Somedays, it doesn't help to be barefoot.

One of the downsides of being eight months pregnant is that it really hurts to be on your feet for extended periods of time.  It's always kind of bugged me to spend long stretches in the kitchen without shoes, because my feet don't have any support and my legs start to wear out, but now, it feels like I can't stand for more than 30-45 minutes or so.  So tonight, the 4-5 hours we've spent cooking and prepping food for the week has been interspersed with a lot of breaks, and things got a lot better once I went and put on my sneakers.  Hopefully the end result of this will be that almost every meal for the week is good to go and we don't have to do a lot of prep work to have delicious, healthy meals.

I haven't posted in awhile, mostly because I haven't come up with many new recipes and because Pinterest basically serves most of the purposes for which I started this blog (a way of cataloging my favorite recipes, etc.)

Anyway, I was diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes this week and while there are plenty of posts and blogs out there, since I have a high chance of having GD again with subsequent pregnancies (the jury is still out on whether this kid gets a sibling, ever), I figured it would be useful to me and perhaps to others to compile recipes.  I haven't met with the endocrinologist/diabetes educator or learned to test my blood sugar yet, but a few friends gave me some advice so for the past few days I've been eating low-carb, upping my protein, and eating 3 small meals and 2-3 large snacks.  I've been tracking everything on My Fitness Pal and trying to figure out how doable being a vegetarian with GD is.  I only have 8 weeks to go in my pregnancy, so if I do end up needing to eat meat to get the nutrients I need and not overload myself or the baby with sugar or salt, I will do so.  (There is very little I won't do to avoid having an 11lb baby, it turns out.)

So here is my meal plan for this week:
Sunday: Burgers and Zuchinni Fries - I used whole wheat bread crumbs and had my burger bunless, with a side of greek yogurt (the black bean burgers from Costco are pretty spicy so the yogurt cuts the flavor.)  I recommend not using panko, or running the panko through the food processor first.
Monday: Lentil Tacos (I'm trying this recipe) on whole wheat tortillas (I buy the whole wheat ones from Costco)
Tuesday: No Noodle Zucchini Lasagna 
Wednesday: Kale Quinoa Salad with Roasted corn and Lemon Vinagrette - I'll probably skip the corn on this one.  My lemon vinagrette is just lemon juice and olive oil and some garlic and salt.  You can add mustard if you want it to hold together better.
Thursday:  Stir fry with tofu and all of the vegetables from our CSA and a side of brown rice.
Friday: Fish with a side of rice and...something with lima beans.

Something that helps me a lot is to make rice and quinoa in advance, because during the week, it's hard to remember to start the rice cooker as soon as one of us gets home from work so that the rice is done at a reasonable time.  (It's possible they make rice cookers that stay warm for hours for exactly this reason but ours burns stuff if it's beyond the time.)

I also made some cookies and chocolate chip bread to use up the 8 very large zucchini that came from our CSA (we went with the Jones Family Farm for any Baltimore locals and it's been great).  Mr. Barefoot approved of the cookies and pronounced them "pretty edible, in fact good."

What are you eating these days? Any low-carb, high protein suggestions for me?

Menu Plan

I thought I would share our menu plan for this week, since I know coming up with weekly meal plans is challenging for some folks and sometimes inspiration is nice.  This is actually just pulled from our "Menu Planning" master Google Doc, which is the best system we've come up with for sharing our menu plans and keeping recipes in one place.

This morning, I prepped all of the veggies, etc. for this week and it only took a couple of hours to prep everything and saute up the onions/peppers for the chili and for the enchilada filling.  I made the sweet potatoes in the crockpot while I did that, so all I'll need to do on Tuesday is put them in the oven or microwave to warm back up, and then top them with homemade cinnamon marshmallows.  Mostly, this week just required chopping onions and peppers (and I used frozen) and some garlic, but was pretty easy, so if you are wary of menu planning, I would recommend it.

Week of 11/17/13

• Sunday: caramelized tofu - http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/caramelized-tofu-recipe.html
• Monday: crockpot enchiladas  http://www.thekitchn.com/easy-dinner-recipe-slowcooker-127016
• Tuesday: fish, sweet potatoes, green beans (I'll probably do the fish with a honey mustard sauce)
• Wednesday: BBQ lentils http://barefootandinthekitchen.blogspot.com/2012/08/barbecue-lentils.html
• Thursday: 3 Bean Chili with chive flecked cornmeal Dumplings (CR) - http://barefootandinthekitchen.blogspot.com/2012/01/cookbook-challenge-fresh-from.html
• Friday: Pasta and sauce

Half-30, Weeks 2 & 3

Oh dear. I started a blog post with my remaining menu plan, and totally failed to continue. This was for a few reasons, the first being I found out there is actually a whole vegetarian paleo forum and movement, with websites with meal plans and stuff, so I started to feel obsolete, and secondly, um, I'm busy.

