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A Kitchen Experiment: Meal Planning Again

Gwen — Sun, 29 May 2011 05:36:44 +0000

I used to participate in Menu Plan Mondays at Organizing Junkie a lot, now not so much. I have found that our family has been in a bit of a rut this winter/spring and it is not helping our eating habits at all. I used to meal plan with a mind to what we already had in the house and sometimes adding things as I needed. This time we had let our groceries get so low that I planned a week and a half of meals, including breakfasts and lunches for the boys and I.

I hope this planning will get me back into eating more fruits and vegetables and healthier in general. I want to be making one supper instead of finding something the boys will eat and then something Anthony and I will eat after the boys are in bed. I know that our tempers will be better and I think our waistlines will also improve. It is much easier to have control of how much you eat when you don’t forget to eat until you are starving.

If some of you want to follow my plans, go right ahead. Let me know how it goes. Since I am trying some new recipes out on the boys (hidden cauliflower and the like) I will post some pictures and a “Did they eat it?” post later this week.

THE PLAN: Using both “Jamie’s Food Revolution” cookbook by Jamie Oliver and “More Time Moms Family Meals” plan breakfasts, lunches and dinners for the family.

Tonight 28 May

Chicken Fajitas pg. 38 Food Revolution (FR from here on out) I plan to adapt the recipe a little as I already have salsa and forgot to get limes. I also plan to not add too much hot spice because I want my boys to eat the wraps.

Sunday 29 May

Breakfast: Blueberry Sundae: in a small bowl layer vanilla yogurt, cereal and blueberries.

Lunch: Focaccia, celery sticks, carrot sticks and dip.

Supper: Chicken and beef kabobs with veggies, (mushrooms, pearl onions and peppers) and Basmati rice.

Monday 30 May

Breakfast: Berry Oatmeal: pg 63 More Time Moms Family Meals (MTMFM from here on out.) I would add a pinch of salt to the recipe as I find that without salt oatmeal tastes a little like weird bananas.

Lunch: Tomato Soup: pg 133 FR, Garlic Toast

Supper: Macaroni and Cauliflower Bake Pg 49 FR, tossed salad

Tuesday 31 May:

Breakfast: Fruit Smoothies with frozen berries, bananas and yogurt

Lunch: Leftover Tomato soup, humus and pita

Supper: BBQ Asparagus, chicken and boiled new potatoes

Wednesday 1 June:

Breakfast: Cereal with fruit, yogurt

Lunch: Humus, pita, sandwich meat (Easy to take on the field trip.)

Supper: Leftover Macaroni Bake and veggies.

Thursday 2 June

Breakfast: Berry Oatmeal and yogurt.

Lunch: Tuna salad sandwiches, raw veggies and dip.

Supper: Beef stir fry with rice noodles pg 46 MTMFM

Friday 3 June

Breakfast: Fruit Sundaes or Orange Smoothie

Lunch: Sandwiches and veggies and dip.

Supper: Spaghettini and Meat sauce

Saturday 4 June

Breakfast: Cereal, yogurt and fruit.

Free day because we have 2 birthday parties.

Sunday 5 June

Breakfast: Raisin Oatmeal

Lunch: Focaccia, fruit

Supper: Home made chicken strips, Baked French Potatoes pg 224 FR, steamed Broccoli

Monday 6 June

Breakfast: Orange Smoothies, Toast

Lunch: Leftover Chicken and potatoes

Supper: Shepherd’s Pie

© 2011 Left Coast Mama | Permalink | One comment
Related: family, goals, Healthy Choices, Healthy Eating, Menu Plan Monday, organization, Recipes.

Clearing the Way

Gwen — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 06:06:17 +0000

Over the last couple of months Anthony and I have been trying to make more room in our very small house. It has been hardest trying to get rid of things like the bassinet and baby clothes. I go through them and feel sad that it is unlikely that we will have another baby. I know that it isn’t practical for us to have another baby, but giving away the last vestiges of Aidan and Quinlan’s babyhood hurt a bit.

