flour pancakes with raspberry "syrup"

Saturday (meatless) -- cheese pizza out

Well!  I'm not sure how I spun a menu plan into such a long post, but if you're still with me, check out all the other menu planners at Plan It, Don't Panic! Week One !

 

 

So... what do you want to do tonight, Brain?

Tonight the twins revealed their scheme for world domination.

While putting on their pajamas...

Pop: When we grow up, we're going to be good guy Roman legionaries.

Pip: we're going to have a good guy Roman legionary empire.

Pop (flashing You Wouldn't Want to Be a Roman Legionary in my face): We need to read this book tonight!

Pip: And we'll need to buy weapons, shields, battering rams...

Pop: And archers!

Pip: Chipmunk can be an archer. And ships and spears... and lots of clothes... Roman legionaries wear clothes under their armor.

Pop: We need to read half of this book tonight!

Pip: And boats... lots of boats...

Me to Pip: How are you going to pay for all this stuff?

Pip (shrugging): Save up.

Me: Sounds like you'll have to pick up a lot of Legos.

Christmas Carols You've Never Heard

Last night on the way home from Mass, the boys asked Katydid to sing Christmas carols.  Some of their requests?

• "Broken Bells"... you know, "Dashing through the snow/in a horseless broken sleigh..."
• Deck the Halls... with balls of salami
• Deck the Halls... with mostaccioli

I guess "Jingle Bells/Batman smells..." is passe.

Somebody found my camera

Guess who.

Hmmm.  Looks like the suspect must have had a fondness for cinnamon toast.

You'd think he could have at least cropped out all the clutter in the background!
  
 
 
 
  

Our summer in pictures

Today will be our first day of school (i.e., doing math again).  The kids are ready to start again, I think, although I'm not.  I'm still trying to reorganize books, art supplies, and Montessori materials.  This past week and next week are also supposed to be the warmest of the summer -- highs in the mid-80s, which does get a bit warm when there's no air conditioning.  Anyway, the point is: by now I've learned that nothing will ever be perfect and it's better to be flexible and just start when you can. This is actually  the very first time ever that we've ever started a new school year on the day I planned to start it. As it is, we'll be easing into morning work... and continuing with the daily afternoon hours of playing in the hose.  These warm days won't last long.

I imagine Grandma will want to see some pictures before the maples change entirely.

  

Nature walks around the yard, observing the changes in our "mini pond" beneath the stone where the water gathers and duckweed grows and frogs hide...

Playing "army"...

A little chaos on the soccer sidelines...

Farmerboy played a lot of goal.

Katydid and Farmerboy both caught crayfish from the creek behind the soccer field and brought them home to observe.  Both crayfish molted and were safely returned to the creek at the end of the season, in spite of some accidental habitat spillage in the van on the way there.

Katydid named her crayfish "Bobby". 

Katydid's bantams have been interesting to watch, as they're more like little birds than chickens...

Farmers sometimes work inside, too, "buttering corn for horses".

We strung a tent on the deck.

Gareth and Andy learned how to prepare and cook fish the kids caught. (Gareth earned his Fishing badge.)

We visited Ft. William Henry in Lake George (more on that trip later - I hope!)

The kids built "huts".  (This one is Farmerboy's. I hope to do a longer post about the huts before the weather turns cold.)

Lots of running around with sticks... er, swords... er, guns... um, lasers? (I like this photo because Katydid caught Pop running right out of his boot.  Oh, and the white thing in the grass is a small chicken.)

Boys.

Katydid raised a Mourning Cloak butterfly from a caterpillar and let it go.  This was our first successful attempt at raising a butterfly. (Actually, the little boys raised lots of moths from Eastern Tent Caterpillars this year, too.  Our caterpillars usually don't do anything after we catch them -- except die (cough) -- so this was an interesting year.  I wonder what was different?)

And, of course, we spent a lot of time with the turkeys. A lot of time.

