My Ideal Pantry Contents

Since I'm anticipating moving in September and am due November 6th, I imagine I won't be able to do much, if any, of the moving myself. Having never moved with the Army before, I don't know what to expect, but they are supposed to pack all of our stuff for us (bringing their own boxes and tape)and unpack for us and my only "job" will be to catalog what is in which box and make sure nothing gets damaged or lost en route. Despite the fact that I will be leaving all I'm familiar with behind and will probably want to be surrounded by my stuff to comfort me, I am getting excited about minimizing our stuff -- reducing what we have to maintain and clean around and thereby making our lifes easier. I am also getting quite excited about being able to start all over with a new pantry. I have a neighbor up the street who runs a day care that I plan to give our surplus stuff that I don't want to move with us to. Once we are settled, I plan to look at this as an opportunity to start over. No more HFCS, artificial colors, artificial flavors or GM ingredients in our house to tempt us. I know that this means I will be cooking more stuff myself and am taking the opportunity now to learn as much as I can about cooking food that my kids and I will enjoy and that's good for us. Its easier said than done, but all in all its been fun so far, so why not keep it up?

My ideal pantry (as I see it in my head now) would consist of dried beans (pinto, black and 15 bean mix for now, but I may keep other beans on hand if I learn how to cook them by then), onions, potatoes, 100% cane sugar, King Arthur flour, baking powder, baking soda, Aunt Jemima pancake mix (the kind you add milk, egg and oil to), sunflower oil, olive oil pan spray, spices, Ragu and Prego spaghetti sauces, dates, crackers, rice, agave nectar, honey produced near where we are moving to (helps with regional allergies), salt without iodine, canned diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, tomato paste, ketchup, mustard, mayo, apple cider vinegar, tobasco sauce, salsa, all natural peanut butter, cashews or mixed nuts, black olives, apple and grape jelly, chicken broth, and noodles (ziti, tortellini, spaghetti, lasagna, and fettuccini to start with). I'm sure I'll think of more as I continue to plan this out, but that's what I have so far. While not all of these products will be organic, they will be GMO, artificial sweetener, artificial flavor, artificial color, and HFCS free.

In my fridge will be eggs, milk, spinnach, tomatoes, lettuce, celery, sour cream, yogurt, avacados, whatever fruits are in season, garlic, Simply Orange's orange pineapple juice, Kefir, organic chocolate soy milk, flaxseed meal, butter, mayo, mustard, ketchup, salsa, carrots, radishes, cucumbers, zucchini, squash, broccoli, pepperoni, bacon, sausage, ground venison, chicken, sliced american cheese, shredded cheese, and port wine cheese among other things. As with the pantry items, not all these products will be organic, but they will be GMO, artificial sweetener, artificial flavor, artificial color, hormone and HFCS free.

In my freezer will be fries, fish, chicken, venison, frozen fruits for smoothies, frozen veggies that can be steamed in the package they come in, popsicles (if I can find any without hfcs or artificial colors as almost all the popsicles I see have one or both) or popsicle molds with green smoothies as the "juice", Amy's frozen garden lasagna, and butter.

It sounds like a lot of food, but considering that I plan on cooking 95% of what we eat, I feel its important to keep healthy ingredients on hand for any genre of food we might want at any given time. . . It sounds more daunting than it is or at least that's what I am hoping.

Weekly Meal Planning The Single Parent Way

I've been trying to come up with some meal planning routines for while Joey's gone.

So far, I'm thinking breakfasts will be mostly a combination of cereals, yogurt, scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon, fruit, breakfast burritos and milk. All fairly easy, all of which I am capable of cooking or preparing myself in a way that I will like to eat it. As opposed to over easy eggs, which I cannot prepare at all and must rely on Joey to make for me. So I'm eating my fill of those while he's still here. . .

Lunches will either be leftovers from dinner or sandwitches with pretzels, chips, fruit, veggies, salads, etc. All quick and easy to prepare, which is always good because I seem to lose track of time between breakfast and lunch and don't always have tons of prep time for lunch when the girls are already "starving".

Dinners are the hard ones for me. I like dinners to be healthy, wholesome, and yummy. Usually, they are hot as well. While Joey is gone, I plan to stick with what I know I and the girls like. That includes lemon pepper chicken caserole, meatloaf with mashed potatoes and steamed veggies/salad, chicken pot pie, turkey/venison burgers, chicken hot dogs, chili, 15 bean soup with cornbread, chicken ziti with salad, lasagna with salad, chicken fettuchini caserole (has steamed squash and zucchini in it) with salad, a weekly pizza night with salad, tilapia with yellow rice and steamed veggies or with baked potatoes/fries and salad, pinto beans with cornbread and salad, enchiladas, tacos, burritos, nachos, and chicken salad sandwitches (for an easy night). These are all great, healthy meals (at least the way I make them) and most of them have the added bonus of having plenty of leftovers that are easy and tasty to reheat for lunch the next day or dinner the next night. Some of them even have an additional bonus of being able to be made into another dinner for the next night.

