Question about white potatoes

[Guest]

Re your meat.. I live in a tiny rural town in MT, pop 650.  Our little market has nothing organic at all.  The meat I bought was what he had in his meat case and I just made due.  Nothing farm raised or free range or anything so don't sweat it.  Just do the best you can with what you can get your hands on.  I rocked the heck out of both my w30's and i'm attempting round 3 currently.  It's really hard in the summer with all the yummy blueberry buckle and fresh peach pie being offered to me

[MrsStick]

Would it help if you made the veggies into the meal as a whole, vs. having them sitting on the side? I'm thinking skillet dinners/hashes where it's all mixed and they don't have much of a choice.

 

If you shred sweet potatoes and cook them as part of a hash (my favorite was shredded sweet potato, apple, onion, and pork sausage) they seem to really stretch a lot. And for the egg eaters, you can fry an egg or two to put on top. The veg/fruit really take up the cooking fat, too, so add a lot, and know that the fat will make it more filling.

 

I've also been a fan of making soups and such to cover the taste/fact that there is veggies in it. Chicken with veggies (a seriously amazing way to stretch a tiny bit of chicken - chop it up very small), a "chili" type soup (I usually call it taco soup) with chicken and/or beef, veggies, and taco seasoning (I usually use twice as much seasoning as it calls for the total amount of meat and veggies), etc. 

 

Stir fries are also your friend. Buy a bottle of coconut aminos from Amazon, maybe Red Boat fish sauce. NomNomPaleo has several stir fries that you can steal the sauce recipe from, and just cook everything that way. Again, a great way to stretch a little bit of meat. Don't be afraid to put all kinds of veggies in it - I've done sweet potato in stir fries, broccoli, parsnips...whatever I had on hand. I don't even measure anything for stir fry sauce anymore - aminos about twice as much as my fish sauce, about as much rice vinegar as my fish sauce, a splash of sweet fruit juice, a couple sprinkles of red pepper flakes and black and/or white pepper. You might need to cook it all in batches if you don't have a pan big enough - garlic and ginger (or non-candied/crystallized ground ginger) are your friends - use them, use them, use them! And they're both great for you. Spicy things fill you up faster, although if you're living in Louisiana, you might be more used to it than the rest of us non-Cajun folks.

 

Frittatas, especially if you add meat to them as well, are a good way to feed a lot of people at once. Ground meat, cooked greens/onions/peppers/garlic/mushrooms/etc., and egg. Serve with a side of veggies (I'm a fan, especially at breakfast, of sweet potato mash with coconut oil and/or milk and/or ghee, ground nutmeg, ground cloves, ground ginger, ground cinnamon, or any combination of the previous spices if you don't already have them. 

 

Fried eggs, at least for me, are less filling than scrambled. Why? Because scrambling eggs incorporates the cooking fat into the eggs. Fried eggs just float on it and take whatever happens to stick to them. Plus, you could be really devious and pour some coconut milk into the eggs and whisk that in for added fat content! Score one for the fat fills you up category!

 

Brisket may very well be your friend if your Wal-Mart has it. It's one of the cheaper cuts of beef out there in the "large hunk of non-ground meat" variety. It slow cooks extremely well (or double-wrapped in foil in the oven at 400F for 4 hours or so), and I will shamelessly plug the recipe for it that I put in the recipe forum ("Oh, man, brisket!"). It's delicious, especially if you let it rest for about 20 minutes before you cut into it (don't take it out of the foil). My store here actually has "whole brisket" (10-11 lbs of meat) for a much lower price per pound than the "trimmed brisket" (3-4 lbs of meat).

 

My husband and I (no kids) can easily go through 4 lbs of sweet potatoes a week, so I sincerely feel bad for you with all of your kids. I may not feel your wallet's pain, but I can sympathize. 

[ultrarunnergirl]

Ugh, living in a "food desert" has to be tough!

 

AMAZON.COM! I buy coconut milk, kelp noodles, coconut oil, ghee, coconut flakes (great for snacks, toast lightly, sprinkle with salt & cinnamon), nutritional yeast (great for sprinkling on "Meatza"), coconut aminos, Whole30 compliant fish sauce ... lots of options when you can't find things locally.

