My husband said, over a bowl of breakfast quinoa and oatmeal (topped with apricots, maple syrup, toasted nuts and seeds), “All this food we’ve been having has been really good, I mean REALLY GOOD!” I couldn’t agree more and my slip ups this week drove that home even more solidly.
**two things before I get into the post. 1) My camera is obnoxious and I can’t get pictures off until I get my new cord in the mail so there are no pictures here (it’s driving me craaaazy!) and 2) I’ve posted links that aren’t going to work 🙂 I haven’t had time to post most of the recipes for this week and I definitely don’t have pictures to go with them and I just HATE posting without a picture. So that’s all coming, hopefully this week!
Well, I fell off the wagon this week…
It was one day and the slip-ups were due to lack of planning and stress (two things that go hand in hand!). I made it all the way to Friday when we were running around like crazy with nothing but cereal in the house to feed the kids (no pancakes, no tortillas, no bread, no granola, and I hadn’t been able to find the TWO SECONDS I needed to wash a pot to start cooking pasta in) so I went to… dun dun dun… Burger King. I got burgers for the kids and some for myself. I was proud that I didn’t end up with a soda (I’m officially caffeine free as of today!!!) but I was so MAD that I ended up going for fast food at all. It wasn’t even that good. This, unfortunately, had followed up a choice cheat night of pizza and then Chinese food for dinner (these cheats were not only not on the menu but using money we did not have budgeted for food!!!!).
I felt truly icky on Saturday.
On the up side we did make some lovely food this week. In a pinch I made some pasta (not whole wheat, it’s a remnant from before the challenge that I won’t waste) with a cheese sauce I made from scratch (suuuuuper easy!), grape tomatoes and kale. Yum! I also made quinoa and oatmeal for breakfast Friday (see, the day STARTED out well but that’s also why there were no pots clean at lunchtime) which was so delicious I made a big pot again Sunday. The nuttiness of the quinoa with the heft of the oatmeal is a great combination.
Other things we’re still “cheating” on include regular peanut butter (I looked at Trader Joe’s last time we were there and didn’t see any, are they still on recall or did I just miss it?), ketchup (I may make my own this summer with fresh tomatoes… or I may not, now that we’re not eating nuggets all the time our ketchup consumption has gone down), BBQ sauce and we had pepperoni (which I’m assuming aren’t on the list and aren’t healthy even if they are) and the regular pasta I still have around.
Not a stellar end to the week but overall we’re still doing well and the bonus is that I’m still not really missing anything we were having!
Preparations for this week included a huge pot of brown rice another pot of forbidden rice and a pot of black beans soaking. Last night I made taco cups with whole wheat tortillas, they were fun! We still have a lot of beans, peppers/corn, and meat left from that plus a batch of tortillas to help get us through the week. I need to make more bread today because we’ve already eaten an entire loaf I made on Saturday, it was, obviously, a really good recipe.
Living in the Shoe 
I want the quinoa recipe! I have a box in my cabinet that I want to do something with, I just don’t know what!
my camera cable is in the mail and i’ll post the recipe asap after I can get some PICTURES!
Aw, a slip up here and there is okay 🙂 That’s just great that you’re feeding your family on whole food. What with my cholestasis and liver issues, I busted out my detox recipes and this week am cooking practically vegan food. We had always eaten home-cooked meals, but some of them can still be pretty heavy on the liver.
It’s crazy what a difference healthy food can make. Last night we had bok choy salad and we were all loving it, never mind that it was so light and healthy for our bodies. Once I get these twins out, I also want to get back on a healthy track that I slipped off of from trying to gain a ton of weight for the twin pregnancy. Eating brownies and burgers every week does damage and I’ve got tons to undo.
haha, burgers and brownies when pregnant with twins is not only allowed it’s basically the law!!! If you’re breastfeeding you’ll loose the weight no problem. I found that just the time I spent feeding them and the calories I pumped out and then taking care of my older son kept me so busy that I had no time to eat period! I’m sure you’ll manage to be healthier and have good snacks on hand (we were in a less healthy place before the twins so I obviously didn’t magically fall into super healthy right away!). I’m anxiously awaiting the story–i hope it’s a beautiful one! Good luck and hang in there, every minute those babies stay inside helps them so much no matter how exhausting and miserable it is. ((hugs))
Thanks Mia, I truly appreciate it 🙂 And yes, they’re hanging in there, thankfully.
Mia – I LOVE the 100 Days of Real Food blog. While we haven’t taken the official challenge, I do try to work her recipe and her food guidelines into my families meal plans. BTW, have you tried their whole chicken in the crockpot recipe? It is super easy and I use it when whole foods puts their whole chickens on sale. I will definitely be following along in your adventures.
Oh, and to Nina’s discussion of eating hamburgers during her twin pregnancy, I agree! As a fellow twin mom, I ate lots and lots and lots of hamburgers when I was pregnant with my twins. I couldn’t get enough 🙂
I hated eating the whole first half of the pregnancy but it was the only thing that made me not want to puke… evil trick of nature! Twin pregnancy and raising twins is a completely different set of rules–having done both I can attest to that!
As for the 100 days blog–I’m addicted! I use multiple recipes from there every week although i’m starting to branch out 🙂 You should try getting whole chickens at Aldi (do they have one near you?) they’re 89c/lb all the time (that I’ve paid attention) and I manage to stretch them, small though they are, into at least two meals. Haven’t cooked ond in a crock pot yet I had a bad experience when I was younger (the chicken was HORRIBLE!) I’ll check it out and give it a shot though!!