Organic Spaghetti and More Breakfast

So....we had a bit of a rough (healthy eating wise) weekend. All of us were out of the house quite a bit. SOMEONE didn't grocery shop until Tuesday. So we had to make do with what we could scrounge up around the house or - ew - fast food.

We did make organic whole wheat spaghetti and green beans on Monday. Even the sauce was organic. Spaghetti is always a big hit with the kids.

I really want to try and make my own pasta soon. What I really want is a pasta attachment for the KitchenAid mixer, but those are expensive.

Tuesday's dinner was a Big Mac. That's all we need to say about that.

And last night - Wednesday Breakfast!

Nathan once again made delicious pancakes. He adds vanilla to the batter and they are seriously so good. I don't even really like pancakes, but look at those! Aren't those the prettiest pancakes you have ever seen?

I made scrambled eggs with greek yogurt (seriously, if you haven't tried this yet, do it. It makes the BEST, fluffiest eggs)  As a guide, I did 8 eggs and then used a spoon and just scooped out a mid-sized dollup of plain greek yogurt. Whisk them together, cook them on a low heat setting on the stove, and voila. Yummy eggs. (That picture is of all 8 eggs, not what I ate myself.)

We also had some beautiful fruit. Having fresh fruit in the house is still working out great. The kids are always (ALWAYS) asking for oranges, or apples. This morning I found Ophelia on the couch with the giant container of blueberries having a snack. A slightly messy, but HEALTHY snack. We also made toast with our homemade whole wheat bread! You can see it in the background of the pancake picture.

Burrito Thursday!

We attempted to replicate Qdoba burritos last night with pretty yummy success. We are going to try and increase our vegetarian dinner options for a couple reasons. Meat is expensive. And we hear you shouldn't have too much of it. I think all of us could eat steak every single day, but if we keep coming up with these delicious vegetarian meals, we won't miss steak (much)!

First though: healthy snack alert! Much like in olden times (or...you know, childhood), we had ants on a log. Big hit with the kiddos, super awesome snack to eat while you are slaving over a hot stove waiting for your rice to cook. In case you've been living under a rock, or didn't have a childhood, ants on a log is celery, peanut butter (all natural! TIP: get the kind that doesn't require refrigeration - cold peanut butter is hard to spread), and raisins. In case you think natural peanut butter (that would be peanut butter that has only one ingredient - peanuts - or maybe peanuts and salt) is going to be gross, think again. It is yummy! Have you looked at the ingredients on a normal jar of peanut butter? Check it out. That's too many ingredients for what should be a simple, healthy food.

So, we tried a new ingredient with the burritos. Black rice, also called forbidden rice. Nathan found it at whole foods in the bulk section. It takes longer to cook than the good old-fashioned instant white rice (about thirty minutes). But it tasted great and was fantastic in the burritos. We also had black beans (from a can! we are going to start trying dried beans instead of canned, but you know, baby steps), corn, colby jack cheese, flour tortillas (we actually had whole wheat tortillas, but we didn't use them for some reason - at some point I want to try and make our own), tomatoes, cilantro, garlic and onions.

These burritos were delicious! 1 cup of rice, almost two cans of beans, half a bag of corn, and part of one tomato was enough to feed six people, and have some for leftovers. The kids devoured all of the separate parts, including the rice.

Overall, dinner was a success. BUT, we had one more success for Thursday.... we made two loaves of whole wheat bread! From scratch! And it tastes great!

How pretty is that dough? This is the recipe we used. She has a lot of good tips for using whole wheat flour. Our first round of whole wheat bread, from a different recipe, did not work out at all. We learned the reason - lack of gluten! Eventually we will try some flours that are gluten free. We are lucky that none of us have any food allergies, but I have lots of friends who have various intolerances, particularly to gluten. I like to be able to have food that is allergy friendly for getting together with friends!

