Learning to Meal Prep #1

It has become apparent that I cannot cook and prep quite like I did when I was staying at home full time.  I don't bake as much fresh bread and biscuits.  I don't make cookies or pies.  I don't roast beef or pork in the oven.   I don't freeze breakfast burritos or other things.  I just haven't made the time to do a lot of the meals that I did.  I really should, at least in moderation.

My last paycheck was a real eye-opener.  I had spent four days in the cafeteria for lunch.  I could have bought a week's worth of groceries for that!  Those two reasons have helped me to decide that I do need to make my lunches.  However, I do not want bologna sandwiches and chips!  So, with the help of some awesome youtube videos (shout out to Mind over Munch and Domestic Geek-check them out), I have begun the learning process of good healthy meal preps, mostly for lunch.

Last week I went WAY overboard and spent $200 on groceries to prep and have available.  I ended up throwing a lot of things to the chickens.  Hated by the budget, loved by the chickens.  So this week, I toned it down a bit.  I still had a lot of groceries to work with this week.  This does give me hope that I will definitely be saving money when I get the process down, not to mention the health benefits.

So this is what I did this week.  Please remember that I am a novice at this type of prepping and have a long way to go.  This is what I have for hubby and me for four days this week.  His lunches contain larger portions, especially of protein and we are going to add fruit (peaches, nectarines, bananas and apples).

I am trying to incorporate breakfast into my day so that I am not starving by the time I get home after 5:30 pm.  I have a jar of oatmeal, chia seeds, hemp protein, cinnamon and on top I have full-fat greek yogurt, frozen blueberries and honey to sweeten it up.  At work, I dump the jar into a bowl, add hot water and stir for a bit.  Then I add my yogurt mixture and stir. I have done this twice and it does seem to help my appetite so far.

I have a taco plate that includes grassfed beef browned and mixed with my homemade taco mix, black beans (I bought these canned I am afraid, but I have a bag to cook up and freeze into 1 c. portions), spinach, split cherry tomatoes, grass fed cheddar cheese and salsa.  I have a flour tortilla bagged up, but wish I just had some organic corn chips to make it into a salad. I will be adding a bag of organic grapes on the side.

Hubby had grilled up chicken and I sliced each breast into 3 sections.  He has 2 sections and I have one along with a rice blend (wild, red, basmati and brown), green beans and tomatoes for color.  There is a baggie of healthy trail mix for an afternoon snack if needed (pumpkin seeds, raisins, craisins and organic soynuts. (I still make the trail mix for the family with peanuts, chocolate chips, raisins and sometimes craisins/dried cranberries).

  

 I have a leftover meal of potatoes, carrots and kielbasa with green beans.  I have some leftover sauerkraut that I will probably throw in there too.  I am taking raw walnuts for a snack if needed.

And another leftover breakfast meal is a hash of sort.  I used my awesome chopper to dice green peppers, potatoes, onions and sauteed that in butter/EVOO blend. I added black beans to finish off the open can-none wasted!!  The original meal had the eggs cooked in it, I boiled some and tore a piece a bacon in there too.  I sprinkled a little extra hot sauce and there are my four lunch meals ready for next week.

I have an extra day that I can 1)skip lunch, not likely, 2)eat at the cafeteria if they have something extraordinary or the salad bar, 3) take something fresh or leftover from supper that was just to die for.

I feel better about not having bologna and chips and there is still leftovers such as rice and fruits and taco meat, things to make snacks or I can use in supper meals.  Or the kids can grab as a snack.  Don't get me wrong, I still have some chips and bologna in the refrigerator just in case, but it is a lot less tempting when you have a meal ready to go and it seems harder to make a sandwich than grab a tray of food.

The only caveat...

But then again, basically the dishes are a one and done!!

Summer of '16

Having gone back to work at the beginning of summer, I still feel that it was a decent one on the farm.

From the garden: I canned a few tomatoes, ate a few, froze some zucchini bread and fried a few.  I had one cleome/spider plant to survive and thrive.  I canned jalapenos and cooked up quite a few.  I had enough green beans to cook one pot.  No cucumbers-again.  No green peppers to speak of.  I did get cayenne peppers to dry.  

Mollie did pretty well with milking until July when I let her dry up because I was only getting 1-2 cups a day.  I did freeze two quarts of her milk either for ourselves or if needed for new baby goats next spring.  We drank several quarts to gallons and I did make one batch of yogurt.  I, however, did not get to make cheese.  The kit I ordered was on backorder and I did not receive it until after we started drying her up.  

We butchered several rabbits, some being almost 4 pounds, and put in the freezer.  We butchered several roosters and still have a few left in the freezer.  We actually still have about 3 or 4 more to butcher within the next month.  

The chickens did not produce eggs very well at all this summer.  Our temperatures were in the 98-100's most days.  We also switched to a locally milled laying mash that I don't feel had adequate nutrition for them, especially the ones that are about 18 months old and should have been laying very well.  The temperatures are still hot here, in the mid to upper 90s still but the nights are cooler.  We have also added an organic laying pellet to the mash along with sunflower seeds and a few extra "scraps".  
Finally we have some progress! 

We have let the remaining two rabbits out to free range in the garden, along with the chickens and goats to begin the cleaning up process.  

It is time to start thinking about breeding the goats, combining all the chickens and consider incubating for the fall, combining and containing the ducks, preparing the bees for the fall (find the reducers, purchase some extra pollen and non-gmo sugar for emergency feed), clean up all the grass and weeds that have been left to grow and that no animals have eaten and start a new compost pile for next year's garden. 

I will admit because of the hot weather and my getting used to working full time again some of the projects that I wanted to do did not get done.  We didn't repair and repaint the deck and railing, the house didn't get washed, the shutters didn't get repainted.  With a little experience under my belt now, I can get back to planning and setting a realistic time frame for these projects before the winter hits.