Pumpkin/Turkey Chili

As promised, here is the recipe I borrowed (and tweaked just a little) from Primal Mama Cooks...and Dishes on Life (http://feedmepaleo.blogspot.com):

Seriously, this is the easiest and yummiest chili. Very festive too for this time of year- a must-try recipe for the holidays! Let me know what you think. :)

Ingredients:

3lbs. Ground turkey (or grass fed ground beef)

1 large yellow onion, diced

1 bell pepper, diced (I like red, yellow or orange)

1 14oz can of canned pumpkin (make sure it's just pumpkin)

2 cans of organic black beans

2 cans of organic pinto beans

1 tsp pepper

2 tsp pumpkin pie spice

1 jar chipotle salsa

1 box of Tomato and Roasted Red Pepper Soup

1 tsp cumin

"Cook the ground turkey, diced onion, and pepper in a large pot until the meat is crumbly and no longer pink. Drain. Add the remaining ingredients, bring to a boil and then simmer for one hour."

Easy Peasy! Enjoy!

What's For Dinner: My Thoughts on Meal Planning

We only eat meat once, maybe twice a week. When people find this out, I often get asked what we eat for dinner. Several people have told me that they wouldn't know what to fix for dinner if meat wasn't on the menu. I thought I'd give you my menu plans for the last two weeks to give you an idea of what we usually eat.

Since the baby's arrival, our menu plans have been pretty simple. One night we usually enjoy a bean or vegetable-based soup or a pasta dish, one night we usually do something with eggs (omelets or a scramble or casserole), and one night we usually do some sort of main-dish salad. The rest varies depending on our schedule and time-constraints. I write out these dinner ideas on a sheet that is kept on the fridge, so that when anyone asks (and I get this question a lot), "What's for dinner?" I just tell them to go look on the fridge! This list is handy to have out. I often check what is for dinner the night before so I know if I need to defrost anything or soak anything or put something in the crock pot overnight, etc.

One thing I have realized with raising a family on a budget, and trying to eat healthy, is it is absolutely essential to plan out the weekly menu. If I don't plan, we inevitably end up eating out or eating something quick and less nutritious. I plan all of our menus on Thursday and do all my grocery shopping on Friday (pay day!). I plan 6 complete dinners, leaving Thursday night as a leftover night (it's my favorite night because there is no prep- we eat whatever is left in the fridge so we can fill it up again the next day!).

I have recently started planning out breakfasts, and I also keep the breakfast list on the fridge. Many of our breakfasts we prep the night before (simple stuff like putting the steel cut oats in the crock pot, or soaking grains for muesli or putting together parfait, etc.). This has helped tremendously with my need to get a little extra shut eye with the baby in the morning. The older kids can get up and breakfast is practically ready! No more grumpy, hungry kids waking me up after I just fell back asleep for the fourth time!

Lunch is a free-for-all. It is usually leftovers from the night before, salads or hummus and veggies, maybe a green smoothie or a pb & j. My three older kids make their own lunches most of the time, so I don't sweat it at all.

The other trick that has helped meal-planning go smoothly is to a have a food prep day. Savanna and I usually tackle this together on Saturday. It takes us a couple hours, but we will do our batches of granola, batches of whole wheat pancakes or homemade yogurt for breakfasts, a big pot of soup, a large salad, homemade bread or muffins, any treats or snacks for the upcoming days, etc. Then the rest of the week we just go by the lists and it's easy peasy!

So as you can see, the menu planning can be quite the project each week. It takes me a good amount of time, but I love looking through my cook books or websites and finding new, fun recipes to try. I love that I can type "main-dish vegetarian salad" (or any other specific dish) into the search box and get a TON of new recipes! There are always our "fall-back" dishes. When I just don't have time or need a quick meal idea, we have our family's "tried and true" go-to recipes.

Okay, FINALLY, here are our menus for the last two weeks (It's Thursday, so I'm swapping the old for the new):

Dinner For Last Week:

Friday- Vegan Pesto Pasta with Steamed Broccoli and Salad

Saturday- Turkey Sandwiches and Soup

Sunday- Veggie Omelets, Fruit Salad, and Toast

Monday- Bruschetta on Whole Wheat Baguettes and Salad

Tuesday- Vegan Taco Soup and Caesar Salad

Wednesday- Garden 3 Bean Salad with Homemade French Dressing

and Whole Grain Crackers

Thursday- Leftovers!

Dinner For This Week:

Friday: Veggie Melts on Whole Grain English Muffins with a Side of Fruit

Saturday: We'll Be Out of Town

Sunday: Egg-in-the Hole (An egg fried into a piece of buttered toast) and Fruit Salad

Monday: Vegan Taco Salad with Mexican Rice and Homemade Guacamole

Tuesday: Hawaiian Steak Kabobs and Salad

Wednesday: Vegan Macaroni and Cheese with Steamed Broccoli and Fresh Snap Peas

Thursday: Leftovers!

