Meal Plan Month: January Meal Plan 4

January is already coming to a close, which means two things:

1. My first baby will be turning four in a few days. Four!
2. It already looks like 2021 will be flying by. Time just doesn’t stop.

This week, I went back to work for the first time in over a month thanks to Ms. Rona hitting our home after the holidays, we also had our sweet baby in a splint after a fall, and we have not one, not two, but three birthday celebrations (to keep numbers down) coming up for Zemirah. So you could say it was…a week. With A Pinch of Crazy, as always! Enjoy some pictures of the birthday girl – four years has flown by!

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Per usual, meals were kept simple and quick, and because I was buying stuff for the birthday parties, I really tried to keep costs down. Here is what I started with for the week:

Produce- spinach, mashed sweet potato, frozen broccoli, a few carrots and potatoes, apples, bananas, berries, cherry tomatoes, cucumber

Protein- frozen salmon filets, leftover black beans, nut butter, chia and flax seeds

Carbs- brown rice, oats

I was actually able to make two full dinners and prep two breakfasts with just what we already had! Doing kitchen inventory before planning meals can really save a lot of money! Here is what our meals were for the week:

Breakfasts:

Overnight Oats

• Sweet potato muffins topped with peanut butter *This was a concoction I made up to use up those mashed sweet potatoes. I wrote it down and will test it out again to hopefully get the recipe posted here!*
• Overnight oats with chia seeds, cinnamon, and almond butter, topped with bananas
• Breakfast tacos with egg, cheese, salsa, and avocado

Lunches:

• Leftovers
• Sandwiches
• For Z’s school lunch I packed: turkey/mayo roll ups (nitrate free), a green apple, seaweed snacks, broccoli, and a cookie. For her snack I packed: a fruit pouch and cheddar bunnies
• While Z was at school, Selah and I enjoyed a quiet brunch of scrambled eggs with spinach and tomatoes and a side of avocado toast topped with everything bagel seasoning. It was nice to change it up from our usual microwaved leftovers!

Snacks:

• Cliff bars for grownups/fruit bars for Z
• Fruit leathers
• Pouches
• Apples/bananas with peanut butter
• Strawberries with honey (Z’s favorite)
• Chocolate chip lactation cookies (mostly for me, but these only lasted two days hehe)
• Boiled eggs

Dinners:

Slow Cooker Pork Roast

• Monday: Black bean burgers with spinach, avocado, and habanero ranch; fries and cucumber tomato salad on the side
• Tuesday: Slow Cooker Pork Roast with Veggies (this was my day at work, I got home at 6 and dinner was ready for us) with a side of bread and butter
• Wednesday: Salmon *I just cooked in the skillet* with broccoli and brown rice on the side
• Thursday: This was date night! Woo! The girls ate dinner at my parents’ house, and David and I got sushi 🙂
• Friday: Pork tacos with leftover roast and sautéed peppers, onions, and mushrooms; guacamole and plantain chips on the side
• Saturday: Birthday party foods – we are having a rainbow charcuterie board
• Sunday: This is Z’s real birthday so I haven’t planned anything. We are definitely going out for breakfast, and maybe dinner, too. Or we might eat leftovers, or I might just buy some frozen pizzas. It’s up to the birthday girl!

There you have it! Because I was able to plan two meals just with what we had, plus going out one night, this week’s grocery bill was only $60! Now after I added all the birthday party foods, the total doubled, but still not too bad for multiple birthday parties. That’s a plus side of social distancing – not many kiddos get three birthday parties! We are doing a food for every color of the rainbow (red pepperoni, orange crackers, yellow cheese, etc.) and I made pink unicorn sugar cookies, confetti cupcakes (from a box mix), and will do different colored frosting using natural food dye. She is going to have a blast!

If you want to look back on the last few weeks of meal plans click here, here, and here. Maybe these posts can give you some ideas while you’re planning food for next week. Have fun cooking and feeding your family…and enjoy your Pinch of Crazy!

This post contains affiliate links; if you purchase using the links, it is of no extra cost to you, just a small commission for me. Thank you for supporting A Pinch of Crazy!