Breakfast for Dinner

Wednesday evening we had one of my favorites, breakfast for dinner. I love how feeding four adults and two moochy children can still be cheap sometimes. Nathan bought organic whole wheat pancake mix from Whole Foods, and added a tiny bit of organic sugar and organic pure vanilla. DE-licious! I actually like this whole wheat version better than a regular buttermilk pancake from IHOP, especially with 100% maple syrup from Trader Joe's. We also discovered that you can buy the organic whole wheat pancake mix in the bulk section of Whole Foods too. We'd like to make a good mix from scratch, but we're taking it slow with the whole foods makeover (and this mix is so yummy anyway). Nathan's scrambled eggs were especially fluffy. Instead of adding milk to the eggs, he added a little plain Greek yogurt.  I haven't been able to choke down a significant amount of Greek yogurt by itself, but I love eating it as a substitute mixed with other things! So far we've had it in eggs, tuna salad and baked potatoes.

Would you like some dinner with your Turmeric?

On Tuesday night I made white orange chicken chili. I used organic white beans, low-sodium chicken broth, organic chicken (grilled), shredded cheese, minced garlic, oregano, cumin, and a whole lot of turmeric. We've been trying to add some turmeric to our meals, because it is supposed to fight cancer. It's almost flavorless, so I thought I would add a little more than usual (4 tsp) to the chili and fight cancer hard tonight. I did not anticipate the spice turning my chili orange. I don't know why, because it was white chili and the spice is bright orange. My two-year-old probably could have told me that. Needless to say, it tasted pretty much the same, but eating something that orange kind of freaked me out.

The picture doesn't look too orange, but trust me - it was ORANGE.

The kitchen wins again

Kitchen: 2. Us: 0

I cut my finger trying to slice apples for my oatmeal this morning. So much for a healthy breakfast!

Monday night was a free for all, since we were at Bible Study. We had sloppy joe's, organic applesauce, and mixed veggies. I'm pretty sure Michelle and Dan ate at Bread Co. But I'm sure they got something like salad and not the super delicious macaroni.... mmmm.... macaroni.

Michelle is going to post TONIGHT about yesterday's meal, since she made it. It was yummy, but definitely unexpected.

We are doing well with the healthy snacks! Yesterday we had some fresh strawberries with a little bit of organic sugar. Seriously, the only thing that could have made this better was chocolate.

Michelle has made pumpkin bread twice, with whole wheat flour. Here's a tip about whole wheat flour - it needs to cook about ten extra minutes if you are just substituting for all-purpose flour.

We are making some more whole wheat bread (from scratch) this week. This time, we are going to add in a bit of high-gluten flour. This has been recommended for whole wheat bread to give it the light, airy texture you expect from bread. Otherwise, whole wheat bread can be pretty dry. We'll take a picture and see how it works out!

Weekend Meals

Weekend meals are kind of random, as are the weekends themselves. For lunch on Saturday we ate quesadillas and burritos from Qdoba. There were a few whole ingredients within the white flour tortillas, but mostly it was just a necessary splurge since we were about out of groceries. Both couples were on their own for dinner. One couple chose salads and one couple chose McDonalds. It doesn't really matter which couple chose what.

Sunday's dinner was a little more successful than the rest of the weekend. We broiled sirloin burgers and tried out whole wheat buns (not too bad). I microwaved a few brown potatoes on the side and we added a little butter and Greek yogurt on top. The Greek yogurt actually tastes quite a bit like sour cream so that was a fun substitute. I'm working up the courage to eat Greek yogurt by itself; the potato was encouraging. No pictures - too hungry.

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday Dinners

Wednesdays are breakfast for dinner nights. This week we had pancakes (from a healthy mix from whole foods), but we forgot to take a picture. We used 100% maple syrup (if you are still using Eggo or some such nonsense, make the switch to pure maple syrup - it is so much better!) and the kids loved them.

Thursday's dinner was delicious. We made these beef and quinoa meatballs, served with whole wheat spaghetti. This recipe was super easy, and it is an excellent way to sneak in vegetables for those in the family who don't care to eat anything green. We followed the recipe, except we also added turmeric (which we are adding to just about everything these days).

The recipe says it makes about 15 meatballs. We made them what we consider to be normal meatball size (about an inch in diameter) and we easily had half the mixture left over.

On Friday, Michelle made grilled chicken (Forman grill!) with home made mashed potatoes. Because she is lame, she forgot to take a picture. She also made a yummy salsa to go over the chicken. She sauteed onions, tomatoes, cilantro, green chiles, and minced garlic.

