Don't lose your food self

November 20, 2012

My little buddy decided he would pack his lunch today and he wanted to bring the leftover pasta from last night! Score. After I added in the last of the kids' yogurt and some mandarin oranges, I threw in a pack of fruit snacks. I can't believe how many partial boxes of fruit snacks we have. Ugh. My daughter had to stay home from school again today due to fever so she finished up the jar of homemade ginger pears from my parents. Perfect sicky food. I had another bowl of leftover chili soup. Not sure if I will be able to do another day of it or not. It is delicious and reminds me of my grandma making it for me but more than three days in a row is probably pushing it.

I went through the cupboards and tried planning out our Thanksgiving meal. Last week I bought a turkey, stuffing, crescent rolls, and ceasar salad. I still have potatoes from the farmers market. I have a cupboard FULL of homemade pickles. I even happen to have everything to make green bean casserole. I tried finding an appetizer and discovered that I have everything to make a homemade spinach and artichoke dip served with beer bread. What? Who actually has a can of artichokes just laying around (My daughter's words!)? Evidentally I do even though I have never used them before! The only thing that I need to buy is a few ingredients so that I can make dessert. Here is my problem....I am going to the store tomorrow and I have to take the kids with me seeing as they are out of school for Thanksgiving break. This will be the first time since I started the challenge on October 18th that I will have to grocery shop with them. I'm a little nervous. I have my list and it is short. I only need 19 items. Wish me luck!

Dinner time. I looked in the freezer and down at the bottom, buried under steak, roasts, and ribs was one lonely package of salmon. It hit me today that most of our meals since starting this challenge have been casseroles, or cheese covered, and mostly beef (simply because we have a ton of beef in the freezer). I'm tired of it. I need seafood! I buy our seafood at a different store than the commissary and seeing as I am cutting back at going to other stores, I guess I forgot to buy it. I seared the salmon then finished it off in the oven. I found some baby potatoes in the fridge. I got them at the farmers market awhile ago but always skip over them and use the baking size potatoes because these are so small. I decided to chop them up and do a pan of roasted potatoes with thyme from my garden. I steamed some local carrots but finished them off in a sautee pan with butter, salt, pepper, and thyme. Delicious!

Lesson of the day: do not forget who you were prior to starting this challenge. Yes, some change is good. You still need to keep in mind that you may need to take your kids with you to shop at some point. You need to be able to do well even if you have kids begging for different items. Also, don't get into a food rut while trying to use up stuff at home. I still have a bunch of beef in the freezer, but I think it will be fine if I buy seafood for one night a week.