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Meal Plan Month: January Meal Plan 3

The first month of the new year is already almost coming to a close – how has 2021 just started yet is already flying by?! After the last two weeks of craziness, quarantine, and sickness, it was nice to get back to a little bit of normalcy this week. Thankfully the girls and I are all feeling well still, though I stayed home from work (I work one day a week out of the house teaching music lessons) just to ensure my students’ safety, and I taught my one Fit4Mom class virtually again this week. So we had another slow week kind of easing back into our normal schedule, but I still needed lots of quick meals because being stuck at home with two little ones can get a little Crazy!

As I have the past two weeks (read week 1 here and week 2 here) I will share any modifications necessary for the girls. One exciting thing from this week is that I have started introducing some dairy for Selah and me! This was exciting because she used to get terrible tummy pains, and, without too much detail, things were not normal with her diapers, when I would have dairy. Now, not only can I eat dairy, but she can too! I actually got a little too crazy with the grilled cheeses this week and found myself bloated and yucky feeling. Now that the initial excitement of being able to eat grilled cheese is over, I will work on scaling it back again hehe 🙂

Alright, on to the cheesy meal plan!

Doing my “kitchen inventory” this week I had:

• Protein: Greek yogurt, almond/peanut butter, one pound of ground turkey, cheese (how am I still trying to finish up this block of cheese?!), leftover black beans, the last bit of hummus
• Carbs: oats, rice, sweet potatoes, half a package of lasagna noodles, quinoa
• Produce: spinach, berries, bananas, apples, leftover squash, leftover burrito veggies, frozen broccoli

Based on these few things here are the meals I planned:

Breakfasts:

Berries & Greens Smoothie

• I made a “Tex-Mex” breakfast casserole using leftover beans and burrito veggies mixed with scrambled eggs and shredded cheese. I served it topped with avocado slices, hot sauce, and Greek yogurt.
• Berries and Greens Smoothies *I added Collagen Peptides to these for protein*
• Cinnamon Apple Oatmeal *I added almond butter and regular butter for some fat and protein here*

Snacks:

• Cliff bars, Z bars
• Fresh fruit with peanut butter
• Cheddar bunnies
• Seaweed snacks
• Pouches
• Crackers with cheese or hummus (finally finishing that up this week!)

Lunches:

• Leftovers
• Sandwiches (again, with uncured ham or nitrate free turkey lunch meat)
• For Z’s school lunch I packed half a turkey sandwich, seaweed snacks, a pouch, cucumber slices, and dark chocolate candy. For her school snack I packed a Z Bar and a clementine.

Dinner:

Creamy Tomato Basil Soup

• Monday: Grilled cheese (my first real grilled cheese in like a year!) and tomato soup
• Tuesday: Spinach, squash, and turkey lasagna *I simply cooked a spaghetti sauce similar to last week but with turkey meat, mixed some shredded mozzarella with an egg and Italian seasonings, then layered those sauces between noodles and raw spinach and squash. Baked for about 45 minutes, covered for the first 30.*
• Wednesday: Salmon with tzatziki sauce and a quinoa salad with broccoli, tomatoes, avocado, and a hummus based dressing *you can see this dinner on my Instagram highlights*
• Thursday: Sushi bowls *I will be using leftover salmon shredded and mixed with mayo and sriracha, put over cooked brown rice, and top with avocado, cucumber, seaweed snacks, sesame seeds, and coconut aminos*
• Friday: Sweet and sour meatballs with red bell pepper and mushrooms over rice *I will be using this meatball recipe, but with Asian-inspired seasoning, cover in this sweet and sour sauce, then serve over cooked brown rice and with sautéed veggies*
• Saturday and Sunday: last week’s highlights, and we may go out to eat once 🙂

There is our full week of food! I kind of overly stocked up on snacks this week, so hopefully next week that won’t be necessary, as I will also be buying some birthday party foods next week. However, even with stocking up a little more than usual, I did not go too far over budget (I try and keep it at or below $100/week); I spent $110 this week. That may seem like a lot, but for a family of four eating three meals and two snacks a day, seven days a week, that’s really not too bad! We are all big eaters, too, so that’s even better!