We still have a lot of stuff here and if it doesn’t sell on craigslist soon then we will be giving the clothes away somewhere, maybe a women’s shelter. The toys are another matter entirely. Today I went through all the upstairs toys with the boys and managed to get a rubbermaid tote and a cardboard box full of toys to sell at the Holly Bazaar at Holy Trinity.

Quinlan didn’t really understand what we were doing and he was happily playing with all the toys I put in the tote. I feel a little sad that I am giving away all the tonka smiling cars, but he is more likely to play with his brother’s dinkies than with his own cars.

Aidan on the other hand was very emotional about what we were putting in the tote. Even if he hadn’t played with these toys for well over a year he still didn’t want to let go of them now. I was able to put a few of the trucks that he said he really liked by putting them into a pile of toys that *might* go into the box. I was also able to get rid of a number of dinkies that were a little broken (bent axles and the like) to become traders for geocaches.

All in all it was easier and had fewer tears than I expected. Now I just need to go through the toys downstairs.

Menu Plan Monday

Gwen — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 04:42:46 +0000

I decided that it is time to get back to the meal planning since things are once again becoming really busy with both Anthony’s and mine and the kids’ schedules. Until the middle of December we have swimming Monday and Wednesday mornings, kindergarten in the afternoons Monday to Friday, skating Wednesday after school, and drama classes Sunday morning. That is just Aidan and Quinlan. When you add in work, choir, meetings, church and social engagements there is not a lot of time for making meals with out a real plan.

I need meals that are easy to make, easy to make twice because Anthony and I tend to eat after the boys are in bed. At least our barbeque is back to working for now. I find cooking meat so much easier on the barbeque that I resort to take out much less.

Monday: Leftover Lasanga, garlic bread

Tuesday: Baked Fish (Tilapia or Haddock), Mashed potatoes, Steamed Veggies.

Wednesday: BBq Chicken, Basmati rice, BBq’d veggies.

Thursday: Tacos, salad

Friday: Pancakes (as long as we get a frying pan or a griddle), sausages

Saturday: Roast Beef, Rolls, Roast Potatoes and green beans

Sunday: Open

Now let us see if I can get my act together enough to actually make the meals.

© 2010 Left Coast Mama | Permalink | One comment
Related: Healthy Choices, Healthy Eating, Menu Plan Monday, organization.

Menu Plan Monday

Gwen — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 05:00:57 +0000

We do so much better in this house when we have a meal plan in place so I fully plan to re-institute Menu Plan Monday. I liked how it helps me to get a little bit organized even if i don’t always follow it entirely.

Monday: KD and Soup. Not the best, but I counter this with some bread from Terra Breads which makes everything much more healthy, right?

Tuesday: Spaghetti, bread and raw veggies

Wednesday: Sushi for the kids and me early and Anthony gets whatever he wants while I am at photography class.

Thursday: BBQ chicken and basmati rice with grilled vegetables

Friday: Baked Tilapia, spiced and roasted potatoes, broccoli

Saturday: Slow-cooker meatloaf, baked potatoes and some sort of vegetable.

I really hope meal planning will get me back into better eating habits. I think the 2 and half weeks of birthday cakes along with Easter have overdosed us on sugar.

© 2010 Left Coast Mama | Permalink | No comments
Related: Healthy Choices, Healthy Eating, Menu Plan Monday, organization.

Lists Are Made to Be Crossed

Gwen — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 06:06:44 +0000

On most days I have an idea of the things I need to get done. Sometimes I actually make a list so things can get crossed off and I can feel like I have accomplished something. Today was one of those days, and there were six things on the list.

1. Clean Living room,and Dining room

2. Vacuum

3. Take out recycling/garbage.

4. Put Cooler down in the storage.

5. Bring up some of the Christmas Decorations.

6. Take Family Christmas Pictures.

Luckily we were able to take care of all the list and I feel pretty good. Since we had to move all the furniture we even were able to get under the sofas clean. Anthony was able to take some nice pictures even though it was difficult to get the boys to stay still long enough to get the shots.