Breakfast:
-Sweet potato hash with fried eggs (I have made this 2-3 times a week and smoothies the other days)
-Paleo Oatmeal
-Oatmeal Minus the Oats
-Smoothies

Dinners:
- Coconut Red Lentil Soup

- Sauteed Scallops over Spaghetti Squash - I did not use this recipe. I used this one, and it was gross, and worse reheated.

-Catfish sauteed with cajun spices

-Salmon patties with a big salad and homemade balsamic vinaigrette dressing (Balsamic vinegar, olive oil, mustard)

- Chili Rubbed Salmon with coconut cauliflower rice

- Almond encrusted Tilapia 

-Black bean salad with avocado, tomato, and roasted peppers.

Snacks:
-Nuts
-Apples with almond butter
-Bananas
-Raisins

I'm on Week 4 now and this week I'm adding some grains back in.  This is partly because I just haven't been feeling as good this time as last time, and I realized that last time, I cheated way more. I had occasional potatoes or rice, and I felt much better. I had no energy through most of last week, and I was just really tired.

I also have concluded, that while a number of things on the Whole30 website talk about the importance of healing your relationships with food, and not "slipping up" or "cheating" and how horrible it is, I also decided that I'm sorry, but I do not want to look back on the awesome camping trip I took with my cousins and remember bitterly watching everybody else roast marshmallows around the campfire and feeling upset and like I missed out.  So I bought gluten free graham crackers and tried to make my own marshmallows but I failed at that so I bought some, and I bought really good dark chocolate, and I bought normal food for the other people, and I ate exactly two s'mores, which is less than usual, and I did not continue roasting marshmallows for the fun of it, which I hope indicates I'm working on my portion control.

I'm not sure what the next step is. I'm not sure whether I'm adding gluten back in. I think I will be, because I don't actually have a problem digesting it, but I think I will be limiting my intake of wheat to weekends/evenings so that I don't experience a carb crash during the day.  My new eating philosophy is to eat as little processed food as possible, and sleep as much as possible, and I think these two things combined will make me feel my best.  I think cutting sugar has been good for me, although I'm unable to kick my sweet tooth entirely, I'm very much so hoping to be able to kick soda for good one of these days. I also don't believe my body doesn't know the difference between raisins and chocolate, and I'm going to try to switch to healthy snacks instead of grabbing something toxic and candyfilled at the convenience store.

The biggest thing I got out of this was being totally convinced that the Once a Month Meals philosophy is a good one.  One big monthly cooking day to have most of my meals ready/prepped for the month is going to go a long way in the future, so now it's just a matter of clearing my freezer and making space one weekend a month.

Half-30

Half-30 started Monday. Alternatively, we could call it Whole 15. Basically, we decided to start with 2 weeks rather than the full 30 days.  Which basically means I'm throwing all of the rules of Whole 30 except no dairy no grains to the wind.  I picked Half-30 because I think it's short for "Half A$$ed 30" rather than pretending I'm actually doing this diet the correct way.  Do I recommend doing it the correct way? Absolutely. I think it will have even more benefits.  But for us, we're going to do 2 weeks, and then spend the next two weeks focusing on a way to live sustainably.  Anyway, I thought I'd post our menu plan for this week and talk about prepping for Half-30.

Sunday, I went to the farmer's market, Costco, and the grocery store. I spent all day cooking. I made a sweet potato black bean chili, I made a sweet potato frittata, I roasted sweet potatoes for snacks, I hard boiled eggs, I chopped onions and green beans and zuchinni and squash and sauted those things so they would be ready for the week.  I bought salad and spinach and all kinds of nuts.  I made nut butter so that I can have it on apples for a snack.

Being prepared is half the battle, and I knew for the first week, having easy snacking items on hand if dinner took a little longer, and having dinner ready to go, was paramount.  After the first week last year, I noticed I no longer got ravenously hungry and therefore could handle actually cooking food, but the first week is all about making sure dinner is ready and you have enough snacks so you don't turn to bad choices in the meantime.  I've been taking a giant bag of food to work with me so that I have enough food.  The only problem is that I'm really sick of all of my breakfast options.