According to insider.com the average fast food burger (not the sides, just the burger) cost $2.64 in 2018. I calculated buying 5 burgers for my family (again, no sides) for two meals a day every day and that came out to $184.80 for one week. So even with the “cheaper” option of fast food I would end up spending more per week and we would actually be eating less. Of course this is not even accounting for the health factor of eating home cooked food, which is invaluable, and I feel grateful to be able to serve my family in this way!

I think that covers everything for this week. Next week I’ll finally be going back to work after winter break/quarantine so I will likely have a crock pot meal in the menu sometime. Our sweet Z is turning four next week so I will also be sharing her birthday party foods, so stay tuned for the last meal plan of the month. I hope you can draw some inspiration from these easy meal plans, get in the kitchen, make some good, healthy food…and enjoy your Pinch of Crazy!

This post contains affiliate links; if you purchase using the links, it is of no extra cost to you, just a small commission for me. Thank you for supporting A Pinch of Crazy!

Meal Plan Month: January Meal Plan 2

Alright so we are halfway through the first month of the new year, and… wow. Things are already stressful, there is tension everywhere, and it can be easy to feel overwhelmed, get swept away with emotion, and drown in anxiety.

I have been going to counseling (for the third time in my life; no shame here) since March; I started going as a preventative measure before I had our second daughter, Selah, to help avoid postpartum depression/anxiety this time around. Then after the first two meetings with my new counselor, the world flipped upside down, and everything turned dark, a little scary, and a lot stressful. So on top of dealing with the stress of a new baby, I, like everyone, was dealing with the stress of current events, but my counselor advised me to really look at what I can control.

So what can I control to reduce my stress? Well, I can exercise because I know that when I move my body lovingly in a way that feels good to me (that is the key), those happy hormones will flood my brain and relieve some stress. I can make sure I don’t consume too much refined sugar, as I have found over the years that eating sugary treats will work against me by making my heart race and my stress rise. I can make sure that I feed myself and my family whole, healthy foods that will nourish us and make us feel happy and healthy (as always, with A Pinch of Crazy!), and this is really what got me through this week! Knowing that I am doing the best for my family to keep us all healthy, and make sure I’m doing what I can to reduce my stress.

On top of the upsetting news that is constantly swirling around us, this past week, my family got hit with that virus. I debated writing about this because I felt like I would get some backlash. However, at the start of the pandemic, with the professional advice from both my counselor and my midwife, we decided it would be unwise for me to self-isolate with a new baby. Due to my history with postpartum depression and anxiety, the best decision for me was to continue seeing my family, and I am so glad that I have! Both David and I have large families of origin (he has three siblings, I have four sisters, everyone’s married, and I can’t even add all the grandkids off the top of my head), so we figured eventually someone would catch the virus. It was David, my husband, but thankfully he is feeling fine now (though his smell is still slowly returning), and we finished up our quarantine yesterday.

So, yeah. All in all, a stressful start to 2021, but we had a fun snow day on Sunday, we are all healthy, and I feel thankful to control what I can. Please enjoy these happy snow day pictures to take your mind off your troubles! I hope this easy, yummy meal plan can give you some ideas for healing, healthy food for your family!

Here is what I had when taking my “kitchen inventory”:

• Carbs- a little bit of brown rice, half a box of spaghetti noodles, a few packages of grits, oats
• Protein- half a bag of frozen shrimp, ground beef, a little bit of Greek yogurt, nut butter, cheese, Cliff bars + Z bars, hummus
• Produce- avocados, cucumber, apples, baby carrots, cilantro, frozen blueberries, bananas, lettuce

Starting with these few items, I made a menu for breakfasts, dinners, and snacks, then got my grocery order in. I ended up only planning for four dinners this week because my mom brought us a meal (which she just dropped on our porch while we said our masked hellos) on Tuesday since we had to miss out on my dad’s birthday dinner over the weekend.

