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Last week's re-cap of our family's suppers went over surprisingly well! Thank you for your curiosity and positive comments! I was even asked to do more posts like this, so here's the low-down on what we ate for supper this week.
Friday: Grilled veggies with penne pasta. I grilled the veggies on my pannini press with no oil or anything, then mixed them with pasta, a drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkle of salt, basil and parsley. I love this dish in the summer, especially when our garden in cranking out zucchini, tomatoes, garlic, onion, basil and parsley--those are the veggies in this dish. When that happens my eye starts twitching with happiness, both in the taste of the fresh meal and in the budget! What does a box of pasta cost, a dollar? Ever fed a family of five for ONE dollar?! Yeah, that didn't happen this time as I had to buy these veggies. But as we all know from this post, at least I got them at a good deal!
My 5-year-old helped me make the brownies in the first picture, by the way. He did a great job cracking the eggs and pouring in the other ingredients! I got the idea from Pinterest to use the brownies as the base of strawberry short cake. I definitely recommend try it!
Saturday: This is last week's picture because we ate the same thing. And then we had more of this.
I've been making the cream topping from coconut milk but can't seem to get it to whip up and be fluffy! The recipes on Pinterest say to refrigerate the can of coconut milk overnight, then spoon out the thicker part and leave the rest, then whip it with powdered sugar. No luck! So this time I thickened the coconut milk with cornstarch over medium heat. I also added vanilla and sugar. I chilled it in the freezer while I made the rest of the meal and it was a nice, creamy consistency.
Now might as well be the time I explain some of our dietary choices. We believe our bodies were created by God and it is our job to take good care of them. Since God made us, he knows what is best to put in us, so we try to eat foods as grown. Ideally, that would mean raw, fresh, organic, fruit, nuts, veggies, some legumes and grains, no processed foods, etc. Yikes!
We also feel one should do the best with what you have and we simply can't afford to eat that way right now. So we choose to eat a plant-based diet, add veggies and/or fruit to every meal and usually avoid meat and dairy. We try to limit the amount of sugar and processed foods we eat. Obviously there are exceptions--you've already seen two pictures of brownie strawberry shortcake! You'll also see a meal with fish in it later in the week. I'll explain that one when we get there.
Sunday: Thai vegetable and tofu stir-fry over brown rice. This was a new recipe and it was so good! It's basic stir-fry veggies with a sauce of coconut milk, lime juice, soy sauce, red pepper flakes and a pinch of brown sugar. (If you're really trying to stay away from processed sugar, you can use brown rice syrup or honey instead.)
Monday: Bluegill fillets with fried cornmeal and green salad with apple-walnut dressing. About the fish, because I know you're wondering... We will occasionally--as in, maybe four times a year--eat fish that my husband catches. This was bluegill from a friend's pond, caught the day before. Somehow we're able to justify it because we know it's fresh, free from preservatives and cleaned by us. It was so good too! Bluegill is the least fishy fish I've eaten! We dipped it in a batter of egg and flour/cornmeal and seasoned salt.
I do have to mention this salad because it was delicious! I took a basic green salad with several kinds of lettuce, added cucumber, orange bell pepper, green apple and walnuts, then put a homemade mustard-maple syrup vinaigrette on top. Yum!
Tuesday: We have a Bible study group that meets at our house on Tuesdays. One family brings a big salad, another brings a side dish of veggies, and a third brings dessert. I make the main dish which is usually a soup. This week I was in town until an hour before this supper, so I made my favorite pasta dish again! I had to re-create this meal to take the picture the next day, so the veggies aren't as vibrant and I'm missing the steamed veggies and rhubarb cake. It's basically the same as the pasta dish earlier in the week (above) but sauteed instead of grilled and I included an eggplant as well as basil. Oh, and a different kind of pasta.
Wednesday: My sweet husband took this picture for me because I had to run off to a school board meeting and ate my meal in the car. Yes, yes I did. I enjoyed every bite as I sped along on the quiet country roads for an hour with about 5 stop signs... Oh, country living.
