Well, I finally cleared out enough room in my freezer so I stocked up on some meat. If I keep the stock rotating, I should only have to hit the stores once per week.
Next week I’m starting a new Food Stamp Challenge. This time, it will be how my family is moving to whole, real foods on a food stamp budget. We are actually on food stamps so my budget is set at that amount: $662.00 a month plus WIC benefits. This works out to $2.20 per person, per day for my family of 10 (plus WIC. We get 11 gallons of milk, 4 dozen eggs, 6 boxes of cereal, peanut butter, bread, and cheese among other things. Oh, and NINETY FIVE jars of baby food. Holy cow, my baby is fat but she can’t eat that much! But I have to take it – if I have a pattern of not using benefits they might pull them.)
Sunday
Pot roast, brussels sprouts
Monday
Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, mashed cauliflower for Atkins Man, braised spinach
Tuesday
Chuck roast, roasted carrots and parsnips, baby bok choy
Wednesday
Roasted chicken, swiss chard, green beans, barley pilaf
Thursday
Miss E’s birthday! She requested spaghetti and meatballs with spinach. (I made low-carb meatballs with ground chuck, eggs, spices, and half-and-half, freezing two batches.)
Friday
BBQ chicken legs, bleu cheese pecan chopped salad (I love nuts in my salad. I’m just gonna toast the nuts, because I’m too lazy to candy them), brown rice, broccoli/cauliflower/carrot blend.
Saturday
Fair food! Sausage on a stick, sweet potato fries, carrot and celery sticks with dip, and funnel cakes. Just because I love funnel cakes and need an excuse to make them. Husband dear/Atkins Man goes to poker night, so we won’t be tempting him.
For more menu plans, head over to OrgJunkie!
I wasn’t trying to, but so far I’ve lost weight on this new real food plan. I think about 3 to 4 pounds. I fluctuate up to 10 pounds per day, but instead of the scale reading 160-170, now it reads 155-165. Yes, I did just post my weight on the internet! Quite honestly, I’ve never really cared about it that much. I get pregnant, gain weight, have a baby, lose weight. Lather, rinse, repeat. I was on a diet for about two weeks last year – until I found out I was pregnant with Baby A!
Hey, I’m thinking of posting recipes on this site in their own posts, instead of attached to Menu Plan Monday or 7 Quick Takes or whatnot. Do you want to see recipes, or do my “handful of this” and “cook until it looks like play-doh” instructions drive you nuts?
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{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
I don’t know about American baby foods but my mother often buys the small jars of apple sauce. She uses it for many things.
I was thinking something similar–baby food in your regular cooking. As Suze mentioned, applesauce has many uses–cakes, cookies, snack for older kids (put it in a bowl and they’ll never know), a fruit layer or swirl in bread or cake (any baby fruit could work for that). Baby carrots or bananas or other fruits/veggies could be used in bread (pre-mashed–convenience food!).
If I were getting 95 jars of free baby food each week, I’d get creative.
Or I suppose you could donate them.
Oh, it’s 95 jars per month but it’s still too much! Allie eats maybe two per day. When I got my benefits, the WIC lady told me to buy applesauce and let the older kids eat it! She thinks it’s a little much, too.
Interestingly, only breastfed babies get babyfood.
I’m eating low carb as well. To bind meatloaf, meatballs, etc., I use pecan meal from our health food store. Love the nutty flavor.
The way you describe a recipe is the way I cook, so it does not bother me. In fact, the uber-precise instructions in some cookbooks (“add 1/4 tsp salt to the pasta water,” for example) drives me a little crazy. Seriously, does any real cook measure the salt they put in the pasta water? I just eyeball it, but if you really want to take it to the net level, you should *taste* the water to make sure it’s just right, not break out the measuring spoons.
/Rant.
Baby food vegetables might also be a way to add veggies and vitamins to Atkins Man’s food. The rest of the family’s food, too: a couple jars of carrots or sweet potatoes in the mashed potatoes, for example.
I’d like to see your recipes, especially since dh and I have been talking about eating healthier/more homemade foods and I’m not a very good cook so getting ideas/recipes from another busy stay-at-home mom would be awesome!
As far as the baby food, definitely an easy way to add veggies and fruits to other things as a “puree” (like the recipes in the Deceptively Delicious cookbook, without all the extra work, to save time), even with the veggies on the plate, extra in the other parts of the dish just in case the kids decide to be picky that day can never hurt, right?
I was thinking of the cookbook Deceptively Delicious, too.
Definitely use the veggies in other meals. Spaghetti sauce can hide a LOT of pureed veggies. Like others mentioned, applesauce can be used in baked goods. You could toss a carrot puree in your pot roast, and soups could use up a few jars, too.
I would love to hear your recipes. We’re trying to embark on healthier eating as well though we have a long way to go.
I was going to mention the same book as Crystal (Deceptively Delicious). It’s a very creative way to add veggies.
Wait… if there’s one item from your WIC check that you don’t get they can pull all your benefits? Where’s the logic in that? You’d think they would just adjust it to what you are actually using.
I vote for donating the baby food. It’s so expensive, I would think food pantries could really use it.
I don’t know if it works like that anymore or not. I know that if you “miss” something once in a while, it’s okay but if it’s a pattern, I’ve had people tell me they’ll reevaluate you and that is a headache I do not need. The evaluations take forever, I have to have the kids with me, and the nutrition consultant really annoys me. (i.e., she told me Miss C was in danger of being short, but wouldn’t let me see her growth chart because of patient privacy.)
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