Salad System

I started eating a salad once a day starting in May of this year. Recently, I did some "salad evaluation" to make my salads more efficient. It seemed I was always running out of one thing, while another item went bad before I could eat it all.

Here's what I like on my huge salad. Yes, I weigh everything, every time so I know my calorie intake.

75g chicken breast (ziploc in freezer)
75g romaine (bag)
25g spinach (bag)
50g cucumber (pre chopped in glass container)
50g celery (pre cut in glass container-chop fresh daily)
50g red pepper (pre chopped in glass container)
15g red onion (pre chopped in glass container)
4 sliced snap pea pods (chop fresh daily)
50g garbanzo beans (glass container)
20g salsa
1 hard boiled egg
35g salad dressing (my favorite is Newman's Own Lite Balsamic)
7g unsalted Hoody sunflower seeds
10g sesame stix
5 craisins or fresh blueberries
This is about 400 calories, 30 protein, 30 carbs, 16 fat, 10 sugars, 9 fiber

Fills me up until dinner! I don't like it really cold, so I make it early in the afternoon and let it sit out for a bit before putting on the dressing and dry ingredients.

I decided to buy bag-o-salad and prepare chicken ahead and freezing the portions in ziplocs. Each day when I make my salad, I pull out a ziploc of frozen chicken and put it in my salad box for the next day. I have to pay attention to inventory control on the cucumber, celery, red pepper, red onion and snap peas, but that isn't too difficult now that I'm doing the grocery shopping.

The garbanzo beans last a few days, so I pour them into a glass container with a plastic lid. The hard boiled eggs are easy because I do several at a time. The salsa and salad dressing are easy along with the seeds, stix and craisins. I have a large plastic "shoebox" in the frig to hold all my containers. Making a salad everyday is EASY, just pull out the box! A little planning and refining have made having a delicious fresh salad everyday possible!

Mrs. Grocery Shopper

It is official. After five years, I have taken over the grocery shopping from my husband. He kinda came out of the blue and suggested it. I've been telling him for about a year that it would be okay for me to do it.

The first couple times was really difficult because I hadn't been grocery shopping for YEARS and I didn't remember where anything was. It has been a couple weeks and I'm doing really well! It doesn't take as long to get through the store, but I need to improve on our bag issue. I was thinking collapsible crates might work instead of shopping bags. I'm still thinking on that. The kids are a huge help and it looks like we've been going every six days or so.

UPDATE: 11/21/2012 I found the best solution for reusable grocery bags!

Camping Food

 

I've agonized over camping recipes as we just started being more outdoorsy. We got a camp stove this spring which allows us more flexibility. Here's what we did for meals this summer:

We eat dinner on the way to the campsite on Friday.

Saturday AM:
scrambled cheesy eggs (I scramble the raw eggs and put the liquid in a double ziploc in the cooler)
bacon

Saturday Lunch:
peanut butter & jelly sandwiches
apples
carrots
chips

Saturday Dinner:
macaroni and cheese (bring a splash of milk and chunk of butter and strainer)
hot dogs
canned chili

smores

Sunday Breakfast:
oatmeal (just add water)
hard boiled eggs (boiled at home, put in ziploc bag in cooler)
blueberries
brown sugar

Same Lunch again on Sunday:
peanut butter & jelly sandwiches
apples
carrots
chips

Snacks:
polska kielbasa (pre-cooked, just unwrap and slice)
cheese slices
crackers
apples
blueberry bagels
cream cheese

Eat out on way home Sunday night if we aren't home yet.

Dan Dan the Broccoli Man

Not only do the kids EAT their food now, but they help COOK it!  My son makes the meatloaf (about once a month) and helps with the broccoli along with helping cook breakfast, lunch and dinner most days.

This is insanely delicious and I'm too embarrassed to admit how often we eat this roasted broccoli!

A few handfuls of broccoli, washed and dried
some olive oil
some garlic
some lemon juice
some salt and pepper (or better yet, Montreal Steak Seasoning!)

Mix it all up. Line cookie sheet with foil. Bake at 425° for about 12 minutes. The more olive oil, the better!

After about a year and a half of cooking dinners and eating dinners together every night together at the table (except for those fun nights of eating pizza in the living room while watching a movie!), we've finally established new patterns. I just realized while updating this blog, that we don't have ANY (A N Y) complaining anymore. Dinner is served and "you get what you get, so don't make a fit". How grateful I am to have made it through the child training that should have been done when the children were toddlers. Better late than never. (I wrote about the complaining in a post here).

Cranberry Orange Chicken Casserole and Roasted Broccoli

I love the flavors!

Mix frozen vegetable medley (carrots, corn, peas, green beans) with cream of chicken soup and some sour cream, put in 9x13 pan. Put cooked chopped chicken breast over the mixture. Prepare box of stuffing (if it takes 1 1/2 cups of water, make it 3/4C water and 3/4C frozen orange juice concentrate). Toss into the stuffing some craisins and chopped pecans. Spread the cooked stuffing on top of the chicken and bake. YUMMY! (I think it would be even better with two boxes of stuffing).

Morning Shopping

So much has changed since my last post. One of the big things is that I'm eating more salad! The other is that I am doing the shopping now...and in the MORNING, no less!

I've been really bored lately with the menu, so I've been getting some recipe books from the library to spice things up a bit. My son ASKED for me to make meatloaf this weekend, yay!

New Shopping Day

Grocery shopping on Sunday evenings just haven't been happening the past two months...it worked fine over the summer but with darker evenings, we just aren't getting John off to the store. So we're trying something new...Monday and Thursday nights.

I'm still using my same planning but I admit, I need some new recipes! Or maybe just high carb, high fat, high calorie meals would be more tasty!