Monday 11 November 2013

Meal Planning Monday (11.11.2013)




Nothing too complicated, it's all about eating as natural as possible and eliminating processed foods from our cupboards and tummies. There are certain thing that I do try not to have at all: sodas, juices - unless I just made it fresh there and then -  and deep fried stuff. On the day to day basis I also avoid gluten and hydrogenated fats (vegetable oils) and make sure we eat plenty of protein and good fats and carbs - and of course plenty of fruit and veggie. I set myself a challenge to stop drinking soda and eating crisps and chips, I've done it before so I know it it possible. So far I can say I have been free from those foods for a week...and counting!

I do worry about my weight and my self image - as most ladies out there - but my healthy eating goal goes beyond that. I want to invest now on a healthier future and make sure that, when the time comes, both my body and mind can grow old gracefully. I'm only 35 and yes I think that's young - but planning for the future is probably the best way to preserve a young soul. On the top of all that, in a world where kids are growing up with obesity problems I hope to give my little guy a fighting chance to live a healthier and happier life.

I do try and watch what I eat most of the time but give myself a break once a week, to a treat that I really fancy or go out for a special meal with daddy D and friends. Don't fool yourself, of course I fall off the wagon,, usually straight into a little guilt trip every now and then. I have good and bad days as everyone else but I find that planning ahead helps keeping the bad times to a minimum: If you fail to plan, you plan to fail!

So when it's time for our weekly food shop I'll go through the freezer (I tend to cook and bulk to have quick meals ready in the freezer but also to save us some money) and plan 6 dinners, because if I know what I'm cooking there's no rushing around at tea time or the temptation to just order a takeaway.

At the moment I am experimenting with spelt - have successfully made spelt baguettes and pizza, the results were delicious - still I do try to keep the grains and starchy foods to a minimum so even spelt is really a little healthy treat that I might have at dinner time, during that day I try not to have any meal containing grains to balance it out.

This week for dinner, we will have:
Full English
 served with homemade turkey sausage
Turkey bolognese with Spelt pasta
Slow beef spelt pie 
I slow cooked a big roasting joint last week and will
experiment with a recipe for spelt

Slow Cooker Beef Stew with American Buttermilk Biscuits
again experimenting with spelt
Chicken curry with rice and spinach
not sure if it will be indian or thai yet but the actual chicken is ready in the
freezer which means a quick meal when I get home from the office
Pork steak with mash, green beans and baby carrots
a regular on a weekly planning, again because it is a very quick option for after work

I do cook a lot with turkey, it can be a versatile meat if you know what to do with it but  it's also a healthy and cheap option to having beef all the time. So just to make things more interesting, I'll share a little turkey recipe this week, as I'm hoping to do this every Monday on the Meal Planning linky, enjoy!

Ingredients

1 lb ground turkey
1/2 onion
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp cumin
1 1/2 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp Celtic salt
1/4 tsp sage
1/4 tsp thyme
1/4 Cup Chicken Broth
Coconut oil

Directions

Finely Chop Onion - you can use a food processor to speed things up. Add all the Spices to the Chopped Onion. Remove the Onion/Spice Mixture and place in mixing bowl. Add Chicken Broth. Mix Chicken broth into Onion/Spice Mixture. Add Ground Turkey and mix by hand. Marinate for about an hour or overnight. Wet fingers lightly and roll into small balls. In a small frying pan, brown on both sides in Coconut oil until cooked through. I swapped all my frying pans to ceramic quoted ones so I only use the tiniest amount of oil when cooking.


For more Menus ideas and/or inspirational reads visit Meal Planning Mondays and Inspirational Monday linkies.

 Meal Planning Monday

8 comments:

  1. Ohh everything sounds delicious!! Yum x

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  2. You know bad eating is probably my biggest parenting downfall - I really need to take your lead and get the slow cooker out. Hope you enjoyed it and all and thank you for the inspiration.

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  3. What a great post! You may be interested in my blog as I have lots of freefrom recipes as my daughter has coeliac disease and a dairy allergy. I shall be nipping back to your blog for inspiration! Thank you...

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  4. Thank you Kim, we had the spelt spag-bol last night and it was really nice, although I think the spelt spaghetti needs a heavier sauce, like carbonara, as its texture is great but there wasn't much flavour to it.

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  5. I know what you mean, it can be a lot easier to get stuck feeding the little ones whatever they will never turn their noses to...right now I'm trying my best to be discipline and always only have healthy and nutritious foods at home so that we eat the best we can most of the time. As I said on the post, that's my life long goal.

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  6. thank you for your comments, I'm glad you stopped by as I checked out your blog and found some great info there, had to follow you :-)

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  7. Wow these sound delicious. I need to be more organised with our meals, we are going through a nightmare with our 2 year olds eating habits at the moment.

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  8. it can be hard can it? I was starting to feed Harry too much bread was it was just easy to get some wherever we were so had to go a bit strict about, more to get my brain used to it and hopefully it will soon be second nature...that's the plan anyways :)

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