Menu Monday

I used to do Menu Monday over on my homeschool blog.  But since this is my food blog, this seems the more appropriate place. 

MONDAY

Lemon Garlic Tilapia

Crash Hot Potatoes

Boiled Cabbage w/ Butter

TUESDAY

Spinach Frittata

Lamb Sausage

Whole Wheat Pancakes

WEDNESDAY

Chili

Cornbread

Salad

THURSDAY

Baked Chicken Nuggets

Farmer's Market Veggie

FRIDAY

Grilled Steak

Corn on the Cob

Farmer's Market Veggie

SATURDAY

Possible dinner w/ friends;

otherwise it's leftovers! 

SUNDAY

@ Baseball Game! 

Linked to Menu Plan Monday @ Orgjunkie.com

Camping Food

This last weekend, my husband, son and I went camping with our church.  We had a lot of fun.  There were 100 people (including the kids) in 3 group camp sites.  Nothing better than spending a couple of nights in God's creation with a large group of friends.

When planning for our camping trip, my husband and I brainstormed meal options.  We didn't have a lot of meals that needed to be made.  We needed to cook dinner for both Friday and Saturday night, and then breakfast on Sunday.  Breakfast on Saturday was provided by our church and then Saturday's lunch was a potluck.

When it comes to camping food,  I want it to be easy with little mess.  I also like to be able to cook as much as possible on the open flame.  My husband's #1 request was for hotdogs.  In his book, they are a must when camping.  But what else was I to make?

I wanted to keep things as REAL as possible.  I wasn't worried about well-rounded meals (we were camping, after all!), but I didn't want to put a bunch of chemicals in my body.  We hadn't been camping since I started eating healthy.  I couldn't come up with any ideas about what to make.  It needed to be easy, but in the healthy realm.

Then I stumbled across this article on real food campfire meals.  The last recipe seemed perfect.  Easy, not too messy, I can cook it on a fire, and it was frugal to boot!  (We spent enough $$ on treats, I had to keep the meals to a minimum!)

I ended up making a couple of variations of the burrito recipe.  We loved both of them!  I think the part I loved most about these is the crispy tortillas!

Here are my variations:

~ Bean, Beef, and Cheese Burritos ~ 
I filled a tortilla with taco meat (I made this at home prior to camping), black beans, and cheddar cheese.  I rolled the burrito up in aluminum foil and placed on the grill grate over the fire.   When they were warmed through and toasty, we ate them with salsa and sour cream on the side.  And we would have had avocado too, but I forgot about it!

~Breakfast Burritos~

We made a breakfast of diced potato hashbrowns, beef bacon, and eggs.  We ended up with some leftovers, and as I was cleaning up, I had a lightbulb come on.  I had one egg left that didn't get cooked (and who wants to bring home one egg!), and a slice of bacon that nobody snagged.  So I added these to the rest of the potato hash my husband didn't eat.  I rolled the hash and some cheese into tortillas and wrapped in aluminum foil.  I left them sitting on the table while we took down camp.  I was able to clean up everything and when we started getting hungry, I laid them on the grill.  We had our lunch of breakfast burritos after we were all packed up.  It was easy and oh so yummy!

Burritos will be added to our regular camping meals.  We might have to see what other variations we can come up with!

The Morning Stare-At-The-Fire

What do you like to cook when you are camping? 

This post linked to GNOWFGLINS Tuesday Twister.

Grass-Fed BEEF Sausages - A GIVEAWAY!

Food Renegade is having a giveaway for a sampler of US Wellness Meats sausages!  I SOOO want to win this.  If I don't, I'll to pay for it.  Because I really want to try some of their stuff!

So go on over and enter it!  But not too many times, because I want to win! Hehehe! Or, if you do win.... I want a bite, K?

My New Toy!

I got a new toy earlier this week.  On Tuesday, my birthday actually.  But it wasn't really a birthday present.  Just happened to show up on that day.   Here's a picture of it:

In case you don't know what that is. It's a dehydrator.  The Nesco FD-75PR 700 Watt Food Dehydrator, to be exact.  It rocks.  I've been wanting one of these for a while.  I'm so glad I finally broke down and bought one.  This one has the top heater/fan, which helps dry it evenly.  It comes with 5 trays, 2 fine screens, and 2 fruit leather screens.

I broke down and bought it because I found bags of slightly brown bananas for $1 a bag.  Ended up being less than 30 cents a pound, which is pretty good.  I bought two bags. So I had to get a dehydrator to handle them all. :)

Bug helped me cut the bananas.  It was tedious. Especially since some of the bananas were definitely getting ripe. But he did good.



We ended up with 3 trays of bananas.  I, being of slow mind, forgot to oil the trays.  They were a pain to get off.  But we ended up with a 16 oz plastic container of banana chips.