Finally a nice one of the four of us.

Mommy I want you to be a sled.

This test shot turned out nicely.

Still cute even though Quinlan isn't looking at the camera.

These guys are way too cute for their own good.

© 2009 Left Coast Mama | Permalink | 2 comments
Related: Aidan, Anthony, Christmas, cute, family, Gwen, Holidays, organization, Pictures, Quinlan.

Lovable Labels: Review

Gwen — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 02:53:26 +0000

I was asked if I wanted to test and review Lovable Labels by Jeanette of Limelite PR. I told her as long as they were happy to have a frank review then I was willing. I was given a Back to School pack of labels and I had them mailed to my in-laws’ place in Nova Scotia so I could test them while we were on vacation there. I figured if they could last while we geocached, go through the dishwasher (several times), go through the washing machine (hot water) and dryer or line and help tag our bags while going through the airport we would be doing a thorough test.

Things I Disliked:

You can only put one name on them. Especially with the bag tags it would be useful to be able to have the name on one side and contact information on the other. It would also be useful in a household of more than one child to be able to split the tags up into two names.
The monochromatic colour schemes. It would be nice to have some other colours or a more mixed pack of colours. I would love to see some green and orange.
More choice of icons and the ability to mix up a few different icons in the set of labels.
The shoe labels have a clear cover that are exactly the same size. It would help make it easier to cover the show labels if they were at least a little bigger.
The ball chain comes apart very easily and I will change it to a key ring so that my 10 month old will not choke on the bag tag.

Aidan with his personal Bag Tag

Things I Liked:

They really stick. All the tags that have been through the washer, dishwasher and dryer over the past two weeks have stayed on.
They came quickly after I ordered them with the correct name and icon.
They are cute and readable.
There are enough labels to make sure that all your child’s belongings are tagged.
My son loves the icon he chose and that he has a lot of his belongings tagged as his own.

Lovable Labels

Would I spend my own money on these labels? I think if I could easily have a mix of two names I would. This year at preschool I am not so worried about Aidan losing too many things, but next year when he starts Kindergarten I will want to label everything. It is so much easier to label and find things in the dreaded “Lost and Found” box than to go through and hope you remember what they were wearing. As a teacher I would be happy if every child labelled their belongings as well. It saves so many disagreements over who actually owns an item. Just make sure that you have both first and last names on your labels because there is likely to be another child with your child’s first name. Well at least if you fell into the trap we did. Although if Aidan keeps his silly name all I need to do is label everything Doctor Beaks. No one else will have that name, right?

If you would like to get your own pack of Back to School Labels I have a discount code for you for the next two weeks. Head over to Lovable Labels and choose the Back to School Mega Pack from the front page. When checking out use the code leftcoastmama to receive a 10% discount off your order. Lovable labels is a Canadian company but they have US distributors as well. The discount code works in both countries.

Since I am in the midst of writing my about pages, including my policies for doing product reviews, I will state the most relevant here. I was not paid to review these products, though I did receive a Back to School Mega Pack of labels with Aidan’s name on them. I was not asked to write a favourable review and I made sure they were not expecting one. If you have any questions or comments about the labels feel free to leave a comment here or email me at leftcoastmama@gmail.com

Organic in Review: Spud!

Gwen — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 02:14:33 +0000

A few weeks ago I agreed to review Spud!, an online organic grocery store started in Vancouver. I have received two deliveries over the last month and there are many positives and a few negatives I have to share. I have to disclose at the beginning that I was given a $60 credit to try them out, and I did spend some of my own money as well.

First up the online ordering system.