Anyway, I must have been bored with cooking this week, because I looked up another recipe. I do that if I have no clue what to make for supper--start browsing pinterest or google something. On Wednesday I knew we had leftover brown rice from the stir-fry a couple days ago, so I kept that in my search and came up with a cuban salad. It's black beans, brown rice, tomato and lime juice with a pinch of red pepper and a few herbs. It was only ho-hum, so my husband stuck it on top of the left over apple-walnut salad and added the rest of that dressing. And some chia seeds. :) I wasn't too sure how it would end up, but BOY was it tasty!
Thursday: I baked bread on Thursday, so we had egg salad and avocado sandwiches with broccoli. I know the broccoli looks brown--it is! I sauteed it with sesame oil and soy sauce. Yum!
If you're wondering about the plant-based diet people eating eggs, well, we have special rules for those too. We get 75% of the eggs we use from someone who has chickens that forage for food. No steroids or anything questionable in their diet. We also know the eggs are fresh. When I buy them at the store, I get eggs that are from hens fed a natural diet. That's what works for us!
I almost forgot, we had this "ice cream" for dessert! It's frozen strawberries and bananas with a little coconut milk and a splash of vanilla. I couldn't get mine as thick as this, but it was really sweet and tasty!
So there you have it! Another seven suppers. Does it make sense to you? Are there recipes or things that you would like me to include in the future? What did you eat this week? Did you try anything new?
Oh dear, there's another supper coming up... What should I make?
I love the look of canvas portraits, don't you?
Sometimes you can find pretty good deals, but even those good deals times three kids can really add up! I decided to find out a way to do it cheaper.
$2.50 each, in fact!
Here's how.
I started by taking a jump drive to Staples and asking for 8 1/2 x 11" color copies of my high resolution images on card stock for 98 cents each.
Then I went to Michael's and bought a 10-pack of 8 x 10 canvasses for $25 on sale for $20 plus my 20% off coupon which means I really paid $16. $1.60 each isn't bad!
Next I painted the canvasses with white paint to act as glue. Mod podge would be better, but I didn't have any. I knew the paint would work as glue because of this project.
I had already trimmed the white edges off the pictures--don't bother! Just try to center the picture on the canvas because you'll have to trim it down and you don't want to cut off too much of your kiddo's head!
Press and smooth out the back side of the canvas.
I was worried about the card stock wrinkling, so I weighed it down with books in the middle and left it overnight.
The next day I trimmed the edges off the card stock with a razor--I'm fancy like that! I'm sure an exacto knife would do the trick.
Then I went over the edges with a fine-grit sandpaper. You could paint the edges of your canvas if you want, but I like the white with the bright colors.
To
really protect your canvasses, you could paint on another layer of mod
podge over the top, or polycrylic. I haven't done that yet, but I plan
to!
Here you can see that it did wrinkle a little, but it's only noticeable from a certain angle.
I love my new canvas portraits, and coming in at $2.50 each, I'll be giving a set to the boys' grandpa for Father's Day!
Have a great day!
Do you like grocery shopping? How about menu planning? Do you end up eating out a lot? Or turning to convenience foods because there's "nothing to eat" in the house?
While I do enjoy grocery shopping (I don't get out much otherwise!), menu planning is not my thing. I tend to tackle that issue by keeping my cupboards stocked with basics and loading up on fresh fruit and veggies when they're in season. That means I usually have on hand several meals I *could* make, some fast and some .... not. I try to think about a few things I want to make during the week so I can be sure to pick up a key ingredient. For instance, coconut milk is in the curry recipe I shared a few weeks ago, so I make sure to get some when I want to make that.
I haven't perfected grocery shopping on a budget. It gets confusing sometimes when I buy craft supplies or diapers or pet food that throw off the budget but really aren't part of the grocery budget. I guess we need to work on that! But let's focus on what I have figured out, not on my failures, mmmkay?