 So here is our menu plan:
Breakfast:
-Sweet potato frittata
-Almond milk - banana - frozen berry smoothie
-Almond milk - spinach - banana smoothie

Lunch:
-Black Bean Sweet Potato Chili (recipe below)
-leftovers (I packed up the chili so that we would have lunches for the first day and then just in case we don't have leftovers from other stuff)

Dinner:
-Sweet Potato Cashew Chili with Cauliflower Rice
-Falafel with kale chips
-Grilled salmon salad with pecans, dried cranberries, homemade balsamic dressing
-Vegetable frittata (I pre sauted zuchinni and squash for this, I will just add eggs and omit the usual milk, yogurt and cheese)
-Seared scallops on spaghetti squash

Snacks:
-Hard boiled eggs
-Apples with almond butter or sunbutter
-Baked sweet potatoes
-Nuts
-Almond-date-cocoa balls  can also be made with

Sweet Potato Chili
1 Tbsp  oil
green pepper, sliced
red pepper, sliced
onion, sliced
2 cups vegetable stock
2 cans (15.5 oz each) black beans, undrained
1 can white beans
1 can (14.5 oz) crushed tomatoes
1 medium yam, peeled and diced 
2 Tbsp red wine vinegar
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 Tbsp cocoa 
2 Tbsp honey
3tbs  chili powder
1/2 tsp cumin
1/8 tsp  cinnamon
Salt and pepper to taste 

Directions:

1. Heat basting oil in medium stockpot on MEDIUM-HIGH. Add peppers & onions. Cook, stirring, 3-4 min until soft, but not browned. Add stock, beans and liquid, tomatoes, yam, vinegar, garlic, cocoa powder, honey,chili powder, cumin, and cinnamon.
    
2. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer on LOW, uncovered, 25-30 min. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

English Lasagna (Freezer Meal)

I have gotten super-into freezer meals lately.  I'm dying to try Once a Month Mom, but I haven't had a chance yet to completely clear the freezer.  Once we have a house and a chest freezer though, oh man.

Anyway, when the Snowquester Storm hit, I hunkered down and spent the morning making freezer meals.  I did an enchilada casserole, which was mediocre, and I made an English Lasagna, which was spectacular.  I'm on the hunt for more good vegetarian ideas, if you have any to share.  I currently have a frozen baked ziti and a frozen fried rice meal all set to go, but I'm trying really hard to make sure we always have something to pull out and thaw when we don't have time to cook.

English Lasagna is made with a creamy bechamel sauce instead of ricotta cheese.  Or in addition to.  I didn't have any ricotta, and it was raining so I didn't go get any, so I improvised a bit.  It was so delicious that when we thawed it and cooked it, my husband ate my leftovers.

Ingredients (makes four servings in a loaf pan, double the cheese/milk if you want to use an 8x8):
-one package no-bake lasagna noodles
-one package veggie crumbles (or you can use real meat, but I don't know how to cook that, or how much to use - I guess half a pound?)
-two cups shredded cheddar cheese (plus more for topping)
-two cups milk
-2 tbsp butter
-2 tbsp flour
-half an onion, chopped
-a few cloves garlic, chopped
- 1 cup tomato sauce

Preheat oven to 350 even if you are freezing this for later (it's best to cook the pasta before freezing).
1.) Saute onion and garlic together until translucent.  Add veggie crumbles and tomato sauce.
2.) Saute butter and flour together until flour is brown.  Add milk and stir frequently until sauce thickens.
3.) Add cheddar cheese and melt.
4.) Layer no bake noodles, "meat" and top with bechamel sauce.  Continue until you have reached the top of the pan (I like to use thin layers and a lot of noodles.)
5.) Top everything with cheddar cheese and some extra tomato sauce, if you have any.
6.) Bake at 350 for 45 minutes, covered with foil.  Then allow to cool, cover the foil with saran wrap, and freeze.
7.) To reheat, thaw for 24ish hours and heat in 350 degree oven for 1 hour.  (Keep foil on for first 45 minutes, then remove for the last 15 minutes.)

Any other freezer meal suggestions?