Like I did last week (you can read last week’s plan here), I will share our meal plan with recipes and/or short directions, and any baby modifications necessary. We do baby led weaning, so while she typically eats what we do, sometimes there are modifications necessary, especially since Baby and I usually eat dairy free.

I am also trying to start implementing more of a schedule for meals and snacks with Z; otherwise she will want to eat snacks all day. I try and offer snacks that have protein and fat so that she feels fuller longer. I am always learning, and get excited to learn new things, about feeding these little ones!

Two resources that I have loved in regards to feeding my family healthy foods are Kids Eat in Color on Instagram, and the Doctor Moms Podcast (formerly known as “Whole Mamas Club”). Also from these wonderful health-minded moms, I have learned about some supplements, so while this is different from just a meal plan, I will also share the vitamins/supplements we were taking this week to get back to full health.

I hope you can find something that works for you and your family this week, take what works for you, leave what doesn’t. Enjoy!

Breakfasts:

• Baked oatmeal again with blueberries, bananas, and almond butter
• Greek yogurt with honey, cinnamon, granola, and berries
• Breakfast burritos with eggs, cheese, avocado, and salsa (for our slower mornings… which were almost all of them due to quarantining)

Spicy Garlic Salsa for our breakfast burritos

Snacks:

• Hummus again with pretzels, carrots, and cucumber slices (for Selah I spread her hummus on toast or meat)
• Fruit pouches for Z and Selah
• Apple or banana slices served with peanut butter
• Hard boiled eggs (sometimes serve with mayo and/or mustard for flavor and extra fat)
• Cliff bars or Larabars for the grownups, Z bars for Z

Lunches:

• Leftovers
• Sandwiches with nitrate free turkey lunch meat or uncured ham
• For Z’s school lunch this week (thankfully was the day after our quarantine ended!) I packed healthier vanilla wafers and strawberries for her snack, and for lunch a half a turkey sandwich, baby carrots, pretzels, and bunny fruit snacks

Dinners:

• Monday: shrimp and grits *with cheese for those that could have it* and broccoli
• Tuesday: meal from my mom plus any leftovers from the night before or weekend
• Wednesday: spaghetti *I used this sauce recipe* with sautéed squash on the side

The sauce used for my spaghetti – great on noodles or veggies

• Thursday: black beans and brown rice with avocado and cilantro on top and guacamole with plantain chips *I wish I had this recipe posted, but I cook dry beans in the instant pot (after soaking) with broth and water, bell pepper, onion, garlic, and lots of spices*
• Friday: burritos/burrito bowls using leftover beans, rice, guac, plus sautéed bell peppers and onions, and turkey taco meat *will cook this taco meat*

Guacamole for beans and rice/burritos

• Saturday and Sunday: last week’s highlights 🙂 AKA leftovers

There you have it! Our meal plan for a family of four – three meals and two snacks a day – this week’s grocery store total came out to $97, which is really pretty good! I’ll see what I can get it down to next week.

As far as supplements and vitamins go, usually I like to rely on food as our medicine, but we have been taking these off and on for months now, but really consistently these last few weeks. I love the Garden of Life vitamins/supplements as they are made from only whole foods, so I will be linking those below:

For David and me:

• Vitamin B12
• Vitamin C
• Vitamin D every three days
• Echinacea
• Zinc

For just me:

• Prenatal vitamin (not pregnant!)
• Omega-3 to help with getting fattier breastmilk

For just Z:

• Vitamin C

For just Selah:

• Vitamin D (does not come through breastmilk)

For all of us:

• Elderberry syrup made with maple syrup
• Plenty of healthy food, limited dairy (increases mucous production) and refined sugar (lowers immune support), and outside time!!!

Thank you for following along with our meals and health journey this month. I am far from perfect and know I could always do things better, so I always enjoy learning more about health and food, but I love sharing with others some of the easy things we do in our home for our health. I truly hope this helps someone in some small way! Stay healthy, have fun cooking and caring for yourself and your family… and enjoy your Pinch of Crazy!

This post contains affiliate links; if you purchase using the links, it is of no cost to you, just a small commission for me.