Food Log: February

Hey everyone!  Can you believe February is OVER?! I cannot.  Tomorrow starts the month when we will probably have a new baby! Ahhh! :-)

Anyway, remember last month, when I posted about my food log calendar?  Well, I thought I would make a quick list for you again this month. 

I'm not going to link to any of these, because that takes forever, and I would rather be writing other posts that I have planned, like what I do with a whole chicken to make it last and last and wring every ounce of goodness out of it.  and, also I have a post I want to write and a challenge I want to take that I think would be really good for me but also might make my head explode!  So, you can look forward to that post, and see if my head is actually still in one piece.  :-P

What we ate in February (for dinner):
1.  Pizza
2.  Chicken, quinoa and chickpeas pilaf
3.  Chicken and waffles with corn, cookie cake, ice cream (It was my birthday!)
4.  Spaghetti
5.  Tuna/Sardine melt sandwiches, broccoli with cheese sauce (this was a very cheesey meal!)
6.  Leg o' Lamb, green beans, mashed potatoes
7.  Leftover lamb, mashed potatoes, green smoothie
8.  Pizza
9.  veggie soup, cheese and crackers
10.  Indian Potatoes and cauliflower, Indian lentil soup (which was way too spicy for the kids)
11. Leftovers
12. Roasted chicken, broccoli, french fries
13.  Chicken tacos, rice pudding
14.  Broccoli Farfalle
15.  Potato soup
16.  Sloppy joes, quinoa with asparagus and corn
17.  French toast, scrapple, eggs
18.  Wings, potato wedges, sweet potato wedges, carrots
19.  Chili with macaroni noodles (otherwise known as chili mac), cake, ice cream-- Ellie's Party!
20.  Pizza
21.  Annie's Macaroni and cheese with peas, sweet potatoes (Chris had to work that night)
22.  Rice and beans with a bit of pepperoni
23.  Pumpkin soup, spinach and asparagus quiche
24.  Spaghetti with spinach sauce, garlic bread
25.  Steak, rice, roasted carrots
26.  Lamb Rogan Josh, Indian spiced rice with peas, liver and onions (Chris and I had different ideas about what was for dinner-- can you guess who wanted what?)
27.  Steak fried rice
28.  Veggie burgers on pitas, beets, applesauce
29.  Veggie soup, biscuits (Happy Leap Day!)

Baby Doll Blanket

I have been doing a lot of sewing recently.  I made curtains (remember my first blind hem stitch?) for my dining room, I learned how to make cloth diaper covers (pictures coming soon!), and I made Ellie a blanket for her baby dolls.  She is always stealing my kitchen towels and washcloths off the oven door, and I find them all over the house on top of babies who are "sleeping" or "crying" or "so grumpy." So, I decided to make her a blanket for them.

It kind of turned into a bigger project than I was planning, and it looks almost like a mini-quilt.  Please note, I have no idea what I am doing in this area, and I just kept adding things to it.  I used the seam technique that I learned for my curtains so that the back panel would wrap around and overlap on the front sides a bit.  I used an old towel in the middle of the front and back fabric as a kind of batting, to make it thicker (which it ended up really not needing, but now it is nice and thick!). And almost by accident I found the green remnants of the car cover I made for Chris for his mustang!

And here it is, "My Baby Doll Blanket" as Ellie now calls it.  :-)  (And also Ben, who always wants to be in the picture, but also sat next to me and poked himself with pins while I made this during afternoon naptimes.)

Baby Preparations... :-)

In a few short weeks we will have an addition to our family!  And, since I am continually losing my mind anyway, and it's our fourth child, and I'm fed up with buying diapers, and they are too expensive, and they cause diaper rash, and all the chemicals in the diapers are probably as good as or worse than the chemicals in all the processed food we stopped buying, (Like how I tied food into this post that has nothing to do with food?!) I decided, I might as well try cloth diapering! 

Last week it was nice enough to wash them and hang them all out to dry.  They look so cute and white out in the sun! 

GMO Info

This video was posted at Breaking Free: Truths for Healthy Living, a blog I read (and a friend writes!).  Chris and I watched it and we have truly re-doubled our efforts to avoid all GMOs whenever possible.  This is proving to be so difficult.  But I am glad to know the information than be ignorant of it!  It's a long video, but worth the time.  It will really make you think about what is in your food, and how 'they' make it.

Phytic Acid Article

I discovered this article from Bread Beckers tonight and wanted to share it. 

It really made me think, and while I will continue predominantly sprouting grains as our source of flour, I will not be so harsh on myself if we run out once in awhile, or if I just feel like making oatmeal for breakfast (as you may know, we have an oatmeal obsession in our house!), even though I didn't soak it last night... etc. 