Medical week

Pretty early yesterday morning I knew it was going to be one of those weeks where life revolves around medical needs, but I couldn't have predicted which ones, exactly. Katydid and Farmerboy woke up with stomach aches.  I called Andy and asked him to bring us gingerale at lunchtime. (I thought we could survive until then.) I told Katydid to go back to bed and assigned chicken duty to Gareth.  I did Katydid's chores and read books to the little boys.

Pop did not wake up with a stomachache.  Instead, he apparently woke up with a burning desire to go to the ER.  In the morning, I was called on to stop a game in which he climbed up on top of his dresser - on top! - stood up, and then jumped - as high as he could! - onto his bed. All he needed was to turn a somersault in midair to complete the crazy three year old imitation of an Olympic gymnast. At least he managed to stick the landing.

Then, at lunchtime, as I was sitting down to eat my lunch after doling out cheese quesadillas to every one else, and putting away the gingerale that Andy had so thoughtfully brought for the sick kids (who did NOT throw up, all thanks be to God!!), Pop decided to toss a Mason Jar onto our stone patio to see if it would break. (It did.) I dashed outside to stop the other three boys from walking into the broken glass, barefoot, thoroughly disciplined the offender, and cleaned up the mess, then sat down again to eat.

Not five minutes later Pop started howling. "My toe! My toe!"

Now, I have to back up and tell you that he was standing on the step down from the deck, where we had earlier that day seen a snake.  So what I immediately thought was that he had been bitten by a snake.  A garter snake.  So I wasn't too alarmed, but he was crying like he was in a great deal of pain.  I dropped my fork and ran outside to see what was wrong.

(This is where you should stop reading if you're squeamish.)

Once out there it was obvious he had not been bitten by a snake.  I thought he'd just stubbed his toe.  But on closer examination, the toenail on his big toe looked a little odd. 

It turned out that he had a "splinter" of wood half an inch long and a quarter inch wide jammed underneath his toenail, all the way to the back.

There was no way I could pull it out without putting the poor kid in even more pain that he was in already -- which was considerable -- so I called Andy (who wasn't even back at work yet) -- and sent the kids into emergency mobilization mode, and we headed off to the ER... which was packed... and hoping that Katydid's stomachache did not grow into anything bigger and more messy.  (Thank you, God, it did not!)

Anyway, poor Pop -- they had to numb his entire toe to pull the splinter out, and even that didn't block all the pain, especially since the splinter came out in three or four pieces.  He's none the worse for wear now, but - ugh.

This morning I had my own encounter with needles -- I went in for allergy testing and discovered that I am REALLY ALLERGIC to dust mites and grass pollen, but not to mold as I expected... and oh, yeah MAPLE pollen (and hello, where do I live??) -- but after Pop's ER experience with the numbing needles and the splinter, I was humbled enough to think that an entire tray of needles was so not a big deal.

And tomorrow Katydid has an eye exam.

So I think I meant to be sorting and organizing this week, but um, I'm having a bit of a hard time remembering.

It's football time...

... in upstate New York.  (Doesn't have quite the same ring to it, does it, Grandma? ;-)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then somebody decided to switch sports.

There comes a day...

... when your son can reach the salt that someone mistakenly put on the top shelf, and you can't. 

I always knew this day would come.  I just thought it would take a little longer than eleven years.

Only in our house...

Pip and Pop came through the kitchen today, Pop riding on the fire truck ride-on and Pip walking behind him.  Both boys were singing: "Moo,moo, moo, moo..."

"What are you doing?" I asked them.

"Pwayin' dewivry cows."

I stopped.  "Delivery cows???"

"Yep."  Pip grinned and they both went on their way. "Moo,moo, moo, moo..."

When Andy got home, I said to them, "Tell Daddy what you're playing, boys."

"Dewivry cows!" said Pip.

"Attack cows," said Pop.

"Did he just say what I think he said?" said Andy.  "They're playing Attack Delivery Cows?"

The Small Things: Foam swords

These photos are all fairly blurry, as I took them in low light with a low shutter speed.  But I think the blurriness captures some of the chaos inherent in the combination of boys and foam swords.