A little bit of a learning curve, especially in deciding if you want to make up individual orders or just set some preferences for a harvest (vegetable) box.
Make sure you add things to the cart or you will need to redo parts of your order.
If you are to close to your delivery day some items may not be available.
Once you have set things up you can have a standard delivery, save types of lists (especially nice if you have a predictable eating plan), or check out recipes.

Next the delivery.

Comes in a large Rubbermaid tote.
No excess packaging.
Cool Packs for dairy or frozen items.
Food was fresh, even being outside for a while.
Delivery information. Example: how far each of your items travel coming to your door.
Deliveries are free for orders over a certain threshold depending on your delivery area.

Box of groceries

There are a lot of pros to ordering groceries this way. I liked knowing how far my groceries travelled to get to my door. In fact I could have had most of my groceries travel under 100 Km except for my tea and a couple of other things that didn’t come nearly so far. Knowing this has made me think twice about a few of the things I ordered, and I don’t think I need organic yogurt that has travelled about 3000 km. (I am not so crazy that I am giving up my tea though.) I also enjoy that I didn’t have to go to the grocery store and wade through with my two lovely sons. I didn’t have to endure “but Mommy I wanted you to buy that for me.”

I also have to say that the local organic bakeries have fantastic breads. While they are small (and yes I understand that we don’t need to eat as much as we do,) they are incredibly delicious. Again it is sometimes a little surprising what you get. I wasn’t expecting bread, but more a dessert type loaf when I ordered a raspberry white chocolate loaf. It was really good but different.

I am also a little surprised to know how far and wide Spud! has spread in the west. There is delivery service in the Lower Mainland from Aldergrove to Mount Currie (past Pemberton.) Other Delivery areas include Greater Victoria and part of Vancouver Island and Calgary in Canada, and Seattle, Portland, San Francisco and Los Angeles in the US.

I like how involved Spud! is in the community and how dedicated they are to offsetting their carbon footprint. They make donations all the time to local charities and the 22 cent offset that they charge on each order goes to buying carbon offsets. So far this year they have collected over $18,000 to help reduce our carbon footprint.

I didn’t like the amount of time I spent on the computer trying to figure out what I was buying and not having a good idea about how big things were. I am a very visual person and it is difficult for me to really understand what size a 500 g package of cheese or bunch of beets looks like. A good example of how hard it is for me to judge: I bought a bunch of green onions in my first box and it was about the size I would normally expect. So the second order I asked for two bunches and I received two bunches, but they are twice as big as they were the first time. Yay, except I am the only one in the house that eats green onion.

As convenient as it is to have your groceries delivered, in Vancouver we have a space issue in most housing. This brings up the second con for me. Where do you put the rubbermaid tote when you have finished unpacking your groceries? Sure this time it was an effective way to block the path of the mobile infant trying to get at the fireplace, but it was also a tripping hazard for all the other mobile adults and children. I am sure there is a way around this, but I am guessing it means being home at the time of delivery.

Will I keep up with the delivery of Organic food from Spud!? I am not 100% sure. I like the idea of knowing where my food comes from. I like the idea of feeding my children food that has less chemicals and less hands touching it. If I did keep up with the delivery I would need to become a lot more organized and I think I would have to be a lot more stringent about how far away my food was coming from. Of course if I planned our meals and had a better idea of how much food we actually eat and need to make meals this might become more of a habit for us.

Would I recommend Spud! to others? Yes, if you are someone who is making an effort to eat more local organic food I would really recommend Spud. I would also recommend them if you are someone who wants a reliable local delivery of groceries. If you do decide to try Spud! out I have a code to help you out with your first 4 deliveries. You will save $25 over 4 deliveries using the code CRVAN-FLOGWE. Let me know what you think.

© 2009 Left Coast Mama | Permalink | 2 comments
Related: dinner, Gwen, Healthy Choices, Healthy Eating, organization, Product Reviews.

