Meal Plans Week of 7-18-10

Almost there!  Today is my last day of stimulation meds!!  Very exciting.  Now we move on to the last phase...retrieval.  That will dictate my week.  We finally found out yesterday that it will be on Wed.  So Sun - Tues. I'll be trying to squeeze in as much as I can so I can take it easy the rest of the week.  Today is church.  Monday is groceries and maybe nursery cmt (we'll see how I feel).  Tuesday is farmer's market.  Wednesday is retrieval in the morning.  My parents will be here to help out with Rebecca.  In the evening Justin will pick up our co-op order.  Thurs. - Sat. is recovery time.  There is a chance I'll have to go back to the Dr. on Sat. for a post-retrieval check...see how badly I'm hyperstimulating.  But it might not be until next week.  So the 2nd half of my week is just see how things go/see what I'm up for.  I might have a friend come over on Friday to keep us company/play with Rebecca while I rest.

Last week I started some of the major summer preservation.  I froze almost 10 lbs. of blueberries, 10 ears of corn, some sliced zucchini and tons of beans.  I tried making water kefir.  It's pretty good.  But I think I'll have to get used to the taste.  And I want to try some different flavors.  I tried liver.  And at the moment just typing that word is making me queasy.  It seems my timing of trying liver was not the best.  Wed. is when I started feeling nauseous once in a while from the IVF process.  And it started right after I had my first taste of liver.  So now it sounds so disgusting to me.  I think my next attempt will have to wait until I'm feeling 100% back to my normal self again.  I made liver pate, chopped liver and cooked the rest in a pan.  I can't really give a good reivew on any of it right now.  But at least I did get some liver in my diet 3 days in a row (somehow)...so that's good for my health.  I made ranch dressing mix.  I haven't actually made ranch dressing yet.  But I did use the mix in our lamb burgers and on some roasted red potatoes.  Both were great!!  I made a batch of sourdough crackers.  We all really like them.  And now I have extra dough in the freezer so I can make them whenever we want.  I also made a big batch of bulgur flour, a small batch of raspberry blueberry topping (to use up the last of the raspberries from our garden) and peach blueberry cobbler.  And I'm happy to say I went another whole week without using the microwave once.  2 weeks in a row now.

There are quite a few factors that went into my meal planning for this week.  And some things are still TBD.  The main concern...healthy eating for fertility.  I also have to plan for what needs to be used up/what's in season.  And I have to adjust to what I'm feeling up for that day.  The nausea seems to be more frequent right now, so a lot of the things I normally eat don't sound good.  Unfortunately it's getting harder and harder to eat many of my lacto-fermented foods.  The sour taste is just too strong.  So even my dairy kefir is getting tough to eat.  And I think that's why the water kefir doesn't taste that great to me right now.  It's getting tougher and tougher to eat veggies for breakfast.  But I'm doing my best.  With odd schedules, not being able to eat on the morning of retrieval, not being able to exercise like usual I need to also focus on eating for digetsion.  I need to give my gut all the help I can this week.  And finally I have to go on antibiotics this week.  I'm dreading that.  I've worked very hard to get my gut healthy/in balance.  And antibiotics do the opposite.  So I need to eat as much probiotic food as I can...despite how much of it tastes to me right now.  The other factor is that I can't eat dairy when I take the probiotic, but I do have to take it with food.  So I'll have to figure out how to do that.  Of course I want some easy meals for the 2nd half of the week since I don't know what I'll be up for.  That means I'll be enlisting Justin to help...grilling :)  So, foods to encorporate/use up this week include beef, seafood, chicken, pork, eggs, kefir, sourdough, broth, nuts and lentils.  I'll highlight them in the meal plans...to help myself...make sure I'm getting them all in.

I'm going to try to squeeze in some extras in the next few days.  I need to keep up with food preservation as much as possible.  We've got beans coming out of our ears :P  Hopefully I can freeze another big batch today.  And I'd like to get more blueberries and corn at the farmer's market to freeze.  And maybe dry some blueberries.  I think I'm going to make a new batch of sourdough bread this week to use up some of my starter.  And to have with meals/as an easy breakfast.  I didn't get around to making graham crackers last week.  And we're pretty much out.  I'd like to make a new batch since that is generally what I live on when I don't feel good :P  I'm out of granola too.  So we'll see if I get around to that or if I just have to go without (sometimes it's the only way to get my kefir down when I'm not feelng well...add sweet granola).  If I'm doing well Rebecca and I could make some cookies and/or some zucchini bread.

So it'll be a crazy week.  I'm going to try to stay on top of things but also do what I need to do to stay healthy and rest when I need it.  Here's what's on the menu as of today :)
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S (church, make sourdough bread dough, make graham crackers, soak oats for granola, freeze beans)
  B - kefir, yogurt, granola, crispy nuts (me), pumpkin pancakes w/ raspberry blueberry topping (Justin) (kefir, nuts)
  L - crockpot chicken lentil soup, sourdough crackers, cheese (lentils, broth, chicken, sourdough)
  D - beef tacos on homemade tortillas w/ salsa, cheese, avocado, and fermented pinto bean paste (beef, bean paste)

M (bake sourdough bread, bake granola, Meijer, NKU eCourse, nursery cmt? (early dinner))
  B - sourdough bread w/ butter and almond butter, fruit/veg (sourdough, nuts)
  D - leftover chicken lentil soup and sourdough bread (lentils, broth, sourdough, chicken)

T (fm, freeze blueberries)
  B - soft boiled eggs, veggies/toast (eggs) (power outage and major nausea...did what I could) sourdough bread with peanut butter (me), cereal (Justin) (sourdough)
  D - pan seared catfish, peas, corn on the cob (seafood)

W (prep quiche, Dr. appt., co-op pick up (Justin))
  B - cereal (just Justin)
  D - crustless quiche w/ bacon, zucchini and broccoli, sourdough bread, beans, blueberries (eggs, pork)

Th (make blueberry zucchini bread)
  B - zucchini bread, fruit/veg. else sourdough toast w/ nut butter (sourdough, nuts)
  D - grilled hot dogs, corn on the cob, zucchini (beef)

F (freeze beans?, dry blueberries and grapes, make cookies)
  B - blueberry zucchini bread, fruit
  D - leftover quiche, broccoli, fruit (eggs, pork)

S (Dr. appt., freeze beams?)
  B - hard boiled egg or kefir smoothie (freeze leftovers), toast with peanut butter (nuts)
  D - grilled pork chops, corn on the cob (Justin), salad (me) (pork, eggs)