If you've noticed that most of my meals include salad, that's because its a veggie side that all my girls will eat without complaint. I'd love to experiment while Joey is gone and find new veggies/veggie dishes that the girls will eat, but I think it will be just too frustrating for me if they don't eat what I prepare and then I'll worry about if they are getting all the nutrients they need, etc. I may end up experimenting some, but my mission for while Joey is gone is to provide a happy, healthy, peaceful environment for my kids and having a stressed out mom or a mom who's frustrated because she spent x amount of time trying to make something new they'd like only to have them turn their nose up at it will not help me in my mission. So for now, I plan to stick with what I know.

I'm not sure how I'll determine a weekly meal plan while Joey is gone. Some people do a different meat every night (i.e. monday ham night, tuesday chicken, wednesday fish, thursday beef, friday turkey, etc), some people do a different genre of food every night (i.e. monday pizza, tuesday mexican, wednesday italian, thursday chinese, etc) and some people just pick a certain meal for ever night, but I prefer to just choose 7-10 dinners as options for that week and make sure that I have the ingredients on hand so that come 4 pm whatever I'm hankering for, I can prepare for dinner. That's more pregnant friendly IMO.

So there are my thoughs on weekly meal planning the single parent way. Keep it simple, stick with what you know and what you know you like, always be prepared and be flexible.

ISO kid friendly veggies

We're having issues with our middle daughter not eating her veggies. We really like the california blend veggies steamed with cheese on them. Its 3 colors of veggies in one dish, its easy and its yummy. Unfortunately, she won't touch them. So we're ISO more Evie-friendly veggies to add to our diet.

In our diet, we are aiming for GMO free, preservative free, artificial flavoring and artificial colorant free foods. It doesn't sound like a lot to avoid, but it is. Its difficult to find products that don't have any artificial ingredients and are GMO free. But that's what we are aiming for.

Fortunately, she will eat salad, even salad mixes with red cabbage and carrot slivers in them. She will also eat tomatoes all day long and she loves zucchini bread. She will also eat the mixed veggies that I use in chicken pot pie and she will eat pickles. She also likes spaghetti sauce, so I gravitate towards sauces that include veggie chunks of several different colors in them. She will not eat broccoli, cauliflower, carrots (except in carrot cake), cucumbers (except pickled). . . the list of veggies she won't eat is larger than the list of veggies that she will eat. Its very frustrating. I'm trying to broaden her food palate, but she is a stubborn lass and hard to convince to try new foods. She won't merely trust mommy that its good for her or that mommy will make them taste good, so practically every meal is a struggle with her.

Fortunately, in contrast, my oldest and youngest daughters will eat practically everything placed in front of them without complaint, so that leaves me free to concentrate on Evie, who I am fully confident would happily eat nothing but meat and cheese if I let her. Unfortunately, this wreaks havoc with her digestive tract and she often has issues with constipation as a result. This is definately a work in progress and I would happily welcome any tips or recipe ideas.

TGIM -- pizza night and yogurt

Tonight was our inaugural weekly make your own pizza night and it was a roaring success. We (well my husband) put the crust, sauce and cheese on the pan to reduce mess and prevent our little ones from having constipation issues from too much cheese consumption, chopped up the veggies and placed them on small plates along with the ham and pepperoni and let our 2 year old and 5 year old dress their pizzas as they saw fit. We all had lots of fun. We all ate our dinner. And we are all looking foreward to next week. Make your own pizza night only has 2 rules -- you must have at least one topping besides cheese on your pizza (to aid in cheese digestion) and you must eat at least one piece of your finished pizza (no turning your nose up at it when you custom made it for yourself).

This week, our toppings were sliced mushrooms, sliced black olives, diced tomatoes (left over from taco night last night), pepperoni, grilled ham, and diced onions.

Next week, I need to make sure and have jalapenos on hand. I didn't realise we were low on jalapenos Saturday when we went grocery shopping and we ran out as soon as we got home. The girls don't eat them, but I have discovered that the bean is quite fond of spicy/salty foods especially of the cheesy variety and especially when alternated with sweet foods. So pizza without jalapenos was particularly disappointing for me.

On the topic of yogurt, I haven't been eating as much for the past 2 weeks. I overdid it a bit when I was first pregnant (but before I found out that I was pregnant) so I got a little burnt out. This week, I bought my starter (Stoneyfield farms organic lowfat greek yogurt) but decided to just eat it because I didn't think I would eat an entire batch of yogurt. I got 4 heaping tbsp of yogurt added a tbsp of honey and did not like it. It was too thin and just didn't taste like my yogurt. I wanted some last night and again tonight, so I am back on for yogurt, so next time I go grocery shopping I will be picking up an extra gallon of milk and a container of starter yogurt and making a batch of yogurt.