 

You can order exotic spices from Penzey's online. And I highly recommend Well Fed cookbook. It really kept our meals from getting in a rut. Lots of great ideas. Also look for recipes at the author's website theclothesmakethegirl.com and don't forget Tom Denham's website http://www.wholelifeeating.com/author/tom-denham/. Great stuff!

[auntberber]

Also,  I realized today that a huge expense for us right now is bottled water.  We used to have a filter on our fridge and wouid just drink out of that.  Since we moved to Winnfield, we have had to buy 100% of our drinking water because the water comes out of the tap BROWN.  I don't even feel safe drinking it after its been through a brita filter or anything like that.  Its gross! So that is one grocery expense that we have that has nothing to do with Whole30, but it is still something we have to buy.  We have only lived here for about 6 months after moving around for a while.  I don't think there are any CSA's around here.  You would think in a rural area there would be more farms, but they are all  pretty far from us.  We are hoping to move to a bigger city (Shreveport) soon because I have family there.    This is just temporary.  When I do go to Shreveport, I do stock up on stuff.  Sorry to vent so much about my life! Thanks for all the great suggestions! 

 

Have you thought about getting a water cooler?  You can get them at Lowe's for around $100, a 5 gallon bottle of water is about $16. When the bottle is empty, we take it to a place that we can refill it for around $1.50 at Walmart.   In the long run, it's cheaper than buying a bunch of little bottles of water every week. 

[KnottyMama]

auntberber- I like the idea of the water cooler.  I may look into that.  We will probably be moving soon (again) so I am trying not to buy too many big items that we will have to move.  

 

ultrarunnergirl-   Although I am not big on ordering food online, I will probably end up doing it! Thanks for the tip! Also, my cousin gave me the Well Fed book and I have been getting lots of great ideas from it.  I like her idea of cooking for the week, although my crew would probably eat it up in a day if I am not careful!  I didn't know Tom Denham had a website... I will take a look! 

 

MrsStick- I do try to "hide" veggies in meals, but my 5 year old always seems to spot them :/   He is my extremely picky eater and hardly ate anything even before doing the Whole30. Today I made meatballs and hid a lot of veggies in them that I pulverized in the food processor so he wouldn't notice. It worked! I had sweet potato, onion, celery, and zucchini and he never said a word.  I guess when you wrap veggies in meat, kids WILL eat them! lol

 

 I have decided that I am going to make a meat mixture out of ground beef, mushrooms, onions, zucchini, and several other veggies that I can use in frittatas or sweet potato hash during the week.  That way I am not doing so much cooking. This past week I did sooo much cooking because I wasn't sure how to plan meals.  I usually would plan meals for the week and then buy the ingredients that I need.  This week I didn't have many leftovers because I either wasn't cooking enough meat or adding enough fat so I ended up running out and cooking breakfast lunch and supper almost every day.   Another thing that i have decided to do is splurge on the "better" chickens that they sell at Walmart that are vegetarian fed (although I am a little wary  of how much better they actually are) and cook three all at once so I will have a lot of cooked meat for the week then make a stock out of the bones.  I feel like it is worth paying extra for them because I get "free" chicken stock.  I love soups and I do plan on making them often, but it is another thing that my 5 yo can pick veggies out of.  Maybe I should stick to purees?

 

 I love stir fries but it seems my family isn't too fond of them.   Yes, we do fit the cajun stereotype and eat lots of spicy food.  Usually I cook and get my dh to season it because he does it better than me  I do like your brisket idea.  I never really considered it because I don't know how to cook it, I am a little intimidated by it, but I could try your recipe!     

 

 

Sassy- thanks for the encouragement and good luck avoiding all that pie! 

 

ReneeLee-  My parents are vegetarians and they eat nuts for protein...I guess its hard switching gears, lol. Thank you for clarifying! Also, thanks for the tip on sweet potato hash.  I am going to try making it tomorrow. 

 

Again, thanks everyone for all the great tips.  This is the most helpful forum!