So. Here is how I feed our family of 5 on $80 a week.
Ok, not quite that fast--a few qualifiers first:
- our children are 1, 3 and 5, not hungry teenagers
- we're mostly vegan but do eat (certain) eggs - no meat, milk or cheese which can be expensive. We also don't drink coffee or alcohol and try to avoid boxed meals, and highly processed foods like pastries, desserts, even store-bought breads. Here's a post with 7 typical suppers in our house.
- we eat at home most meals. I'd say we eat out about once a week.
- only my husband packs a lunch (no kiddos in school), and he gets leftovers.
- I order $75-100 worth of bulk foods about once every 2-3 months. This is where I get flours, cereals, dates and raisins, nuts and dried herbs.
Keeping that all in mind, on town day I usually hit up two stores. The first is ALDI which has great prices on veggies and fruit, but be careful with this. I've had bad experiences with avocados that don't ripen and apples that are very bruised. After shopping there for several years, I know what I can usually count on to be good quality. For instance, the package of 'stoplight' peppers is over $4 at Walmart but is less than $2 at ALDI. ALDI's juice concentrate is under a dollar and Walmart's is about $1.30.
Next we go to Walmart. Now I know some people prefer to not shop there for whatever reason, but the store in our town is a nice quality, clean store. The people are entertaining, for sure, but it's where I feel I can get the best deal for my money.
At Walmart I get specialty items like tofu (not pictured), eggs, coconut milk, molasses, some dry goods, pantry supplies as well as personal hygiene items.
If you're wondering why I don't clip coupons it's because it's not worth my time. Most items we buy aren't the typical ones that you find coupons for anyway. Besides that, it temps me to try new things and make purchases I don't typically have on my list. Once in a while it's fun to try something new, but tell me: If you took an hour of your time to find coupons, then "only" spent $10 to buy $20 of items you don't normally get, who just benefited? The store! Instead, I'll typically find something yummy on an end aisle when it's on sale anyway and limit myself to one or maybe two things per shopping trip. We're still trying new things or getting a treat but not excessively, and I didn't waste an hour looking for coupons!
Maybe that's just me.
I didn't intend for this post to be a rant against coupons--if you're a couponer, good for you! I'm glad you've found a system that works for your family!
Just so you know, I realize that not all areas have the above mentioned stores. When I lived in Nevada I shopped at Trader Joe's and Vons. When I lived in Northern California I shopped at Target and Safeway. The point is to try different stores until you find the one or two or three that seem to give you the most for your money! For example, my friend who lives here in Iowa prefers to shop at Target for groceries but uses her Target card so she gets 5% off her purchases. She feels it evens out the possible savings that she might receive by shopping at Walmart or elsewhere.
One more idea before I get on with my shopping today: give the dollar store a try! I've found great deals on things like soy milk. Who knew? It's also a great resource for party supplies, small toys for prizes (think potty training!), and snack foods like chips, crackers and drinks.
So what works for you? Did you find anything here helpful? Are you completely confused by some of the dietary choices our family makes? Let me know! I love your comments and questions and appreciate your time spent reading my blog and commenting!
Good luck on your next shopping trip!
You know I do these barn pictures as I drive by, right? Usually I'm the driver and photographer and I may or may not have 3 small boys with me.
Now before you go accusing me of child endangerment, remember these are quiet country gravel roads and we might pass one or two cars at the very most. Which you can see coming for a good mile or two. And when I have my camera hanging out the window I'm driving about... 10 mph?
On this particular drive, I happened to be by myself. It was in April when the grass was green but the trees weren't yet. And I got sprinkled on a few times!
One thing I do love about Iowa is the big sky. Well, I hate that too, because you can see the big, scary storms coming for hours! But when the weather isn't threatening, the skies are a treat!
If you were wondering, I didn't drive by this farm in reverse. I put the pictures in reverse order because the close-up of the barn (first picture) turned out to be a really good shot! I was surprised by the blue roof! Were you?
Thanks for visiting the farm with me!
