What we ate - 2008

Our dinners mostly consisted of ground beef and chicken. I buy our beef from a local butcher. I usually get about #30 at a time as we have an upright deep freeze. I buy my chicken on sale at Kroger. I buy as much as I can afford at the time. It is usually breast meat, but I do buy quarters or bone-in breast if they are exceptionally priced or I want to make some canned shredded chicken. About 4 times a year, I will buy a whole chicken or turkey and boil it in a big pot for the broth. Then I have lots of poultry to can or freeze. The pork and fish are also store-bought since we don't raise any animals yet. They usually come from Aldi's or Kroger. Anything marked with a * is cooked in the crockpot.
Deciphering my abbreviations - sammies=sandwiches, chix=chicken, boxed/frozen=store-bought.

Beef Entrees:

Meat and Noodle skillet
BBQ Cups
Sweet and sour meatballs over rice*
Sloppy Joe sammies
Taco twist casserole
Meatloaf
Boxed lasagna
boxed Dirty rice mixed with beef
Italian Mac Bake*
Tator Tot blop casserole
Frozen ravioli with spaghetti sauce
Veggies Beef stew with taters and carrots*
Tacos
Chili soup*
Spagetti with meat sauce
Hobo Meatball Stew*
Skillet hash
Beef barley soup*
Hamburgers
Lasagna
Pot roast and veggies*
Taco Ring
Baked ziti

Poultry Entrees:

General Tso chicken and rice
Frozen Chix Tenders
Chicken tacos
BBQ chix*
Cheesey chix and rice casserole
Fried Rice with chix
Shredded Chix sammies
Chix pot pie, sometimes not in pie but over biscuits
Chix carbonara
Chix quesidillas
Grilled chix breast
Chix cutlets with spaghetti over them
Chicken rice soup
Whole chix
Whole turkey

Pork entrees:

Pigs in a blanket
Potato soup (ham)
Whole ham*
Marinated pork chops
Fried ham slices
Baked pork chops and taters
Breakfast egg casserole(ham)
Ham and greenbean soup

Fish entrees:

Frozen fillets
Store-bought clam chowder
Tuna casserole
Salmon patties

Other:

Pizza (usually has meat on it, but not always)
Minestrone
Breakfast for dinner - pancakes, eggs and hash browns
Grilled cheese with whatever lunch meat we have on hand

Side dishes:

Glazed carrots
Raw carrots
breads - regular, garlic, corn
biscuits
tator tots
oven taters
plum buckle
fried taters
cheesy taters*
corn pudding
corn
Zuchinni patties
pears
pear sauce
apple sauce
cherry cobbler
salad
cole slaw
fresh fruit - grapes, berries, apples, oranges
rice
homemade puddings
sweet taters - casserole, oven fries or baked
noodles

What we drink:
water
milk
sweet tea
lemonade
the occasional soft drink, it is very rare that I buy these
herbal teas
apple juice
grape juice

I think I have covered it all! It alot more than I thought. I always knew we ate really good, I just never saw it in a list like this. Kind of an eye opener! There are so many things I would like to be producing here on the farm instead of buying them at a store. I always have to remind myself that I can only do so much.

What we ate - 2008

Trying to get back into blogging here. Seems lately my brain can't figure out how to post anymore. Well, today the wheels in my brain started grinding away again. I am so glad!

I have kept a rough list of the meals I made for my family in 2008. I didn't write them down everyday, but I "know" what recipes I was using. Most everything I make is homemade, or semi-homemade. By semi-homemade, I mean that maybe I added a store-bought can of soup to some meat or a store-bought packet of seasoning such as for Fried Rice. I do not produce any of our animal products. I do garden, so some of my veggies, herbs and the strawberries are produced on our farm. Some of the apples, all the pears, cherries and rhubarb came from my mil or sil's farms. Everything else is a store-bought item. These are the things I would like to replace with home-grown or local foods. Some things, such as breads and pasta's, I know that I can make myself and this is a goal I am woking toward reaching. For me, it's all about being as self-reliant as I possibly can be. Saying that, I will also add that we did go out to eat about twice a month for the first part of the year. However, in November dh's work pretty much came to a stand still, so going out to eat has not been an option. Not a bad problem to have, is it?

I will break things up into breakfast/lunches/snacks because these have a much shorter list. Then I will do my Dinner's. They will be broken down into beef, poultry, pork, fish and other meals. This way it is easier for me to see what we eat in a years time.


Breakfast:

Cheerios (baby and dh)
Grape-Nuts (me)
Baked Oatmeal
Eggs
French Toast
Milk
OJ

Lunches:

Mostly leftovers
Canned soup with grilled sammies (my word for sandwiches!)
Frozen Chicken tenders and taters
Frozen Fish fillets and taters
Egg salad sammies (me)
Chicken salad sammies(me)
Tuna salad sammies (me)
Egg, cheese and bagel sammies

Snacks:

Amish Friendship bread
Pretzels dipped in cheese or black bean dip
Mozzarella cheese sticks
Yogurt
Nachos - sometimes smothered in leftover chili or sloppy joe meat
Brownies/cookies on occasion
Fresh fruit, sometimes with my Peanut butter fruit dip
Carrot sticks
Goldfish cracker and graham crackers for baby


Notes: I eliminated the Grape-Nuts in early fall. I replaced it with the baked oatmeal. The bread was store bought until early winter, then it was all homemade. The crackers weren't the only snack the baby ate. She ate whatever we ate as long as it was appropriate for her. She never did like jarred baby food. She wanted to be "big" and eat what we ate! Saved us lots of money that way!

Low-Cost Recipes

I'm starting a new topic here that will include my favorite low-cost/easy recipes. Not only will it be helpful to others, but it will help me organize my recipes and see what I make throughout the year. This way it will help me with planning my gardening and canning. That's the plan anyways!


Weekly Menu for August 17-23, 2008:

Sunday - leftover day
Monday - Ham in crockpot, taters, carrots, pears
Tuesday - Italian Macaroni Bake
Wednesday - leftover day
Thursday - Fried Rice with chicken
Friday - Semi-homemade pizza
Saturday - out

You may notice we do alot of leftover days. In my household, there are only 2 adults and 1 child who is almost a year old. DH does eat alot and I am nursing still, so I cook for 4-6 people. This leaves enough for DH to have lunch the next day at the bare minimum. Usually we have enough for all 3 of us to have for lunch, or save for supper on a busy day. Also DH requests that I make at least 1# of meat per meal. I know that this is an expensive way to eat, but that's what he likes so I do it. He grew up on a cattle farm, so he is used to eating that way. Likewise, he does not like alot of beans and rice, so this hampers my quest for inexpensive meals. We eat alot of meat and potato meals as you will see. No we are not over-weight, no heart problems, dh does have slightly elevated cholesterol (so does his entire family - I wonder why!) and we do not go to the gym to burn off all those calories. We just work hard on the farm, in the garden, chop wood and chase our baby girl around the yard!
Hopefully I can help someone cook inexpensive meat and tater meals!