So beware of starting to make your own yogurt as you may end up spoiling yourself from being able to eat storebought yogurt again. Not only is it healthier, but it tastes so much better. You just can't go back to how it used to be ;P

What's for Dinner?

What's for dinner -- or WFD -- is a classic question in our household. It helps to have ideas ahead of time, either by making a menu plan or just a list of menu options for the week. By having a list in your mind of the possible options, all of which you have the ingredients for, you are better able to make a healthy dinner decision that does not involve ordering take out. Not only is this healthier, but it also saves you money.

I did make a weekly menu plan for this week. We didn't follow it, but that's ok. That's all part of being flexible. Sure we could stick to the menu plan no matter what, but if it comes down to a choice between eating all the food that is cooked and following the menu plan, I'm always going to choose the former. Plus, let's face it, we don't always want what is "planned", so I've found its a better practice for us to have many options to choose from while being flexible about when to have each option. That way, we can pick "what we want" from the available options and by using the menu plan to shop off of, we have all the stuff available to make what we want to eat.

As far as meat goes, we only eat sausage, bacon, venison, chicken, turkey, and fish, so that limits our choices somewhat. We also eat nuts, beans, and eggs as sources of protein. We make sure to eat at least one veggie with dinner and strive for more than one whenever possible. I think its important to have as many "food colors" as possible present in our meals, so I prefer veggie mixes that contain several "food colors" such as california blend steamed veggies, mixed veggies, stews packed with veggies, etc.

We also like to make extras so that there is enough left over to either eat leftovers for lunch the next day or make something else with the next day. For example, leftover chicken from chicken stew can be used to make chicken salad for lunch the next day and the leftover veggies can be served as a side alongside it. Extra taco meat, spanish rice and beans can be wrapped into a tortilla the next day as a burrito. Leftover chili can be used to make thundermakers (open faced hamburgers with chili and cheese on top of the patty). The possibilities are endless and having a plan for how to use leftovers can help you to stretch your food budget while cutting down on the preparation time for meals. If you only have to prepare dinners and use the leftovers for lunch, then you can use the time you would have spent preparing lunch to do something else -- spend time with your kids or spouse or prepare dinner so that you can use dinner's prep time to do something else.

12 Ideas for Healthy Breakfast

A healthy breakfast should have at least 5 grams of protein and 5 grams of fiber. I like this article, which includes charts. Protein ideas we would actually use from these charts are milk, yogurt, sausage, bacon, peanut butter, cheese and eggs. Fibers we would actually use are oatmeal (the girls and I will eat but not Joey), muffins made with at least 1/2 whole wheat flour, whole wheat breat (toast), whole wheat cereal or granola, bananas and blueberries and strawberries (the girls and I will eat these, but Joey is allergic to bananas, blueberries and strawberries), zucchini, nuts.

So for breakfast ideas I have for now (before Joey ships off to basic):

1. breakfast burritos with scrambled eggs, cheese, lacto-fermented salsa, and sometimes sour cream or avacado slices all in a whole wheat tortilla.
2. sausage, eggs, or bacon with whole wheat toast, whole wheat (made from at least 1/2 whole wheat flour) pancakes with bananas, chocolate chips or blueberries in them or whole wheat (made from at least 1/2 whole wheat flour) bagels with blueberries or cacao chips (a healthier alternative to chocolate chips).
3. Yogurt parfaits -- homemade yogurt sweetened with honey with granola and blueberries or bananas (or both) stirred in.
4. sausage, eggs or bacon with zucchini bread made with 1/2 whole wheat flour.
5. smoothies made from homemade yogurt with honey, frozen fruit, whey to thin it and flaxseed meal to add some extra fiber with cereal or oatmeal to add some more fiber or sausage, eggs or bacon to add some extra protein
6. whole wheat toast with peanut butter, a glass of milk, fruit for the girls and eggs/bacon/sausage with whole wheat toast for Joey.
7. breakfast trail mix with nuts, cereal, dried fruit, unsweetened coconut shavings, cacao chips, etc.
8. English muffins sandwitches with egg, cheese, and bacon with fruit on the side
9. apples with peanut butter with a banana/glass of milk
10. cheese slices with fruit with yogurt to dip fruit in
11. Omlets with cheese, eggs, sausage/bacon, lacto-fermented salsa, whole wheat toast/zucchini bread/ muffins
12. French toast (made with whole wheat bread) can also add bacon/sausage for more protein and fruit for more fiber.

