Tag: Planning

How to Build a Gluten Free Pantry on a Budget

As a large family our food budget is definitely one of the areas, where we have to make our money do miraculous things every month.  Really, it’s God in action, because I don’t know how it happens most of the time.

Now, the gluten free life style may seem like just another fad, but it keeps our children healthy in the short term, and affects their future health in every way.  Two of our children have an autoimmune disease called Celiac Disease.

Celiac Disease is not something they will ever grow out of, it is not something that they acquired from eating the wrong things as babies, i is not from me eating or drinking anything while I was pregnant with them, or coming into contact with pollution or the wrong type of non-GMO grains.  It is a true allergy at the cellular level, specifically in their intestines.

If they go on and eat gluten later in life it will damage their bodies and create a whole host of health problems that could result in a shorter life expectancy.

So, the gluten free pantry is incredibly important.

FEEDING MY CHILDREN WITH FOOD ALLERGIES (1)

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I did a video tour of our pantry, and you can see it here!

 

Start with empty shelves!

You will have to throw things out. I know, the thought made me shudder when we were starting. Find another family to bless or donate what is still usable!  We can no longer use the food bank, but they would love your items!

Get rid of your plastic storage containers and utensils. Gluten is a sticky protein, and you don’t want to cross contaminate all your new pantry items, or the food you cook in the future.

Look up the sneaky names for gluten. You may be able to save canned goods or frozen fruit and vegetables, but be sure of the ingredients, and manufacturing.

Here is what our pantry has…..

Dry goods:

Beans – we choose dried because they are very cheap and we can control cross-contamination better

Rice – We generally use brown rice to fit into the Trim Healthy Mama way of eating

Quinoa

Nutritional Yeast

Spices – you will need to make your own seasoning blends because anti-caking agents and cross contamination are very common, and buying single ingredient spices in bulk is how we do this

Nuts and seeds – these are best and cheapest raw and un-roasted because of seasonings being an issue. Also, buy the packages that say “pieces”, they are so much cheaper than the whole nuts.  I started making my own peanut butter, and my family love it!

Oatmeal – Certified Gluten Free Oats

Gluten Free Flours – You can find our list here

Canned Goods:

Check all your cans for manufacturing!  It’s not usually what’s in the can that is the problem, it’s how it was packaged.

Canned Veggies – and you can see where we use some of them in my Green Bean Goulash

Canned Coconut Products – Full fat milk, and coconut cream

Canned Beans – We do not do this much anymore, but we do keep some for emergency use, now we like to soak our beans from dry and cook them ourselves

Condiments – Thickeners, preservatives, and colorants are big here.  Stay safe!

Frozen Foods:

Again, check manufacturing!  Very few seasoned, or saucy items are clean of contamination. Stay safe!

Veggies, Fruits, Meats – no preformed patties because they usually have “modified food starch”

Refrigerated/Produce:

Milk Products – I make my own Kefir, Greek Yogurt, and Cottage Cheese.  Because we were dairy free for 7 years we do not usually use it for straight drinking or cooking.  I also can sell surplus kefir grains if you message me here

Meats

Cheeses

Eggs

Veggies

Fruits

 

Thank you so much for stopping by!

If you want to learn more about my family, Read about Why I believe you are a Gatekeeper, or how to cut down your cooking time you have come to the right place.

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Leftover Days Will Save Your Bacon, Literally!

Whole Wedding

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As a mom with a lot of children, I am constantly trying to make our budget fit our needs.  A few pennies here, or a couple dollars there and you can have one bill throw off your whole budgeting system.

Food is the #2 bill in this house, and here is how we….

  1. Feed 8 people for less than $800 per month.
  2. Build and maintain a pantry that will feed us in lean times, from our savings.
  3. Decrease our food waste, and still eat fresh veggies and fruit, daily.
  4. Eat completely gluten free, without losing our minds!

Saving our bacon….

This habit came about because my husband was in college, full time, during the weekdays, and I was working overnight on the weekends.  Throw some homeschooling, weekly therapy for our exceptional needs children, and religious activities and you have a very full schedule.  Oh, and I went to night school during 18 months of this time, had shoulder surgery and recovery, and had two babies.  It was a wild ride, let me tell you!

Back to the food……

I call it a habit because we have tried to change the days we picked for our Leftover Days once, and it failed miserably because we were so used to the days we had done it on for three years.  We chose Wednesdays, and Sundays because those were our busiest days, and they were almost perfectly even in spacing.

It ticked all the boxes for me.  I could save money and time by using every last drop of what I was preparing, reduce my time in the kitchen, and actually not have to prepare or plan anything for two whole days a week!  I tell everyone about our Leftover Days!

