Here’s the plan for this week; breakfasts are supplemented with fruit and milk, lunches and dinners are supplemented by some kind of vegetables. The vegetables I started fermenting a week and a half ago (sauerkraut, ginger carrots, pickles) are basically ready and we started enjoying them tonight. I try to serve some every night for dinner, to promote good digestive health. Plus they look and taste good! (The pink sauerkraut looks especially pretty.) Tomorrow morning I’ll be doing my mid month vegetable shopping and then I’ll be set for the next couple of weeks.
Sunday- lunch – meat stew; dinner – turkey gravy, stuffing, pink sauerkraut, fermented pickles, steamed broccoli and carrots
Monday – b- banana peanut butter shakes; l – eggs; d – turkey soup
Tuesday – b- carrot cake bars; l – twice baked potatoes; d – turkey soup
Wednesday – b – yogurt, grainless granola; l – quinoa casserole; d – cabbage meat soup
Thursday – b – buckwheat crispies; l – fermented bean dip, crudites; d – CORN (clean out refrigerator night)
Friday – b – polenta
Today my ds3 was looking in one of the raised garden boxes and told me he saw a mushroom. I wasn’t paying much attention, and a few minutes later he came to me with a mushroom sized turnip in his hand! I was planning to pick up bunch of turnip greens today, and when I bent over, I noticed that at the base of all the plants it looked like large white marbles. It was the turnips! I’ve been seeing the gorgeous lush greens but this was the first time I saw them; it was very gratifying! I think they were planted too closely together and were pushing each other out of the ground.
So we thinned them out a bit and I spent quite a while checking the greens. I did it when the baby and toddler were sleeping so though it was technically tedious, I found it very relaxing. As I kept finding tiny little bugs, I showed them to my kids so they’ll know what to look for. I would check at a leaf, and if I saw a bug(s), pass it to one of them and ask them how many they could find. Some of the bugs are so small that they’re hardly bigger than a couple grains of sand. Ds7 got very good at it and was a real help. I had half of the turnip greens sauteed in butter with my eggs for lunch, the other half will be sauteed in coconut oil for the turkey soup, and the baby turnips will be added in to the soup whole.
About six months ago I bought a bunch of nuts, including 25 lb of raw cashews. The cashews were vacuum packed and I didn’t want to open them since I didn’t have an available container for them. (The other nuts and nut flours I’ve bought in bulk came in boxes.) Finally today we opened them, found and labeled a container for them, and then soaked twelve cups of cashews (they’re in the dehydrator right now). I’m thinking I could use these to make my own cashew butter, in addition to snacking on them and adding them to dishes.
Tonight I have six pounds of buckwheat soaking. Tomorrow morning I’ll dehydrate them so they can be served as buckwheat crispies for breakfast later in the week (and the rest will keep for another time). I keep finding more and more ways to use my dehydrator – it’s becoming indispensable. Last week I soaked a bunch of buckwheat with the intention to sprout it, but it got forgotten when a pot lid was put over it, and grew mold. A nice addition to my garden compost. 🙂 Maybe I’ll leave some of this out to try sprouting.
I also started two pounds of pintos soaking. I’m planning to make a fermented bean dip for the end of the week, and starting the soaking now will give me a couple of days for them to sprout, and then a couple of days to ferment.
We’ve been experimenting the last week with a few variations of snack bars. None of them use any kind of sweetener (only dried fruit or banana), all are very filling and tasty. The ingredients for them all are very simple and basic. The carrot cake bar will be a new experiment, and unlike the others, will have a grain in it (millet). I asked ds16 to put together a couple of batches of two kinds on Friday, and though when he finished making them, he thought the Larabar mock-up was a failure, today they tasted them and everyone loves them. So far I’ve been using the bars as snacks, but there’s really no reason not to serve it for breakfast – they’re packed with nutrition!
I’ve personally been grain and pretty much starch free (ie, no potatoes, yams, corn, peas, winter squash – all things that are gluten free and okay for everyone else in the family) for about three weeks now (except for Shabbos, but even then it’s minimal). I’ve known I would benefit from this for three years; I’ve wanted to do it for two years. I had to hold off on this for the last couple of years due to a specific circumstance (not financial and not family related), but that has finally changed and now I’m enjoying eating this way. It takes thinking about food differently, but practically speaking I just make my meals very simple- fats, proteins, veggies.
Avivah
What does your turkey soup have in it (besides turkey? ;))
Your family is happy to have the same thing 2 days in a row?
I start with the carcasses in one pot, to make the broth. In another pot, I sauteed onions, garlic, and turnip greens in coconut oil, add chopped carrots (10 large), peas (3 -10 oz boxes), turnips (just the few tiny ones they pulled from the garden yesterday), lots of chopped red potatoes (about twenty full size), and lots of turkey (shredded from the carcass I made the broth from – about 3 – 4 cups worth). This time I’ve made about 4 – 5 quarts of broth, and all of it will be for this soup. I probably won’t need any more liquid than that, but I might add some water. Oh, I need to go add the sliced celery – I almost forgot about that. I simmer it until it’s thick and the potatoes disintegrate a bit. It’s very rich and filling and delicious! I’ll serve it with tomato salad on the side.
As far as a meal being repetitive, remember, my kids have all three meals a day at home. If each of the three meals was identical to the day before, they might get sick of it. But two meals out of six being the same occasionally isn’t something that bothers them in the least. If the food is good, they’re happy with it! Also, I generally don’t serve the same thing for two of the same meals – meaning, I’ll serve the same thing for a dinner and a lunch the next day or two days later, but rarely for two dinners. Psychologically it’s different than serving two dinners in a row that are the same.
I’d love the mock lara bar recipes. Also, the carrot cake after you make it, too.
When you make the quinoa casserole from NT, do you make it meat or dairy?
I’ll see if I can find the original recipe and remember how we adapted it – I tend to just throw in a little of this and a little of that and see how it turns out! If the carrot cake bars turn out well, I’ll be happy to pass that along!
We made the quinoa casserole dairy, but adapted it quite a bit. Took out potatoes, annatto seeds, cilantro, used sour cream instead of piima cream and cream cheese, milk instead of stock, regular onions instead of green. But all in all, the same idea. 😆
Thanks, I am going to make the quinoa your way. We love quinoa and I’ve been trying to think about making that casserole dairy,but it never occurred to me to use milk, I kept thinking to sub water and that sounded boring and so I never made it.
How do you make the fermented bean dip? It sounds right up my alley. Is it a miso type thing that takes much less time to make?
How do you make the buckwheat crispies? If you want to sprout buckwheat, do you just buy regular buckwat in the store, or does it need to be special unhulled or something?
Lol, I think you’ve developed certain interests since reading this blog, haven’t you? 😆 The bean paste recipe is in Nourishing Traditions. The buckwheat crispies I’ll post but I have a long line of questions I’m trying to get to in a somewhat timely way, so it will take some time until I can put up directions for this.
Lol, yes, your blog has helped develop certain interests of mine. 😛
I’m still trying to get a copy of nourishing traditions- can you give me a rough idea if not exact recipe, because i was trying to figure out how i’d make something like this for shabbos, even before i saw your menu plan. I thought i’d need koji or something like that, but i assume you use something else…
Cook some beans, blend up beans with onions and garlic, mix in some salt, and set it on the counter for a few days to ferment.
Thanks! Sounds great!