So now I am asking myself why I find it so hard to make breakfast -- after all, I have 12 fairly simple ideas right there and breakfast is the most important meal of the day. . .

Developing Healthy Eating Habits as a Family

As you know, I have been changing our diet to have less sugar, less additives, less artificial/chemical ingredients (HFCS, additives for coloring, etc), less genetically modified foods. I have been having a few issues with it though, some individual and some group issues.

First of all, I seem to have on sweet tooth and one salty tooth LOL. So I have to make sure that I have something sweet and something salty (that follow our new diet) around at all times so I don't fall back on prepackaged junk that's left over from our old diet. I'm sure this will be easier once we've either eaten or gotten rid of the old junk, but for now the old junk is a big temptation for me.

Secondly, I've been so focused on finding new recipes that follow the new diet that I haven't quite figured out a balanced meal plan yet. I've never really been good at that, but developing a weekly balanced meal plan is one of my goals. My issues with developing a weekly balanced meal plan are mostly with breakfast and dinner as I often make (or have Joey make) extra dinner portions so that we are able to have the leftovers for lunch the next day or the day after or use the leftovers to make something different for dinner the next life. I have never really eaten a big breakfast, so even though I know its healthier to eat a large sized breakfast, a medium sized lunch and a small sized dinner, its easier to eat the other way around because I've always eaten a small breakfast, medium lunch and huge dinner. I'm trying to break this but its going to take time and effort on my part and cooperation on the part of my husband and my kids as my husband only really ate breakfast on the weekends and my kids have this cute trick of eating 1/2 their breakfast then saying they are hungry as soon as I've cleared the plates from the breakfast table.

Thirdly and in conjunction with having a balanced diet, I am concerned with eating in moderation. For example, I know it is better for me to reach for homemade yogurt sweetened with honey than it is to reach for honey buns or other prepackaged snacks sweetened with HFCS, but I'm sure there is a limit to how much you *should* eat a day. I did some reasearch on that today and what I found indicated that how much and what kind of sweetener you are consuming with your yogurt is more critical in determining how much yogurt is too much than the yogurt itself. I also found a Bible reference that supports this, “Have you found honey? Eat only as much as you need, lest you be filled with it and vomit.” Proverbs 25: 16. Wikipedia shows a daily value of honey to be 5 tbsps, so according to Wikipedia I would be fine eating 5 servings of yogurt a day. Still, I am a firm believer that variety is the spice of life and I *know* I need to find other sweet snacks that satisfy me so that I am consuming something sweet other than just yogurt because I'm sure 4 servings of yogurt a day is probably too much, despite how much I enjoy it.

My salty pit fall is tomato soup with cheese toast dipped in it. I love it. Its my favorite lunch and sometimes I just find myself wanting it regardless of the time of day. Of course, the kind I like (Campbell's or store brands) has HFCS in it. Today, I tried Progresso's version and was not impressed. It doesn't taste the same and it has basil in it so its weird to drink and I like to drink my tomato soup, so having it be chunky or with floaters doesn't appeal to me. So now I'm trying to either find another soup to try or find a recipe to make my own so it doesn't include HFCS or any artificial colors or artificial or GM ingredients. So please LMK if you know of a promising recipe that I can try as I'd rather make my own and I'll post if I find a good recipe. I also wouldn't mind finding a recipe for honey buns ;).

These are all my pit falls. Now lets talk about the issues associated with developing healthy eating habits as a family. First of all, you have to deal with individual issues -- everyone has their own pit falls which you need to address when trying to convert your whole family. The life style change will work much more efficiently if the transformation process addresses the pitfalls of everyone.

Secondly, I am trying to develop "eating" and "non-eating" times. I'm trying to get them on a schedule so that they do not eat too much at one time, so they get a variety of foods and so they are less likely to develop diabetes as diabetes runs in my family on both my mother's side and my father's. Our girls would graze all day long between meals if we let them and would still eat more than Joey at meals if we let them. I know they are growing, but I just don't think that this is healthy for them. So I'm in the process of ensuring that they eat a good breakfast, a snack, lunch, another snack and dinner. I'm also trying to ensure that at meals and in between them they drink plenty of water. I do allow them splashes of juice in some of their water and I do allow 1 glass of organic chocolate Silk Soymilk per day (if they ask for it, if not -- if they are happy with just water, I would prefer them to have just water) and/or 1 glass of milk per day. When they are ill, we allow sprite or ginger ale (although this is about to cease to become an option as the whey lemonade tastes remarkably like sprite and once I perfect it so it tastes just like sprite, we will be done buying sprite).

So that's where we are on developing healthy eating habits as a family. I welcome any tips, especially if said tips involve recipes or ideas for breakfasts, honey buns or tomato soup ;)