Meal Plans Week of 6-20-10

Happy Father's Day!!!  Looks like it's going to be a beautiful day today.  Although we can't go to church with Justin this morning, hopefully we can still spend some time together as a family celebrating.  Maybe we can take one of our Sunday walks to the local ice cream stand this afternoon.

Last week was a bit crazy to say the least.  And not the way I had planned.  The week started out normally.  But Wed. Rebecca came down with hand, foot and mouth disease.  So the rest of the week was turned upside down.  She's still fighting the virus.  Poor thing is covered head to toe with sores/rashes/blisters.  But she's such a trooper.  At least the fever seems to finally be gone.  And she's sleeping better again.  We're praying that things start improving very soon.  In the meantime, we can't do very much.  We had a bunch of fun, family stuff planned over the next week.  But we'll have to cancel it while Rebecca recovers and wait until she is no longer contagious to get out again.  So there won't be a ton of stuff going on this week.  Today is Father's Day.  Nothing specific planned.  Hopefully some good family time.  Tuesday is Justin's last day of class!!!!  Woo Hoo!!!  We are all very happy about that.  It will be nice to have him around more again.  Tuesday is also the farmer's market.  Hopefully Rebecca and I can at least go there.  Wednesday we pick up our co-op order.  And one day this week I need to go grocery shopping.  That's probably it.  I guess that'll make time for some kitchen work :P

Last week was still somewhat productive, even though some things had to be put on hold.  I did deal with a lot of fruit.  I froze a bunch of strawberries (from the farmer's market) and grapes (stocked up on organic grapes...yeah!).  I also dried strawberries, grapes, apples and cherries.  I soaked and dried pecans.  I made mayonnaise, beef jerky, fermented punch, strawberry banana bread, strawberry shortcake and strawberry banana sourdough muffins.  I also started making kefir.  But didn't have time to really deal with it and wasn't totally sure how to do it.  So I stuck it in the fridge.  I've done some more reading and watched a couple how-to videos, and I made it to the store to get more milk.  So I'll try again this week.  I also got my compost bucket and wheat berry bucket.  Super excited about both of those!  The other thing I tried last week was using parchment paper in my dehydrator.  I don't have any screens for it.  So in the past I couldn't do anything very small or liquidy.  But I hate using the oven to dry things in the summer since we don't have AC.  So I tried parchment paper...worked great!  Can't wait to try it with my oats this week.

I didn't make it to Forrest Hills Foods last week because I couldn't take Rebecca.  So no new seafood.  But we'll keep eating what we've got in the house and hopefully get to FHF soon.  I did get to Harvest Health yesterday at least to stock up on a few basics.  I bought some carob powder there.  I'm anxious to experiment with that.  No luck on finding pickling lime.  I want to try soaking cornmeal...but you need lime water...which requires pickling lime.  I'll have to do some searching.  Anyone know of a place you can get it besides online?  Still going strong with my extra veggie intake.  It's actually rare now that I don't eat veggies for breakfast.  I'm still amazed at that.  I thought it would be so tough.  But I guess I do love veggies :)

This week will be somewhat tentative in terms of extras.  It depends how Rebecca's doing.  My hope is to make kefir, feed/use my sourdough starter, freeze and dry more strawberries and cherries, make strawberry shortcake for a work lunch for Justin, soak (already soaking right now) and dry oats (to use in granola), make granola, soak and dry cashews and almonds, maybe make cashew butter and/or almond butter, sprout/dry/grind wheat, make and freeze strawberry topping and maybe make some cherry crisp (we'll see if there are any tart cherries at the fm).

My other projects are organizing my pantry and freezers and organizing my desk.  All of them are a bit chaotic right now.  My brother and SIL picked up all of their beef yesterday.  So we have our freezers back :)  And I want to get them organized/see what needs to be used up before we start filling them with all of the summer produce.  And my pantry is becoming more empty jars than full jars :P  I want to get that rearranged too.

Starting to ride the crazy hormone train now :P  Not fun.  But I know it's worth it.  Hopefully I can continue to eat well and experience healing in spite of the pills, shots and treatments.  And in the end I have faith that God will use this experience for his glory, no matter what the outcome.

I guess that's it for this week.  We're playing things by ear a bit.  You'll see what we had planned, but don't anymore.  Hopefully we'll get to reschedule some of it in the next few weeks.  I'm learning that no matter how much I plan ultimately God is in control  And his plans are always better than mine.  So I'm taking things one day at a time and letting Him lead.
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S (church, nursery, Father's Day, dry oats, soak oats for meatloaf, soak cashews and almonds)
  B - strawberry banana bread, misc. veggies
  L - crockpot chicken noodle soup, sprouted wheat bread or cheese and crackers
  D - barbeque on buns, chips, roasted asparagus, home canned peaches

M (dry oats, dry cashews and almonds, start kefir, cook and mash sweet potatoes, make strawberry shortcake for Justin's work lunch, Meijer, freeze grapes, chop veggies, nursery cmt)
  B - orange and oat scones (from freezer), fruit/veggies
  D - meatloaf (using soaked oats and fermented ketchup, in crockpot?), sweet potato casserole, peas, pecan avocado chicken salad (oven broke)

T (roast and chop beets, chop and saute beet greens and mushrooms, dry oats, cashews and almonds, make kefir, clean bathroom, farmer's market, pick raspberries, last class!, chop, prep strawberries for shortcake, prep strawberries for strawberry topping, process oats, organize pantry)
  B -  fried egg, toast, veggies
  D - leftover pecan avocado chicken salad, meatloaf  (me), out to eat at San Chez (Justin)...no fair :P

W (make kefir, co-op pick up, make granola (if oven works), make/freeze strawberry topping, clean bathroom/laundry room)
  B - cereal w/ flax seed, crispy pecans and fresh raspberries and strawberries
  D - meatloaf in crockpot, sweet potatoe casserole, beans

Th (feed sd, make almond butter and cashew butter, freeze and dry cherries, dry strawberries, make ice cream, organize freezers, Michigan's Adventure (family day to celebrate Justin being done with class))
  B - cheesy scrambled eggs (with locally made gouda), toast/fruit/veggies
  D - sourdough pancakes w/ strawberry topping, bacon, fruit

F (make cherry crisp, clean, soak wheat berries, MOPS, pack, prep food)
  B - kefir strawberry cherry avocado smoothies
  D - baked salmon, TBD sides, leftover meatloaf, steamed broccoli and carrots

S (clean (sanitize after sickness), laundry, make something with raspberries?, Grand Blanc to visit family, sprout wheat berries)
  B - sourdough bread with butter and almond butter, veggies (me), sourdough pancakes with strawberry topping (Justin)
  D - corn dog muffins, veggies or pan seared salmon with mango chutney over brown rice, peas