Breakfast:

(I usually keep the same breakfast menu for several weeks)

Friday: Parfait (layers of homemade yogurt, granola, and mixed berries)

Saturday: Muesli (Soaked oats, raisins, cinnamon, a dash of vanilla extract, shredded coconut, sesame seeds, ground flax, etc- it varies based on what we have in the house) topped with chopped bananas and almond milk

Sunday: Whole Wheat Pancakes topped with blueberries, slivered almonds, maple syrup and a side of fruit

Monday: Steel Cut Oats mixed with berries, ground flax and a side a fruit

Tuesday: Carrot/Apple Breakfast Muffins, a handful of trail mix, and a side of fruit

Wednesday: Granola, almond milk, and a side of fruit

Thursday: Same as Monday

And there you have it! I will try to post some of these great recipes but if there is one that you would like beforehand, let me know and I'll get it to ya!

Happy Meal Planning!

Turkey Pesto Meatballs

**We used organic, ground turkey from New Frontiers. You could easily make this vegetarian or vegan using some faux-meat**

Savanna actually made these. She made homemade pesto too- we've yet to find any pre-made pesto that didn't have some sort of cheese in it. Her homemade pesto is awesome! I'll list both recipes below (The meatball recipe itself comes from a great whole foods site www.weelicious.com)

PESTO:

Ingredients:

2 cups packed fresh basil

3-4 tbs of walnuts

Sea salt to taste

2-3 cloves of garlic

Olive oil (enough to coat the other ingredients- you can add more as you process the ingredients depending on how chunky or smooth you like your pesto)

Blend well in a food processor.

MEATBALLS:

(Serves 4-6)

Ingredients:

1 1/2 lbs of ground turkey or vegan meat substitute
1/4 cup pesto (we added a bit more- made them a little greasy and they crisped up nicely in the oven)
1/4 cup bread crumbs
1 tsp of sea salt

plus

2 cups of Marinara Sauce

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Place all the ingredients (except for the marinara sauce) in a bowl and using your hands, combine until everything is incorporated.
3. Using about 1 tablespoon of the mixture per meatball, roll into balls and place on a plate.
4. Pour the marinara sauce into a 9 x 9 inch baking pan and top with the meatballs.
5. Cover the baking pan with foil and bake for 20 minutes.
6. Serve.

*Roll into balls and place on a cookie sheet and freeze. After 30 minutes place the par-frozen balls in a ziploc bag, label and freeze. When ready, defrost in fridge for 24 hours or put them straight in the oven with sauce increasing cooking time by 5 minutes.

Grandma's Pasta Gravy!

I have slowly been adding more meat and dairy into our diets. I am not a big meat eater- never have been. I just don't care for it, so I tend to not cook a lot of it. My kids don't do well with dairy from cows either, and Brad has his whole allergy issues. Plus, I have done too much reading about what happens to our food before it hits our tables, especially in the animal products realm, that it has been a slow adjustment for me to bring these into the home. So needless to say, our menus have been strictly limited. However, I have started to transition from the extremist view of complete abstinence from certain foods to one of an informed consumer. I have found some great local farms that sell organic, free-range, grass-fed meats that I feel good about supporting. I also buy my kids goat products which tend to be healthier not only because they are easier to digest, but because they don't contain the hormones, antibiotics, etc. that a lot of dairy products from cows contain. So, we still eat mostly a plant-based diet, but have our animal products in moderation throughout the week. The meat or dairy tend to be the side dish of most meals we make...we follow Dr. T. Colin Campbell's rule from his great nutritional study, "The China Study," which says that 90% of our diet should come from plants, 10% from animals. Anyway, the kids are doing great with the changes, and we've made some very yummy recipes lately! It feels liberating. :)

Here is my grandma's recipe for pasta gravy. You can make this without the meat or with some kind of meat substitute, but we made it with the organic ground beef from New Frontiers health food store.

Ingredients:

3 lbs ground beef

2-4 chopped garlic cloves

1 large red onion

2 large cans of tomato puree

1 large can of Italian seasoned chopped tomatoes

2 small cans of tomato sauce

Seasonings to taste: LOTS of garlic powder, onion powder, Italian seasonings, oregano, and parsley

Directions:

Saute onions and garlic in olive oil in a small pan.

Cook meat or meat substitute, if using, and drain.

Combine the onions and garlic with the meat and all the rest of the ingredients.

Cook over low heat for several hours or put in a slow cooker for the day.

Pour over noodles, grilled or fried eggplant, use in lasagna, etc.

We poured it over fried eggplant and served it with garlic bread and salad- so good!

This recipe made enough for 2 meals (for the whole family), and we had three jars on top of that left over! We store our pasta sauce in mason jars in the freezer for up to 6 months.