Meal Planning and... ok, mostly babbling...

So, remember how I said I was going to post every week about my meal plans?  I have a REALLY difficult time forming habits.  All it takes is one missed day and, boom, back to square one.  It's something that I've both been working on improving and also working on accepting about myself.
After the weeks I did post, we went on an awesome mini weekend trip up to northern AL for some vineyarding and foodie adventures.  I took that week off from meal planning and we just sorta winged it, eating things from the freezer and cobbling together simple meals. There is NOTHING wrong with going to simple meal route.  I sometimes realize that I take on too much when it comes to meals because I get excited and want to make ALL THE THINGS! It can be exhausting sometimes when every meal is a fair amount of work and planning and recipe reading.

I'm starting to finally get the hang of meal planning.  I'm cooking some super fun recipes I've found, but alternating with some super simple things that I can make myself.  This week, lunches will either be leftovers (I made too much food last week!) or cold cuts and fresh veggies. As to leftovers, I'm still working on portion sizing.  The boy is eating less food than he used to and I'm having difficulty scaling back.  Our freezer is already too full to add more uneaten food.  It's a work in progress, ok?

What was fun about this week was that I finally got myself back to the farmers market! We generally have lazy Saturday mornings and, by the time I remember around 1030-1130, it's too late to go.  Oops.  This week, I set an alarm and everything.  And it was great.

$24!

Unfortunately, the local growers here are pretty "conventional".  If I want to find organic/pastured/grass fed, I have to do a bit of driving (I get meat and lamb from a farm 45 minutes away and whole pastured chickens from 1.5 hours away... that doesn't happen often), so I didn't see any organically raised produce.  But, I still believe in helping local farms and the produce was CHEAP. Like a grocery bag half full of okra for $3 cheap.  I also got a dozen eggs from chickens that have access to a large open yard and are supplemented with corn feed as my usual supplier of pastured chicken eggs has been short lately.

My goal with this is to buy what's available at markets first and then meal plan around that, which should save me some money. I got a bunch of super adorable tiny delicata squash that I think will be awesome roasted for breakfast. Why winter squash were available in July, I don't know.  I was too excited to ask.  I'm gonna eat that ish.


Highlights from last week:

Made the baked chicken wings from Paleo Takeout by Russ Crandall, using my own seasonings/sauces.  It was the best method of preparing wings we've tried yet and "Wings Wednesday" is officially here to stay.


I did the ultimate (and yet so common) stupid thing of putting a spoon in the Vitamix I JUST GOT for my birthday and badly mangled the blades and scuffed up the container (but check out the spoon!).  I fessed up to Vitamix, hoping for some sort of discount on a replacement, and they appreciated my candor and are sending me a replacement for FREE! So that was a very bad, followed by a very good, day.  Be polite and honest, kids: people WILL want to help you in return!


I also made the Kalbi recipe today from the aforementioned Paleo Takeout and it was also amazing.  I may be a little obsessed with this book.

Food prep this week was short and sweet:

Hardboiled some eggs and made blueberry turkey sausage patties for breakfasts.  Our current schedule of Meatza Monday, Taco Tuesday and Wings Wednesday makes figuring out most meals really easy and, since we're eating up leftovers, there are no lunches to prep.  This is what my meal plan usually looks like to start, though it goes through endless mods before the week ends (I've already changed up breakfast and eliminated curry from the menu).

Wanna see more?  check me out on Instagram as @better_than_bread.  More food porn, less babble, I promise.

That's all, folks.  Have a great week!

Family time with my loves yesterday.  Make time to relax!