Mrs. Veggie and Mr. Meat

I have a friend who came over for dinner last week and she expressed a bit of frustration at the fact that her husband not only eats mostly meat, but he's a picky eater with a pretty limited palate.  She's a vegetarian and he isn't, so I'm a bit familiar with their situation.  I made a couple of suggestions for meals that could easily accommodate meat, like curries and stir fries.  But I kept thinking about it and I feel like there must be a wealth of possibilities for meals that you can do two ways, and also don't require my friend to prepare meat. I'm starting with a lot of convenience food suggestions, which is an easy transition for people used to ordering takeout.

Here's a sample menu plan & shopping list for a week:
-Burgers & fries with salad
-Curry
-Barbecue (Lentils for her, pre-made pulled pork for him, barbecue carrots on the side)
-Frittata/Torta Espanola 
-Stir fry (with baked tofu for her and chicken for him)

Shopping List-
Burgers and Fries
-1 bag frozen sweet potato fries
-1 package veggie burgers
-1 package meat burgers
-1 package hamburger buns (these will also be used for barbecue night)

Curry
-1 bag frozen peas
-1 bag carrots (also for barbecue)

-Curry powder, coriander, tumeric
-4 medium potatoes (need 8 total)
-1 can coconut milk
-Onion (need 5 total)
-Frozen chicken strips or a rotisserie chicken (use in both the curry and the stir fry)


Stir Fry
-2 bell peppers
-1 container sliced mushrooms or another pre-prepared vegetable for stir fry
-snow peas or green beans or another green vegetable
-1 bottle of stir fry sauce/marinade or 1 bottle soy sauce and 1 bottle sweet and sour sauce (combine equal parts for an easy marinade)
-1 box extra firm tofu
-onion (need 5 total)

Frittata
-Eggs
-3-4 Potatoes (need 8 total)
-Onions (need 5 total)
-Plain Greek Yogurt (use instead of cream)

Barbecue
-Lentils (brown)
-Barbecue sauce
-pre-prepared Pulled Pork
-Onion (need 5 total)



Anyone have any other suggestions for meals for my friend?  What are your favorite carnivore-pleasing vegetarian meals?

Menu Planning

I thought, with the new year, and slow-down of the schedule, as well as our recommitment to menu-planning healthy, vegetable laden meals, I would start by sharing our weekly or monthly menu plans with you.  This week, I'll be using up the bags of onions and green beans I bought at Costco, as well as the butternut squash.  I like to menu plan 4/5 meals for the week, because usually something comes up.  If we don't have a plan for the fifth meal, I'll make either veggie burgers with sweet potato fries, or pasta (this time with veggie crumbles meat sauce).  I'm also using recipes that I found in the January issue of Self magazine.  Usually I don't make most of these, but we're really trying to eat better and the recipes in this issue seemed to be better than usual, and a bit more veg-friendly.

So this week, we'll be eating (from www.self.com):
Quinoa and Pepper Sauté
Sauté 1 cup chopped red bell peppers, 1/2 cup chopped red onion and 1/4 tsp smoked paprika in 1 tsp olive oil until vegetables are soft, 5 minutes. Add 2 cups spinach; sauté until spinach wilts. Serve vegetable mixture over 1 cup cooked quinoa. Sprinkle with 1 tbsp grated Parmesan, 2 tsp chopped fresh parsley.


Indian Shrimp and Squash
Place 2 cups cubed butternut squash on a baking tray; drizzle with 2 tsp olive oil. Sprinkle with 1/2 tsp turmeric, black pepper, a pinch of cayenne pepper (optional); bake at 425° for 15 minutes. Add 4 oz frozen, raw shrimp to baking tray; drizzle with 1 tsp olive oil; sprinkle with 1/4 tsp ground cumin; bake until shrimp are cooked through and squash is tender, 10 minutes. Serve with 1 cup green beans sautéed in 1 tsp olive oil. Drizzle meal with lemon juice.


We will also be eating:  
Black bean and goat cheese burritos
Some kind of Butternut Squash Curry Soup or Butternut Squash Apple Soup

Gone Quiet

Apologies to all for the recent lapse and total failure of recipes.  I'm studying for the bar.
Studying for the bar is an arduous thing at best, but when you have a night bar review course, it also means that your eating habits go to hell.
I'm in week three now, and I still haven't figured out a great system for eating.  It seems that the best thing to do is eat a high-protein second breakfast after Bar Review Mandated Exercise, then hold off on lunch until about 2 or 3 pm, when I eat lunch.  Then, I just have some high protein snacks and eat them through bar review and come home to dinner.  Or come home to bed because I am no longer hungry.  It's not the best plan.

