Daily Archives: 08/26/2014

Eliminating Processed Foods Series—our month long challenge part 8 our week 3 menu

food

I am a little behind putting up my weekly menus on time.  Here is our week 3 menu of eliminating processed foods from our diet.

 

Sunday

breakfast

cheerios and milk

**We had been giving some Cheerios breakfast cereal and my children were quick to gobble it up this week for breakfast.

lunch 

leftover day–my husband was working this weekend so the children and I had leftovers from when we had our friends over this past week.  Sandwiches, leftover noodles, veges and fruit.

dinner

we grilled hamburgers that we had made ourselves.  I did use store bought buns.  In the foil we did onions, mushrooms, and butter.  We also grill some zucchini from our garden.

IMG_20140802_154418 (2) IMG_20140802_154531 (2)

 

Served this with leftover noodle salad and watermelon.

I can honestly say I DID NOT feel well after this past week.  We had eaten TOO MANY processed things and TOO MUCH of it.  I could tell I was definitely feeling the effects of not eating well.  I was bloated, had headaches, felt lethargic, and just overall genuinely not good. My children were crabby and  some excema came back on a child, I knew I had to get back to good foods.   I was honestly glad to DETOX myself a bit this week.  Cutting way back on my portion of foods and sticking with lots of water, fresh fruits and veges. My husband and I also started drinking my homemade kombucha on a consistent regular basis.  It made all the difference in my total well being

Monday

breakfast

cold cereal and milk–was nice for myself not to have to make breakfast:)

lunch

yogurt smoothies made from homemade yogurt, frozen berries, and homemade granola

veggies and hummus

peanut butter and homemade jam or honey on bread

dinner

sausage, red beans and rice

 

Tuesday

breakfast

cold cereal

lunch

leftover red beans and rice

dinner

minute steaks cooked with green pepper and onions and served over over mashed potatoes

Wednesday

breakfast

cold cereal

lunch

peanut butter and honey sandwiches, fruit, and veges

yogurt smoothie made with frozen fruit and homemade granola

dinner

coney dogs and tater tots

watermelon slices

**this was for a child who was not having a good day and has been asking me to make coney dogs forever.  I finally gave in because it had been in the freezer for a while.

Thursday

breakfast

oatmeal with blueberries

lunch

egg mcmuffin sandwiches

dinner

waffles and eggs

**this was our monthly breakfast food freezing day.  We were using 50 eggs to make breakfast burritos and 3 huge batches of pancake muffins.  My 14 year old enjoys making waffles so I have him make a quadruple batch for us.  I froze some for later on.

Friday

breakfast

waffles–leftover from last evening

yogurt smoothies

lunch

lentil rice casserole on tortillas with lettuce, salsa and sour cream.

watermelon slices

dinner

cheeseburger casserole

Saturday

breakfast

breakfast burritos

lunch

lentil rice burritos–leftovers

 dinner

mexican haystacks

Sunday

 breakfast

pancake muffins

lunch

leftover lentil rice burritos

dinner

Today we had a celebration for our 2 year old for his birthday and had friends come celebrate.

hotdogs, hamburgers, bbq chicken over fire

macaroni and cheese, radiatore salad, baked beans watermelon slices,

chips and homemade salsa, veggies and homemade ranch,  hummus and pita chips, spinach dip and pretzels

cupcakes

**this day was fairly decent, we bought the hotdogs and hamburgers–because of the high amount we needed.  The BBQ chicken, we made from ketchup and brown sugar, the noodle sides were from white noodles, the radiatore had chicken lunchmeat in it but the dressing was homemade. All the dips were homemade and we bought the chips, pita chips, and pretzels.    cupcakes were made from a cake mix.

Snacks

This week we had apples and plums to munch on for snacks.

I also made some homemade bread to eat with butter or homemade jam.

I continue to put out our kiddie snack mix. I added a bag of puffed rice to it.  Seems the little ones like it now.


 

This week was better than last week.  We are using up the things that we have in our pantry and still making some “processed” things until we use them up.  I am excited because we have slowly shifted from store bought almost everything to making it from scratch.

My refrigerator used to be filled with lots of bottles and containers of foods but now is starting to look like this:

IMG_20140802_101142 (2)

Most everything is in containers.  From the bottom up:  apples and plums and hummus on right.  Chopped up onions, peppers , strawberry jam, salsa and veggies cut up.  Top shelf leftover noodle salad, beans, and spinach dip.IMG_20140802_101206 (2)

The side door is getting better.  It used to be filled all the way down with store bought items.  I have our leftover dressings at the top that are waiting to be used.  I do have a large container of mayonaise I will be using up as well.  And coffee creamer—I will be doing without it this next week.
IMG_20140802_101216 (2)

My veggie drawers contain lots of local grown produce.IMG_20140802_101222 (2)

 

This has leftover lunchmeat and bread.  Stuff we had on hand and are still going to be using up this month.

My pantry is also starting to look “less filled.”  We are slowly moving away from buying so much prepared food and making it all ourselves.

Keep reading our journey part 9