What do you mean by Leftover Days?

I know that people use leftovers in all sorts of ways.  As lunches for their kids and themselves, as dinner when they are in a hurry, or even as a hail Mary pass on a rough day.

The one that we used to do when we first got married, and I grew up with, was eating leftovers when the refrigerator was so full that you had used every storage container, and you couldn’t remember when they had last been opened….then we got into the moldy containers and the mystery jars of unused condiments and it put people off of leftovers forever!

How do we do it?

We save our leftovers.  All of them!  Soups, meat loaf, 1/4 cup of cottage cheese or a slice of baked oatmeal.  No matter how small, we save it ALL!

We realized that we could not just save them for one, or even two days many times, and have enough for our large family for a whole day or even a whole meal and we were counting on at least lunch and dinner to be covered.  Three days worth of leftovers is just about perfect for our family, and they are first come, first served.  We do not all get our favorites, but we all get fed.

We will save a few things from the Wednesday to Sunday time frame to carry us over the shorter span between Sunday and Wednesday of the following week.

What happens if you eat all the food you prepared for multiple meals in between Leftover Days?

We ran into this problem a lot in the beginning, especially as our family has grown about yearly since we started it.  Now, to avoid that I automatically double, or triple every recipe.  I make sure that the approximate serving size of the prepared food at each meal is 12 people instead of 8.  This makes enough wiggle room for growing young boys, and a hungry husband after a day of chopping wood.

What if my family hates leftovers?

You are capable of setting the tone here for your entire household.

My husband loves variety.  We rarely eat the same meal twice in one month, and I prepare almost every single one myself.  That’s a lot of recipes, and a lot of leftovers, if we were not good stewards and use them up, that is a lot of waste.

So, in light of our desire to reduce our food waste and its affect on our bank account, he and we, have learned to either tolerate or love our leftovers anyway.

Sometimes, I combine multiple things and “recreate” them into something new.  Sometimes, I can use them, plus a little can of something from the pantry and jazz it up.Sometimes, I put it in a corn tortilla for the kids, or on salad for my husband and myself.

Really, we have just learned to roll with it.

What about my kids with sensory processing disorder?

Momma, I got you!

We have a child on the spectrum, and my husband is too.  Food was a big issue in our house for three years, when our oldest was at the height of his oral aversion.  I kid you not, it took that long and meals were rough.  But, we also lived without a microwave during that time, and I learned a valuable lesson from that.

My husband and oldest son, the ones with sensory problems, get to pick first, because I do not want to put them off of leftovers forever.  Do they eat things they do not like, absolutely, but they know that it is the last time for a while.

Also, You can restore the mouth feel of almost any leftover by baking it at a higher temp for a short amount of time.  Say, 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 15 minutes to warm it up in the oven, and then wack it up to 400 degrees for about 5 minutes, or even use the broiler for a minute or two.  It worked for us, and still does!

So, Call this a large family Hack, or the ingenuity of a desperate work outside the home Mom, but it WORKS!

 

Thank you so much for stopping by!

If you want to learn more about my family, Check out what we have been eating, or how to cut down your cooking time you have come to the right place.

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A Simple Guide to Going Gluten Free

Pink Photo Collage Birthday Pinterest Graphic

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Can you Live Without Bread?  

This question has gone through the mind of every person who has been told that they cannot have gluten, til death do they part.  Not just that they cannot have wheat, but that they cannot have any gluten-containing item, at all. I don’t even want to talk about items that are cross-contamination risks…..

The answer is yes, but the process of getting there can look like a trip to the peak of Mount Everest!

….., but let me show you how I would do it over if I could.

What do I do first?

Remove any gluten-containing products from your home.  Gluten is not just isolated to food, it is found in glue and even stickers.

It becomes a part of your pots and pans, as baked-on residue, those have to be thrown out because the only way to completely remove it is to sand it off.  If it was a really expensive set, I will cry with you when you chuck it or donate it.

Then, clean….

Flour and cracker residue is going to be everywhere.  Wash all your storage containers and wipe our the cupboards. 

Clean your oven and the racks inside, making sure that you scrub it all very well to remove all baked-on residue.  No, you do not have to get a new oven, because it is not likely that you will eat anything that falls out onto the oven floor or the racks.

My vote is for the cleaning cycle of the oven, vinegar-based cleaner because natural is best to me.

Go Through your Soap!

Because people cannot possibly stick with simple ingredients like lye and oil(that’s just too basic)!  They have to add all sorts of colors, fragrances, and wheat germ oil to soap.  Check your packages, and chuck the offending soaps.