Anyway, I know most of you are not on the soaking/sprouting route right now, but I wanted to share this article.  Until now, my biggest influence in my soaking / sprouting conviction has been Sally Fallon and Nourishing Traditions.  Which I still love and will continue to read and from which continue to glean amazing amounts of wisdom. 

Goodnight for now!  :-)

Chicken Tacos and Rice Pudding

Okay, I did some number crunching tonight after dinner because I was wondering if dessert would actually end up being more expensive than dinner!  Here's what I found: 

Chicken Tacos
1 Chicken Breast (from a whole chicken roasted yesterday)-- 3.00
1 cup chopped Spinach-- 0.85
1/2 cup stonyfield yogurt-- 0.40
24 tortillas

• 4 cups sprouted whole wheat flour-- 1.00
• 2 TBS organic palm shortening-- 0.20
• 1 tsp Real salt-- 0.02
• 2 tsp baking powder-- 0.20

1 Pepper-- 1.25
1 onion-- 0.75
1 cup uncooked rice (I actually cooked 2 cups, and used the rest for dessert...)-- 1.00
Total: 8.67

Rice Pudding
3 cups cooked rice-- 1.00
3 cups raw milk-- 1.32
2/3 cup organic raisins-- .56
1/3 cup maple syrup-- 1.50
Vanilla-- gift
1/2 tsp cinnamon-- 0.12
2 eggs-- .60
Total: 5.10

So, it turns out dinner was more expensive than dessert!  Also, there is enough rice pudding leftover for tomorrow night, so that's about $2.55 per dessert.

The chicken was roasted yesterday and then we used the leftover chicken for dinner tonight.  Also, I will make 4 quarts of broth out of the bones.  The chicken cost 12.00 for an organic whole chicken. I figured 3.00 for dinner last night, 3.00 for dinner tonight and then 1.50 per quart of broth I will make.  Not bad for one chicken.

Also, I was excited to find out how cheap it is to make tortillas!  $1.42!!! We only ate about half of the tortillas tonight and I will use the rest for lunches during the week.  They are cheaper than the bread I make because of the oil and honey in the bread. 

Okay, this has been another episode what things cost at Janet's house.  Thanks for playing! (Or, at least.... reading... )   :-P

Food Log Calendar!

***I typed this post last week sometime, and I was going to add links to all the recipes that I have used or posted on this site already, but now I realize that it is just unrealistic for me to find the time!  So, if you find a recipe you are curious about, email me and I will send you the link, if I can.  :-) ***

 I can't believe the month of January is over.  It's crazy.

Anyway, I shared last week about how I keep a food log calendar.  It's the best.  I love it because I can reference it so easily to see what we have eaten recently.  And when I'm having a bad day-- thinking about how I can't feed my family good food, I'm not good at this, I'm not equipped for this, or I don't feel like making dinner tonight!-- I can glance at my calendar and at least feel a little better.

I took a picture of my calendar to show you all, now that January is complete!  Then I thought, you might want to know what it says.  So I thought I would make a list for you too.  :-)  If you want to steal ideas, or if you're curious what we eat, check it out! Or, if you just don't care, you can skip the list too!  :-P


What we ate in January:
1.  Chicken, broccoli and rice casserole
2.  Cheese and crackers, falafel bites, roasted carrots
3.  Butternut squash soup, biscuits, applesauce
4.  Spaghetti, salad
5.  Chicken, rice, broccoli
6.  Lamb Sloppy joes, artichokes, chicken fried rice
7.  Lentil and Chicken shepard's pie
8.  Bean and rice soup with carrots and spinach
9.  Spaghetti squash, roasted cauliflower, asparagus, cranberry sauce
10.  Eye roast, broccoli, Sweet potatoes
11.  Pizza
12.  Broccoli Farfalle
13.  in MD
14.  in MD
15.  Potato Soup, corn muffins
16.  Roasted chicken, roasted carrots, asparagus, cranberry relish
17.  Leftovers
18.  Beans and rice with chicken and spinach, green beans
19.  Butternut squash soup, biscuits, veggies and dip, applesauce
20.  Chicken salad sandwiches, roast acorn squash
21.  Lasagna
22.  Steak, potatoes, roasted carrots
23.  Spaghetti and lamb meatballs
24.  Lentil shepard's pie with sausage
25.  Hot dogs, sauerkraut, baked beans, broccoli
26.  Steak tacos
27.  Chicken, Mashed potatoes, roast cauliflower
28.  Steak, Liver and Bean Chili
29.  Chicken Rice Corn Soup
30.  Hummus, pitas, guacamole, carrots, celery
31.  Beef sloppy joes, Sweet potato latkes, peas

What more things cost...

I have been really intrigued by the experiment Laura over at Heavenlyhomemakers.com has been doing about the cost of food.  I have been crunching numbers all weekend.  It is fun!  And, really helpful in identifying things we eat that are expensive that I thought were cheaper.  Maybe it will change some things that I make on a regular basis.  We shall see. 

