One week down, five to go...of Justin's summer class. It sure makes life busier. I'm happy to pick up the slack. But poor Justin has to devote all of his free time to class work. We're both glad it's only a few weeks. This week will be even busier than last week. One or both of us will be gone every night. Today is pretty low key. Just church. Monday is groceries and I have a nursery cmt meeting. Tuesday Justin has class. Wednesday I'll probably have to make a trip to an Asian market to pick up some food for Justin's class (he's researching Japan and has to bring in ethnic food). I might also make a stop at Harvest Health. Wednesday evening is our last Kindermusik of the semester. It's a family celebration and we all bring snacks. From KM we'll head over to the co-op for our first order pick up! Very excited about that. Thursday Justin has class. And there is a Just Between Friends (JBF) sale (2nd hand sale). It runs Thurs. - Sat. I'm hoping to make it there one of the days. See what good deals I can find. Friday I am going out for dinner with a friend. I think we'll be taking it easy on Saturday :) If the weather is nice maybe we'll bike up to John Ball for a bit.
Last week I continued my soaking experimentation with oats, pecans and orange and oat scones (recipe to come). I also used my soaked/dried oats and pecans to make a batch of granola. Very good! And hopefully much easier on my tummy. I need to make a new batch of oats now since I used them all for the granola. And I'm hoping to make some soaked/dried walnuts soon to have on hand for snacking and using in baked goods/granola. I'm just waiting for them to go on sale. I hope they turn out as well as the pecans. Those are soooo good. I have to stop myself from eating the whole bag :P My other experiment last week was a sourdough starter. Today is day 4. You have to feed it for 7 days before you can use it. So far so good...at least I think so :P Hopefully I'll have time to make some bread with it later this week and see how it turns out. I also made homemade poptarts and honey whole wheat bread. Two more very yummy treats. I need to try both of them again sometime soaked. I also made my first batch of chocolate ice cream. Mmm :) I split it into 2 containers. I mixed a handful of chocolate chips into one. To the other I added a few chocolate chips and some broken up homemade graham crackers. Wow, is that good! It tastes like chocolate chip chocolate cheesecake ice cream (creamy chocolate and graham cracker crust:).
As always I have several baking projects planned for this week. We have to bring a treat to KM on Wed. I think I'm going to make a batch of brownies. I'm hoping to make a loaf of sourdough bread once my starter is ready. I'd also like to soak some more oats and possibly walnuts (if I get any this week). And I might finally try making homemade tortillas. I've been wanting to do that for a while now. If there is extra time I might do some baking for us...we have no cookies in the house! Our last couple brownies are on the counter. I don't eat much of that stuff, but Justin likes to have some goodies around. And if he's going to eat them I'd prefer that they be homemade and healthy :) Every week I'm watching to see if our local fruit stand is open/has strawberries. If they do this week I'll get a bunch and freeze/dry them.
No big updates on the food budget. Since our hard drive still isn't back I can't work on my spreadsheet. I do know that I came in under budget last week at least. This week will be a bit different in terms of budgeting since we'll be paying for our co-op order. I guess I have to divide that cost up for the month. No hard drive also means no pictures yet. Hopefully we'll get it tomorrow and be back up and running by Tuesday.
We placed our chicken order last week. We're just starting out with 4. They are big birds. We'll get them fresh, and I'll have to break them down. So I don't want to overwhelm myself the first time I try it. They won't be ready until September, so I have a little time to learn.
Last Sunday for Mother's Day Justin got me a set of glass storage containers! Call me crazy, but I was so excited! Now I need to clean my tupperware cabinet and get rid of even more plastic junk. Rebecca got me a bagel slicer. I'm excited to try that this week. We're getting fresh cream cheese from the co-op, so of course we'll be trying it on homemade bagels :)
Looks like the first few leaves of spinach and lettuce are ready in the garden. Doesn't look like we'll get a very big crop, though. Hopefully we can get a few salads out of it. I'm excited to try some this week.
I think that's it for this week. It'll be busy, but hopefully we'll still have time to get outside and play in the sun :) Here's what's on the menu:
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S (church, feed sourdough starter, bake for KM, marinate beef for Mon.)
B - yogurt, fruit, granola
L - crockpot hawaiian chicken and veggies
D - leftover egg casserole, soaked orange and oat scones, home canned applesauce
M (prep dinner, soak/sprout beans, soak walnuts, Meijer, nursery cmt, early dinner, feed sourdough starter)
B - chewy granola bars, fresh fruit
D - marinated beef pot roast, peas, home canned pears
T (sprout beans, soak oats, dry walnuts, feed sourdough starter, class)
B - scrambled eggs with toast
D - romaine salad
W (cook beans, dry oats, prep dinner, Asian market, KM, early dinner, co-op pick up, feed sourdough starter and store)
B - cereal
D - crockpot salsa chicken and sprouted black bean soup w/ sour cream, cheese, avocado and tortilla chips
Th (make sourdough bread, make/freeze breadcrumbs, Harvest Health, class)
B - cinnamon raisin bagels with fresh cream cheese, fresh fruit
D - romaine salad
F (MOPS playdate, clean, out to eat w/ friend)
B - sourdough bread toasted w/ peanut butter and flax seed, fresh fruit
D - Panera Bread (me), leftovers or something from freezer (Justin)
S (laundry, clean, JBF sale, make tortillas, make taco seasoning)
B - english muffins, fresh fruit
D - tacos w/ homemade tortillas
Using REAL food to heal the mind and body. Trust in God and eat the food. Eet Smakelijk!
Sounds like a busy, but super fun week! Bummer about the low yields of lettuce and spinach in your garden. Do you guys do a couple succession plantings? Or just all at once? Our spinach and chard are growing sloooooowly. The lettuce is growing very well, though. I planted a few weeks after you guys, though, so ours won't be ready for a bit... maybe we'll get some lettuce next week if we're lucky, the way its growing, anyway...
ReplyDeleteThe hawaiian chicken sounds good - have you made that before? And I'm intrigued by the salsa chicken and black bean soup, too! Yum! I love both, so I'm sure it'll be delish!! Can't wait to hear about the sourdough, too!
Good luck with the tortillas. I've made them before - a long time ago. They're very easy to make. I went through a phase where I always made them. That was back in college, though. Now I'm lazy and just buy them. :) I should make them again sometime. And try whole wheat this time... I always used AP flour before.
Is the taco seasoning from HH? I made some of that a few weeks back and used it a couple weeks ago for my grandma's bday. It was very good - just like the store bought stuff!