Our first "work week" of healthy meals went pretty well. Stuff to work on: healthy breakfast/lunch stuff that is quick and easy to grab in the mornings.

Tuesday Dinner - Fish and Chips

Tuesday's dinner was mahi mahi breaded with cornmeal, broccoli with cheese, homemade crinkle cut fries, and a mango dip.

Everything was yummy, especially the mango dip that Nathan made. He cut up the other half of the mango from the morning smoothies, and cooked it in a pan with some coconut oil. It was fantastic for dipping the mahi mahi in.

The fries are made from the organic red potatoes, and baked with just a light brushing of oil and a smidge of sea salt.

The broccoli and cheese are from a steamable bag. Next time we will use fresh ingredients, but we don't want to waste what was already in the freezer!

Day Two - so far, so good

Smoothies for the grown ups, scrambled eggs for the kids this morning. Mango, kiwi, and ice for me and Michelle. Nathan added avocado to his.

Mid morning snack of oatmeal, with a touch of cinnamon and organic sugar, and fresh strawberries mixed in. I am not a huge fan of oatmeal, but this was actually really good. Ophelia loved it, and stole half of mine. The kids also had extra blueberries and strawberries.

Lunch was natural peanut butter and banana slices on whole wheat bread, and an organic bosc pear for me. Michelle did peanut butter and jelly again. The pears (from Trader Joe's) are delicious!

Healthy snacking tip: convenience! We put about a third of the fruit that we bought out on the counter, and put the rest in the fridge. We have all found ourselves snacking on fruit throughout the day instead of looking around for chips, cookies, candy, someone to drive to McDonald's for dollar menu food.

It also makes it easy to remember that you want to make a quick smoothie in the morning, or add a piece of fruit to your lunch.

Monday Dinner - Mexican Taco Stew

This recipe was delicious!

It was also really spicy. We're not sure if it was spicy because of the taco seasoning, or because of the black beans which we didn't realize until we made the stew were labeled spicy. Oops.

We made a few alterations to the recipe on the Whole Foods site. We used a pound of lean ground beef instead of half a pound. It worked really well. I think it would have been too little meat for four adults and two children otherwise.

We left out the canned diced tomatoes from the stew, and we didn't use salsa. Instead, we diced fresh tomatoes and fresh cilantro, and added that plus some shredded cheese to the top. The cold tomato/cilantro helped cut the spicyness, and added a nice flavor.

We also had our first injury! Michelle burned her fingers. Kitchen: 1. Michelle: 0.

Smoothies! and other foods...

Fruit smoothies for breakfast were a big hit. We made two different kinds. Blueberry, banana, and strawberry, with some vanilla yogurt and kefir, and ice. And banana, peanut butter, kefir, and ice. The banana peanut butter smoothie could have used either less banana or more peanut butter, but overall, they were delicious, healthy, and super easy to make.

Lunch for the kids: all natural peanut butter and jelly on whole wheat bread. The bread was leftover from before the shopping trip. We have whole wheat bread dough from scratch rising on the counter right now!

Today's afternoon snack: smoked gouda and colby jack with harvest whole wheat crackers (essentially triscuits from whole foods). YUM.

January 2012 - week 1 shopping

Lesson #1: Don't take two young children to Trader Joe's and Whole Foods on a Saturday of a holiday weekend. There will be meltdowns.




Trader Joe's



Other than that, our trip was a success. We got just about everything we need for our meals this week. Our total bill for both stores was $128.79 (though cash from our grocery budget was only $88.79 since we had a $40 gift card to Whole Foods). Since this first trip included a few basics like spices and soy sauce that won't have to be bought every week, or even every month, it was a pretty successful shopping trip.



Whole Foods



We didn't use any coupons or shop the ads this time - we just took the kids and went shopping. Hopefully as time goes on we can find better deals on stuff.



 We will be taking pictures of our receipts so we can compare prices. We might try a few other stores like Aldi's, Schnucks when they have sales, and anywhere else we find. But the convenience of going to Trader Joe's and Whole Foods was great!

We are excited to try our recipes for this week, and we will be taking pictures of the results once we make them. We already feel healthier just having healthy, whole foods in the house. Bring it on, 2012! (And just ignore that Big Mac I ate at midnight last night. Shhh.)