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Anew in Arkansas - Round 2


heb2014

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Day 16 (1/27/2020)

M1: breakfast casserole + coffee w/ almond milk + another cup of coffee (black) at work

M2: cauliflower soup w/ a spoonful of coconut oil added (had one left over that I had frozen; honestly, I'm glad it's gone - it was good, but a little bland unless adding something to it)

M3: leftover shepherd's pie

Really wanted a Coke yesterday at work. I wasn't feeling my best (headache that was coming and going yesterday).

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Day 17 (1/28/2020)

M1: breakfast casserole + coffee w/ almond milk

M2: Zuppa Toscana and a palm-full of almonds

M3: leftover shepherd's pie

I put the last two servings of the shepherd's pie in to Glasslock Containers for lunches and pulled some marinara sauce out from the freezer for tonight. It was good, and  I liked the convenience of not have to cook again last night, but I'm ready for a change. Luckily, spaghetti won't require much cooking either (heating up the sauce, cooking the squash for myself, and noodles for the kids and husband; pretty hands off). We should get dinner two nights out of the sauce, so it looks like stew on Friday and I'll have stopped the hemorrhaging grocery budget at $509.21.

Aaaaaaannnnndddd.... I just realized it will be February in three days and I haven't planned at all past Friday. I was on it for January....not so much for February.

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Day 18 (1/29/2020)

M1: Boiled eggs + grapefruit + coffee w/ almond milk

M2: leftover chicken salad + carrots w/ avocado ranch

M3: spaghetti w/ squash + green beans

When I write this out, it looks pretty dismal (at least to me) - but I enjoyed all of it and didn't feel deprived. I am feeling good, but my meals definitely don't follow the template.

Started my February planning. 

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I'm not going to recap all my meals from Days 19 - 22 (Jan 30 - Feb 2), but I'll quickly say it was more eggs and soups and leftovers. My grocery total for the month of January was $509.21 ($109 more than I would have liked).

A lesson to be learned about meal planning - plan for flexibility!  I liked the simplicity of planning once a month, but the reality of it was that only 7 days went according to plan. I made another 4 of the planned meals on different days due to various requests or events that popped up, so maybe my planning was 11/31.  We ended up with more leftovers at some meals than I planned - which was a bonus so I didn't have to cook as much. I panicked about the budget and reworked the last two weeks, incorporating more things I had in the house and simplifying our meals. I should take what's a home in to consideration better when planning.

As I planned for February this weekend (luckily having enough leftovers to get us to Sunday), I started thinking post-Whole30. I'm undecided about reintroduction and tempted to not do it again - because I didn't have any issues last time in October, at least not with the 4 main reintroduction groups.  I'm sure this isn't the recommended route....and there's nothing I'm especially missing (except hummus); we just have some upcoming events during the time that would be reintroduction where I'd like to not be as strict.

Oh - and it's Girl Scout Cookie season. Could they not move this away from Lent? September would really be a great time for this.

Oh,.Lent - something else I haven't thought about until just now.

Anyway, I'm still undecided on reintroduction, but in the mean time, I'm thinking a lot about "food freedom". I know added sugar does affect me so I would still like to limit desserts and avoid coffee creamer with sugar. Particularly with desserts and sweets, my rule is to only eat it if it's homemade AND one of my favorites. I am going to continue to avoid cooking with soy, but not necessarily seek it out in restaurants. I am also going to limit non-alcohol gluten to "homemade" - only homemade pastas, homemade bread, etc. This is mostly because I want to lose some weight, so it's not a family rule - I'll likely keep cooking store-bought pasta for the kids and squash or whatever for me - when I do want a special pasta dish on occasion, I'll have to take the time to make it. And I am going to limit alcohol to special occasions/events, and then, only if I really feel like it. I'm going to keep trying to add more vegetables in to our meals - not only as a side, but in other ways, like mix riced cauliflower with rice. I still have some work to do on defining these things because I work better with strict rules than general guidelines.

 

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14 hours ago, BabyBear said:

I love this idea!  

Right!  I'm trying to look for other places to "sneak" in a vegetable; right now the only other one I do is add shredded carrot to my marinara sauce - just saute it with the onions and celery and no one knows it's in there. ;)

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On 2/4/2020 at 9:29 AM, heb2014 said:

Right!  I'm trying to look for other places to "sneak" in a vegetable; right now the only other one I do is add shredded carrot to my marinara sauce - just saute it with the onions and celery and no one knows it's in there. ;)

I'm trying to think of fun ways to use broccoli slaw!  So far I've only used it for mixing into a lettuce salad, and cooked with oil in the skillet.

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59 minutes ago, Amy_Michigan said:

I'm trying to think of fun ways to use broccoli slaw!  So far I've only used it for mixing into a lettuce salad, and cooked with oil in the skillet.

I forget about broccoli slaw!  I've used it in place of noodles before in Asian inspired dishes.

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