We also did a tray of strawberry/banana fruit leather.  This was with the extra mushy bananas and some strawberry puree I had in the freezer from last summer.  We put the bananas and strawberries into our Magic Bullet to puree, Bug was very excited.

Since I had the dehydrator, I was able to hit up a sale on pineapples (clean 15).  I picked up four pineapples for 99 cents each!  We cut up 3 of them and dried them.  The other one we'll eat fresh (we love pineapple in this house!).  

I'm also exploring what else I'll be able to make.  I'm thinking sweet potato chips, dried herbs, and lots more fruit leather! 

What do you like to make in your dehydrator? 

This post is linked on Simple Lives Thursday.

The Diet - Part 2

The time got away from me.  I didn't mean to go a week between these posts.  But it happened.

So I left off talking about Eat Fat, Lose Fat and Nourishing Traditions.  There is a lot of info in them and I'm not going to explain it all here and now.  But I do want to tell you what I'm trying to eat.

So here's the run down.   First off, no high-fructose-corn-syrup (HFCS), MSG, or partially hydrogenated oils.  This is pretty typical for people eating REAL food, since none of that is real food.

The other thing I've cut out of my diet is SOY.  Soy everything.  I'm even trying to cut out soy lecithin, even though most sources say it doesn't cause any health problems.  The reason I've cut out the soy is two-fold.  One, most sources of soy are GMO and not organic.  The other, bigger reason, is because of the horrible health problems it can cause.  Soy can cause hormone issues and is also a goitrogen and can cause thyroid problems.  Both of these things I suffer from.

So, if I'm not eating that - what AM I eating?  The main thing I have added in, is coconut oil.  I am trying to have a couple tablespoons of coconut oil before or with every meal.  This is doing a few things.  It helps level the thyroid levels.  It also helps fill me up and keep me satisfied.  Really, if you want to know all the health benefits of coconut oil, read Eat Fat, Lose Fat.

Other than that, I'm trying to eat as many proteins, good fats, fruits and veggies as I can.  I am eating grains and starches, but I'm trying to keep them to a minimum.   And when I can, I'm soaking them or buying sprouted flour bread.

I'm not being really strict with myself.  Really the biggest change is just making as much stuff from scratch as I can.  I can eliminate so much of the unhealthy stuff from my diet if I eliminate the processed foods.  Even the 'organic' and 'natural' processed stuff isn't healthy in large quantities. 

In the last few weeks doing this, I've dropped about 6 lbs.  And I haven't even been doing it faithfully every day!  I feel a LOT better.  My energy levels are up.  My hormones seem to be leveling out.  I really am sold on this!  I can feel my system reacting when I eat too much grains or processed foods.

I'm going to try to use this blog to share what I'm cooking and what I'm eating.  I'd also like to share how I'm feeling and the progress I'm making on gaining back, for the first time, my health.

The Diet - Part 1

When I first started this blog, I didn't really have a vision.  I knew that I wanted to focus on real food, but I hadn't completely researched what real food was to me.  One of the biggest things I've found the past couple months, is that those who are trying to eat healthier don't necessarily agree on what that real food is.

There are as many real food diets as there are nasty fake food diets.  You can eat primal, raw, vegetarian, vegan.   I knew I had to get off the HFCS, MSG, hydrogenated oils, but what I was supposed to eat I wasn't so sure. 

I innocently put out a question on Facebook asking for my friends' resources for information on food.  I was pointed to Weston A. Price and Nourishing Traditions.  I just so happen to be able to start reading Nourishing Traditions (NT).   So much of the research and information made sense.  What I was reading was supported by many of my friends as well.  Apparently, I got on the healthy eating train late.

From NT, I found Eat Fat, Lose Fat (EFLF). As soon as I started reading it, I knew it was what I needed.  Between NT & EFLF,  all my health problems were described and it told me exactly how I had been eating.  It also offered the solutions that made the most sense.

Tomorrow, I will tell you what those solutions are and what 'diet' I have been using to regain my health and lose weight.

Friday Finds - July 16

I'm getting closer to really starting to blog.  I think.  :)

But until then, here are a few more items to ponder over. :)

Food Renegade ~ Candy From Strangers
Dr. Ayala ~ Marketing to Kids: Candy ads decline as fast-food ads gain

(Do you see a theme going on??)


And a recipe that looks wonderful ~ I'm going to try and make it with better ingredients (whole wheat bread, yogurt cheese, etc).  I'm hoping to do some blueberry picking this next week so maybe this will be breakfast next weekend!

Frugal Living NW ~ Blueberry French Toast Bake

I think that's it for now!  Enjoy!