Anyway, after sharing with you what pizza costs to make, I did some more number crunching today. Here are the food items I figured and also how much our dinner cost and how much it costs to make bread.

Honey: 46.00/gallon; 0.36/ounce
Coconut oil: 44.00/gallon; 0.34/ounce
Olive oil: 21.00/101 ounces; 0.21/ounce
Yeast: 2.55/pound; 0.06/TBS
Real Salt: 1.91/pound; 0.07/TBS
Sprouted Wheat: 0.75/pound= 3 cups flour; 1 cup= 0.25
Raw Milk: 7.00/gallon; 0.44/cup


My Bread Recipe 
6 cups flour-- 1.50
1/3 cup olive oil-- 1.05
1/3 cup honey-- 1.80
1 TBS yeast-- 0.06
2 tsp salt-- 0.04
2 cups water--0.00
Total: $4.45 for two loaves; $2.23 per loaf



Dinner Tonight
Tuna/Sardine Melts, Broccoli with cheese sauce

1 lb. broccoli-- 2.00
1/2 loaf bread-- 1.12
1 can tuna-- 2.79
1 can sardines-- 2.33
3 TBS flour-- 0.09
3 TBS butter-- 0.39
1 1/2 cups milk-- 0.66
6 oz. cheddar-- 3.00
Total:  12.73

Some notes about dinner-- whenever we have tuna, it is really expensive, because I buy wild planet tuna and we also buy wild planet sardines.  The cheddar was organic valley raw cheddar.


Dinner Last night
1 lb whole wheat spaghetti-- 1.50
1 jar sauce-- 2.79
Total: 4.29

Last night, Chris and I went out.  The kids ate this with the sitter and there was enough left over that we had it for lunch this afternoon with garlic bread and pears.  If we had eaten this as a family last night, it would have either been all gone, or there would have been one small little portion left. But, i just wanted to include this meal as well so you can see that our meal costs vary from night to night.  While tonight's dinner might seem really expensive to some, I feel last night's dinner was relatively inexpensive.  I don't know!  What do you think? How much do YOU spend on each meal?  Is this even something you think about? I know I didn't really until this past week. 

Hope you enjoyed this exercise as much as I did.  :-)  I will probably be posting more costs of meals in the next few weeks. 

PIzza and what it costs

Laura from Heavenlyhomemakers.com is doing an experiment to see how much some of her recipes cost.  I thought it would be fun to do some of my own.  Here's how much the pizza we had for dinner tonight cost.  We also had five pieces left over, which Chris will take for lunch.  So, that's five people for one meal and two lunches.  That's less than $2 per meal ($13/ 7 meals).

mozzarella (1/2 pound fresh made at store)-- 3.50
mushrooms (8oz package)-- 2.00
onion (1 organic)-- .50
flour (5 cups sprouted whole wheat)-- 1.25
oil (1/4 cup)--
salt (2 tsp)--
yeast (4 tsp)--
tomatoes (organic grape, 1/2 package)-- 1.75
tomato sauce (12 oz jarred crushed organic tomatoes)-- 1.50

TOTAL: $13 or less for two pizzas

ps. sorry i didn't figure out how much oil, salt and yeast cost me because I am too tired right now! also, i didn't figure out how much each cup of flour costs me, i just stole laura's calculation of $.28 per cup.  mine may be a bit more or less.  i rounded up.  :-)

Hope this was insightful.  :-)

Leftover Oatmeal Cookies

As some of you may already know, I have quite a history with oatmeal and breakfast. :-)

Well, it happened again that I had two separate days of leftover oatmeal in my fridge-- totaling about three cups of cooked oatmeal.  I wanted to serve the leftover oatmeal and make it a little more exciting for the kids.  (Also, Sam requested cookies for breakfast.)

It wasn't perfect, but the cookies turned out well. I will give the recipe that I would use again in the future if I choose to make oatmeal cookies for breakfast again. Which, I can say that I will probably do.  Who doesn't like cookies?  Even Ellie woke up asking about the cookies we were promised for breakfast.

Only two left from the first 17 that came out of the oven...

Leftover Oatmeal Cookies
3 cups leftover oatmeal (mine had all the fixin's and sugar in that I usually apply to oatmeal)
1 1/2 cups flour (mine was sprouted wheat)
1/4 cup sugar (more if your oatmeal isn't pre-sweetened like mine)
1 egg
6 TBS butter or coconut oil
1 tsp vanilla (I used Laura's homemade vanilla that someone made me for Christmas!)
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
other things like raisins, coconut, chocolate chips, hemp seeds,... (use your imagination!)

melt the butter and mix with the sugar.  add everything else and stir until combined.  drop by tablespoonfuls onto cookie trays.  bake until golden brown at peaks, 10-15 minutes.