This will include hair, hand, and whole body soaps.  Initially we were told that we did not need to go that far, but kids will eat and swallow the craziest things.  So, safety first is how we roll around the Treehouse.

Body Care Products, Beware!

Make up, chap stick, lipstick, lip gloss, toothpaste, mouthwash, lotion (wheat germ oil again…I know, right?).  Check them all.

Go through Your medicines, and call your pharmacy to make sure that yours are safe.  If they give you an answer without going and looking at the insert, or calling the company….find another pharmacy.  This could be the difference between long-term glutening or remission, and you are worth the few minutes of their time it takes to be truly sure.

Craft Closet Clean-out

Yes, the craft supplies are probably the second biggest offenders in my opinion.  If it can be molded like bread dough or has “-doh” in its name it will need to find a new home unless you can get the specs from the company.

Stickers, adhesive, paint, dye….check it all!

Now, go figure out the sneaky names of gluten!  It’s time to go shopping!

If you have no idea where to find it, or want all this information in digital form.  You can find it in my book, The Easy Start Guide to Gluten FREEdom.

 

Thank you so much for stopping by!

If you want to learn more about my family, why I believe you are a Gatekeeper, or how to cut down your cooking time you have come to the right place.

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How to Not Cook Two Days a Week, Without Fast Food and Cereal

I used to think I had to plan for one day of eating at a time

It’s what my mom did.  She’d come home from work and this is the conversation that would happen…

Dad: “What’s for dinner Ma?”

Mom: “I don’t know, What do you want for dinner?”

Nobody planned ahead, and we generally ate the same hand full of meals on rotation.  Then, when the fridge was bursting at the seams, and we were scared to see what science experiments we would find, we would venture into the fridge for the leftovers.

This was an epidemic in my family!

My Grandma did it, my Nana did it, my Biological Dad did it when we visited him and his wife. I knew, when I became responsible for the menu in my family I needed to have a plan.  I poured over every way to menu plan that you can imagine, but leftovers are not really addressed as an integral part of the process, except as a money-saving measure.  Still not sure about how to make my leftovers work for me, my husband was discharged from the military, and things changed drastically.   I became a working mom after 5 years of being a homemaker, and my job was overnight, and 30 hours a week.

I tried to manage everything, and have the menu set up, but I was exhausted and cooking every day was not something I had the energy for.  We fell into the eating out habit, or just using boxed meals.  This was the time that our two middle children got diagnosed with Celiac Disease.  We had to make everything now!

How to not cook two days a week, without fast food and cereal

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My Plan

I notified my family, all 5 of them at that time, the tall and the small, that all leftovers were to be saved.  It did not matter if it was 1/4 C of rice or an entire gallon container of soup, it was saved and put in the refrigerator.

Then, I designated two days, equal-ish days apart, on our busiest days of the week that we would eat on those leftovers.  This made our trips in and out of the house for therapy and church, and me needing to sleep during the day for work on one of those days, something manageable for everyone.  I felt FREE!  The plan was working!  Yes, we typically did not have breakfast leftovers but we ate anything for that meal in the fridge, and sometimes the favorites were eaten immediately by the earliest risers, but EVERYTHING had to go!

We are now a family of 8.  I have to double, triple, quadruple, and sometimes octuple, recipes to plan for leftovers or for freezing purposes.  But, the schedule is set.  I tried to change our days, to accommodate our schedule and it threw everyone off and we missed so many leftover days as a result, that I rescheduled our kids’ therapies again to get us back on track.

What about holidays and birthdays?

My husband is easy, and so are my kids.  He sees the value in our leftovers schedule.  I meal plan for special events either the day before or after the scheduled leftover day (for us it is Sunday, and Wednesday) and we eat a traditional holiday meal, or whatever our kids have picked as their birthday meal.  We do certainly make treats to eat on that day, and sometimes to go with the other day, just because we can.

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large family meal prep in as little as 1 hour a day

How to meal plan and prep in 1 hour a day

Preparing food for my army

When I worked outside the home I would try and take a whole day, sometime during the month, and prep as much as I could to make cooking for the rest of the month easier.  It worked for a long time, but it was hard to carve out the time with my overnight work schedule and my husband’s college schedule after our 5th and 6th children were born.

When I got the opportunity to become a stay at home mom again, I was excited to finally get back into the groove with my meal prep, but I discovered I could only make room in our fridge and deep freezer for about 2 weeks with how our family was growing.

I still really love once a month meal planning, but I do not have the space I need to accomplish as much as I need to.

Introducing 1-hour meal prep!

I still plan our meals a month in advance, using my Pinterest account and other resources.  I just don’t buy everything all at the same time.  You can Pin these instructions Here.