“I Wish I Was at Blogher” BBQ and Pity Party

Gwen — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 20:15:39 +0000

I joked on twitter, and at a couple of meet ups recently that we should have an “I’m not able to go to blogher for the umpteenth year in a row and I am so jealous pity party.” There actually seemed to be a significant number of people who would love to be at Blogher 09 In Real Life, and we (well I) thought we should have an In Real Life party of our own. That being said we actually are going to have a party of our own while all those lucky people are attending People’s Parties, and Mamapop Sparklecorn and Room 704 parties.

Friday 24th July 2009 starting around 3 pm and going till we stop, we are having a family friendly barbeque at Spanish Banks West. Bring your kids, your husbands, your partners and we will have a great time. Since we are doing this on our own (no sponsors yet) we will need to bring our own barbeques, food and drinks. I will stake out an area and try to have some bright balloons to mark out where we will set up.

Since we will be at the beach bring the sand toys, water toys and your bathing suit. Let’s have fun and make the most of the fabulous city we live in.

If you think you may be able to make it please leave a comment here or email me at leftcoastmama@gmail.com.

If you would like to Sponsor this event email me, Gwen Floyd, at leftcoastmama@gmail.com.

Can’t wait to see everyone!

Menu Planning After Baby

Gwen — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 19:36:55 +0000

I know this is a shocker, Gwen is planning a menu for this week. I promised Anthony that we would not go out for dinner this week and maybe next, so we plan. I tried a crock pit chili last week and I liked it so much I am planning to make it again this week so I can have some great lunches. I just bought one of the Club House slow cooker packages and modified the recipe. I will give you the changes to the recipe at the end of the post. Since I liked it so much, I am planning a Club House week.

Monday: Crock Pot Chili for me (CH Seasoning), Chicken noodle Soup for Aidan, and whatever Anthony wants.

Tuesday: Slow Cooker Meatloaf, baked potatoes, broccoli

Wednesday: Italian Herb Chicken with mushrooms and Tomato Sauce with Spaghetti (CH Seasoning)

Thursday: Pot Roast with potatoes, carrots and turnip (CH Seasoning)

Friday: Leftovers

Saturday: Spicy Chicken Kabobs with veggies and Basmati rice.

Sunday: Sweet and Sour Meatballs

Crock Pot Chili:

Ingredients:

2lbs Ground Beef (or chicken, I used extra lean ground beef. I also only used 1.5 lbs)

1 can of diced tomatoes with juice

1 can Romano beans (drained)

1 can navy beans (drained)

1 can baked bean with molasses

1 package Club House Chili Seasoning.

Brown meat and drain fat. Mix all ingredients in your slow cooker and cook on low for 8 hrs or 4 on high. You can add vegetables and other types of beans. I plan to add chick peas. If you would like a thicker chili add some tomato sauce and paste.

You can find more menu plans at Organizing Junkie. Have fun with Menu Plan Monday!

© 2009 Left Coast Mama | Permalink | One comment
Related: Gwen, Healthy Choices, Healthy Eating, Menu Plan Monday, organization.

Menu Plan Monday

Gwen — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 04:00:17 +0000

What to do? What to do? I have no idea what on earth to put on this weeks menu. It should be easy enough, pick a meat, a vegetable and a starch, but I am running out of steam. All I want is baked goods that I can’t have at the moment. I am watching the carbs and sugars, and I have planned out how much and what types of food I can have during the day. You would think this would be easier. Damn gestational diabetes.

Does anyone have a recipe for a good low sugar cheese cake? I can have the cheese and the fat but not the sugar.

Ok onto the menu plan:

Monday: Shepherds Pie, sugar free Jello for desert

Tuesday: Chicken fingers, potatoes, salad

Wednesday: Meat Loaf (slow cooker recipe)

Thursday: Baked Tailipia in garlic and spicy butter

Friday: Lasagne

Saturday: Sweet and Sour Meatballs

Sunday: open

© 2008 Left Coast Mama | Permalink | 3 comments
Related: 2nd Pregnancy, Gwen, Healthy Choices, Healthy Eating, Menu Plan Monday, organization.