Real Budget, Real Food Storage: This Week’s Menu

We’ll be announcing the winner of the Sugar Detox and Weight Loss Class this evening.  The coupon code is still good through the 10th if you’d like to get in on this spectacular class!

We’ve had a lot happen in the last few weeks since I as able to do a RFS post. We went and picked up our yearly beef from a local farmer and I am on a mini beef binge. They’re grass-fed Limousin cattle, and they just have a flavor that is spectacular. Unreal. It makes the grass-fed beef from the health food store taste pale. I’m in love and I absolutely adore this farmer’s beef. We spent just under $400 for the quarter and that will keep us fed for 9 months or so. Maybe more, maybe less, depending on my cravings. 🙂

For those not familiar with my household, my husband can eat anything. My daughter is gluten-free, my son is gluten and dairy-free, I’m gluten-free and currently primal, moving quickly towards strict paleo. That means I’m grain, potato, rice and bean-free, but I’m still consuming dairy at this point. I’ll discuss that a little more below.

Menu Plan

Here’s our tentative menu plan for this week and what we need to buy. Of course, this will be adjusted once I see the prices at the store and I usually pick the lowest priced veggies. Sometimes our store has things at a special price, so I’ll chose those where possible.

Monday- Breakfast is scrambled eggs with cheese for those who can have it. Lunch is leftovers with raw milk for those who can have it, water for those who cannot. Dinner will be BBQ pork chops and sweet potatoes- my mom is cooking, so she picks the menu. For snack, we’ll have some oranges that were given to us last week by someone who did a bulk buy and ordered too much.

Tuesday- Breakfast is oatmeal with rapadura for those who can have it, I’ll eat an omelet with onions and mushrooms and a dash of chili powder. Lunch will be chicken soup and I’ve got some Brussels sprouts I need to use up, so I’ll fix those for my son. It’s one of his favorites. Dinner will be a grain-free chicken pot pie. Breakfast should use up the last of the rolled oats. I’ll be releasing the chicken pot pie recipe on the blog once the Grain Mill Wagon Challenge is over. Look for that soon. Snack will be kipper snacks or seaweed for my son, fruit for my daughter since she doesn’t like seafood.

Wednesday- Breakfast is omelets for everyone, with cheese for those who can have it. Lunch is leftover chicken soup. Dinner is chuck roast with onions, carrots and potatoes- I’ll skip the potatoes. I’ll likely eat something green, such as maybe some sauteed kale to fill in for the lack of potatoes. For snack, we’ll have fruit.

Thursday- You guessed it, we’re having eggs for breakfast. Scrambled to be exact. Lunch is leftover chuck roast, reserving some for Saturday’s soup. Dinner is the last of the frozen salmon with broccoli. Rice for those who can have it. Snack will be cut up veggies with bean dip for the kids. I’ll just eat the veggies without the dip.

Friday- Steel-cut oats for the kids, eggs for me. Lunch will be whatever little bits and pieces of leftovers are in the fridge at this point along with fillers- almonds, black olives, cheese cubes, cut up veggies and other little odds and ends. Snack will be more of the odds and ends lunch.

Saturday- Breakfast will be hubby testing a sweet potato recipe he’s developing for the blog, along with biscuits and maybe some scrambled eggs. I’ll skip the biscuits since I’m avoiding grains. Lunch will be a pot of beef soup. Dinner will be picked from what we have out of food storage. Since hubby is home on Saturdays, I talk to him about what he’d like me to fix on the weekend and let him pick out of what’s available. Snack will be fruit.

Sunday- breakfast is normally fruit and nuts. Lunch is lemon pepper chicken with rice, broccoli and cauliflower, fixed by hubby. Dinner is chicken soup and any leftovers in the fridge. Snack will be cookies for the kids and I’ll skip it or have a small bowl of soup.

So out of this list, I will need to purchase eggs, carrots, celery, kale, cauliflower and broccoli. Plus some fruit for the kids. I’ll spend about $28-30 this week. Eggs have gone up 30 cents a dozen and I can’t get kale from my favorite place to buy veggies.

We’re running low on cheese and I’m going to have to make some decisions soon about what cheese we’re going to purchase and how much. We picked up our bi-weekly raw milk last week, so I don’t have to get milk again until next week.

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My son and I both find ourselves in the position of possibly needing a specialized diet. I’ll be posting more about that soon, but it means that our menus will probably be changing. Eating out of food storage will become more of a challenge than before since two of us will be removing some things from our diets to improve our health. As we get test results back and I can get on my feet, I’ll post the details and share how I’m putting it all together for a family of four on possibly three separate diets.

I’m really not happy, but at this point I’ve got to do something. I suspect I’m having thyroid issues, possibly Hasimotos. I assume I will soon be giving up broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, kraut and more as well as being an absolutely strict paleo. I’m very sad at the prospect, but I’ve got to do something. My health worsened in some ways in 2012 after getting drastically better in previous years, and I believe my thyroid may be one piece of the puzzle. We’ll know more when the test results come back. I dread it.