Canned goods are not the problem, it’s fresh and frozen for this family of 8.  We have one fridge with the tiny freezer, and a 1/4 size chest freezer.

With gluten allergies, we have to make most of our foods from scratch unless we can be sure of the manufacturing and processing, so I season all the food ourselves, and I cannot buy sauces premixed.

My goal, Monday through Friday, is to set aside 1 hour after I homeschool the oldest children, to prep and cook.

What does this look like?

**Putting dried beans to soak, in preparation for cooking the following day.

**Batch cooking defrosted ground meat for multiple meals.

Batch cooking ground meat to freeze for use throughout the month
10lbs of ground meat cooking for the freezer

**Oven roasting chicken breasts and cubing them.

**Chopping veggies and putting them in containers for fresh eating or recipes.

A tower of gluten free pancakes for the freezer. A quick meal on a busy morning.
16x batch of gluten-free pancakes

**Mixing bits of ingredients for that day’s lunch and dinner.

**Baking gluten-free eats for breakfasts, snacks, and dessert night.

Gluten free, dairy free baked oatmeal prepped for the freezer
Double batch of gluten free baked oatmeal for the freezer.

**Cleaning out the fridge on Leftover Day so that it is ready for all the prepped ingredients and leftovers until the next one.

Where do I start?

Carve out the time!

I watched a movie with my husband last night and the line that stuck with me was, “The only thing that has value for everyone is TIME.”

I am a busy mom of 6 with a disabled husband.  I had to learn to delegate some things to my husband that he was capable of in our homeschool so that I could have this meal planning time.  So, far, everyone is succeeding for the hour and Momma has her prep time handled!

Then, make a list of breakfasts, lunches, snacks, dinners for a week.  Then, prep what you can.  set the timer, and keep yourself busy.  When the timer goes off, clean up and stop working.

Mark off what you accomplished, and know that you accomplished something, and something is always better than nothing!

I put my leftovers in mason jar with plastic lids
Leftovers in mason jars
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The 5 Steps to Menu Planning

1. Find your Medium

I look at menu planning as my monthly craft project, because if it has to be done I should enjoy something about it.  With any craft project you need to decide what you have to work with, your medium.  Pen and paper?  Word document?  An app?

It can be as complex as you want.  I have done a little of everything.  Sometimes pretty is nice, but it is not something I have to do.

2. How Many Days are you Cooking?

My weekly cooking routine is centered around leftover days.  I plan two entire days in the week where I get a break from cooking anything from scratch, my refrigerator and my wallet thank me a lot for this.  No science experiments growing in plastic containers, and less food waste.

For our family these days are planned on Sunday and Wednesday.  Then, my job is to decide if there is a chance we may be eating out (not likely with two Celiacs), or if we need to be out of town.    Most of the time I am planning for 5 days of cooking per week, or 20 days per month.  I do either weekly and monthly cooking, depending on our schedule.

3. How Many Meals are you Planning for?

I plan breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks for each day I will be cooking.  Many plan just dinners and wing it on the other meals, but I find that lack of planning to be chaotic with the size of our family, and I usually end up lost and frustrated.

I plan one snack for a day for all the family members, usually an afternoon time is when it is eaten.  Sometimes we do popcorn for movie night or dessert, both are an after dinner event.

In one week I need to plan 15 meals and 7 snacks, and for one month I plan for 90 meals and 30 snacks.

4. Find your Food

I use both cookbooks (my favorties are Trim Healthy Mama, Trim Health Mama Cookbook, and Trim Healthy Table)  and Pinterest for recipes.  Our family follows the Trim Healthy Mama way of eating, along with our dietary restrictions of Celiac Disease and Lactose Intolerance.  We also have to use recipes that feed at least 8 people, sometimes we have to double or quadruple them.

We have several meals that are favorites, but we do not have a schedule for those.  We also do not do “Taco Tuesdays” or “Meatless Mondays” as themes.  My husband really enjoys variety in recipes, but we do plan a soup every day for lunch to help with time constraints and packing in the veggies for the kids.  Soup is a great sensory experience for those with sensory processing disorder too.

5. Make a List

Once you have picked your meals and snacks, make a list.  I go through meal by meal and see how many pound of chicken breast, and ground meat.  How many cups of milk, and cans of veggies.  For fresh produce I start with just enough to get us through a week, and then if I buy more it is with the intention of doing a meal prep day so that it won’t go bad before it is cooked.

Guess, what?  You did it!  Not too hard, and it can be adapted for any number of people.

~  Blessings to you ~   

Nicole

 

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