But what I wanted to write about is not my lousy eating habits during the bar.  It is how to freeze casseroles, then thaw and reheat them.

Last summer, when I went to Michigan, I made and froze a few lasagnas.  I read a great tip once that you can make mini-lasagnas in aluminum loaf pans.  Just follow the lasagna directions on the package, but put 3 noodles and the filling in each pan, then top with cheese.  Cover with foil and put in the refridgerator until cool, then freeze.

It turns out they freeze for up to a year, because we just ate the last one tonight.  To thaw, just put in the fridge the night before or the morning of.  Bake at 375 for awhile (Mr. Barefoot's very specific instructions) until warm and delicious.  

Any other suggestions for casseroles (vegetarian) that freeze and reheat well?

Final Menu

Here is how our Winter 2010 Menu came out - I wound up covering with vellum instead of laminating it, because I had vellum. I would have preferred a transparency, but I don't own any of those because I'm no longer in the 5th grade. The vellum lets us cross out which meals we do but preserve the menu, which isn't that necessary since we probably won't cycle this plan for more than 4 weeks. I realized today I didn't put chilli on this menu. Or enough stuff with goat cheese. Or any kind of stuffed pasta. So probably going to mix it up after 4 weeks. Or just make chilli some weekend. I keep having to remind myself that 2 nights out of the week aren't planned.
I left room on the bottom of the bulletin board to attach shopping lists for specific weeks, or recipes to.

Meal Planning

Menu planning is always a challenge, but we talked on the trip about how to make our lives a little easier this year, and menu planning is a big one. We talked about doing a monthly menu, instead of weekly, ala Sew Liberated. Basically, you do all the meal planning at once for four weeks, and simply rotate. You also don't have to eat the things on the same day each week. I think four weeks is enough that we can cycle back to the beginning and not be sick of the foods we're eating. You also get 2 "gimme" days, when you can cook whatever you want.
Right now, I'm trying to decide whether the way to do this is specific recipes or more generally - for example, do I put in "mac & cheese" or do I put in "sweet potato mac & cheese". The benefits of going more general are that I can choose to do beer-leek mac&cheese instead, but the drawback is that it still leaves us somewhat menu-planning.
So right now, my list, if we go general, would look like this:
1. Tacos
2. Mac & Cheese
3. Risotto
4. Grill Night
5. Stir-Fry
6. Soup
7. Pasta
8. Fish

That isn't enough meals, so I think the answer is to go more specific. 20 meals are necessary to make this work, and they should be seasonal or year-round items. In early winter, this means quite a few potatoes, sweet potatoes, and beans.
1. Sweet potato tacos
2. Traditional Mac & Cheese
3. Sweet potato barley risotto
4. Winter Lager soup
5. Burgers
6. Meatless sloppy joes
7. Barbecue tofu
8. Stir fry w/ rice
9. Curry
10. Minestrone soup
11. mushroom risotto
12. Chili/coconut salmon
13. Specialty mac & cheese
14. Goat Cheese/black bean/spinach tacos
15. Bean tacos (leaving general so we can do lentil or something else)
16. Pizza
17. Butternut Squash (I'm leaving this one general, as I don't know that much about what to do with Butternut Squash)
18. Salmon w/ cous cous
19. Mushroom "stroganoff"
20. Wild Card

I think a Wild Card meal is a good way to get to make something else - adds another "whatever" meal to the mix, in addition to the other two. I may swap one or two of these meals out for a Wild Card meal.

I wound up putting all of these into an Inkscape document and printing it out. Probably won't get it laminated just yet, because well, that sounds expensive. Although I do have teacher friends who might have access to a laminator. Oooh.

I'm thinking of the 5 meals as Sunday-Thursday - Friday and saturday nights are usually either a hodgepodge, leftovers, happy hour, dinner party, dinner out, or us cooking something together. I deliberately put a bunch of our Sunday "freezer meals" on the list - burgers, pizza, soups, so that those can be used for that day.

I also haven't planned sides - some of these meals are one-pot meals with veggies thrown in, and some will involve eating veggies. I find it's too difficult to try to plan the vegetables I'm eating until I get to the store. Oh, and check out this awesome link to figure out what is local and in season for you this Winter -

http://www.nrdc.org/health/foodmiles!