We are now heading into our ninth week of sheltering-in-place and my third week of meals from my last grocery shopping trip.

A few things have evolved through these weeks at home (just related to food):

• I am no longer wanting to bake constantly (thank goodness!)
• The urge to go to the grocery store has lessened
• We are getting really good at putting meals together from strange ingredients
• We do not waste a crumb

All of these are positive in my opinion. We have been given so much and we are expected to be good stewards of it so we are doing our best around here.

That being said, this week’s meals were pretty experimental. Some turned out well, some just ok, but all have potential and will likely end up here on the website eventually. Let’s recap the plan for this week and what we really ended up eating:

Monday: Sausage Gravy and Biscuits

• This is indeed what we ate. The gravy was delicious and felt very decadent – probably because it is.
• The biscuits are a new version I’ve been working on and I think they keep getting worse instead of better. They look better, but the texture is off. The recipe I linked above is one that has been here for a while and is indeed a goodie.
• Fresh broccoli just steamed and then sautéed until crispy

 

Tuesday: Taco Rice Soup in the Instant Pot

• This was probably the highlight of the week. Everyone in this house loves Mexican night and this soup was super flavorful and delicious.
• It’s a win when everyone gets to customize their own dish and Mexican is perfect for this.
• We used up the leftover tomato soup from the weekend before.
• This was an old recipe I had written up, but never published so it helped on the work front as well.

Wednesday: Pizza Egg Bites

• Another experiment that actually went well.
• Based off of Paleomg.com’s recipe.
• When I make my freezer quiches, it uses 18 eggs and this recipe only used 8 and since I’m quickly running out of eggs, that was a big plus.
• Kids were suspicious, but really liked it.
• A great recipe for paleo beginners because it has all the flavors of pizza, but totally paleo.

 

Thursday: Butternut Squash Risotto

• Another day, another experiment.
• My son didn’t particularly enjoy this, but the rest of us thought it was really good.
• I served it with smoked sausage I found in the freezer and everybody loves that. The flavors actually went really well together so I would serve it this way again.

 

Friday: Lemon Chicken Picatta

• This is a basic recipe that felt really special.
• It was quick and easy to put together.
• My package of chicken tenders was pretty small and I knew it would not be enough so I added a box of Bell & Evans gluten free chicken nuggets. The oven was already on to roast the okra, so I quickly microwaved the nuggets for a couple minutes (this brand is made with fresh chicken so they are raw), then popped them in the oven to finish baking then added them to the other chicken and sauce.
• I made it extra saucey to serve over gluten free pasta.

Remember how at the beginning of this post I said my desire to bake non-stop had waned a bit? Well, as I sorted through my pictures for the week, I realized that wasn’t really true. Oops! This was all in the name of recipe development for the website though. 🙂

 

These mug cakes are perfect for one (or two if you’re feeling generous) and come together in about three minutes using my Paleo Baking Mix (recipe coming this week).

Because we’re short on eggs, the most logical treat to make is edible cookie dough. Of course! This is basically all the good stuff from a batch of cookies, minus the eggs (or egg replacer) and not baked. Yep, just eat it with a spoon. Because I added toasted walnuts, coconut flakes, and almond butter, this is basically a granola bar, which = health food. Never mind the red and green M&Ms that I found in the cupboard. I was out of my favorite Enjoy Life Chocolate Chips. You know what they say – desperate times and all that. My daughter was suspicious of this and would not even try it. The rest of us enjoyed it. A lot.

Saturday: We had a decent amount of leftovers from the week – lemon chicken piccata and pasta and butternut squash risotto. I had one more link of smoked sausage in the freezer so I cooked that (mostly for myself since I can’t eat leftover chicken). The fruits and vegetables are slim-pickings around here, but my parents brought us some fresh strawberries (hallelujah!), my son (thankfully) brought home some veggies in his dinner from work and we added the spinach from the garden to the leftover risotto (which is mostly vegetables anyway). I also made garlic toast from some of my new gluten free yeast bread. 

What’s on tap for the coming week

Remember here that I last went to the grocery store over two weeks ago. We have plenty of protein, but things are getting a little sketchy in the produce department. I still have a little spinach coming on in the garden, but everything else is about a month off at least. And we’re having freezing temperatures this weekend so that won’t help anything at all. Nevertheless, I have a plan. If nothing else, at least have a plan! Restaurants are open for take out, but restaurant food is never our first choice, both from a health aspect and budget, but it’s nice to know we have that option if we need it.

Sunday – Mother’s Day: Hamburgers and hotdogs, fresh strawberries, canned green beans and pound cake with whipped cream.

• Burger and dogs (and buns!) are in the freezer
• Fresh strawberries will hopefully come from a stand set up by a local farmer and just around the corner from us
• Pound cake is the second half of the recipe I made for Easter and has been in the freezer. If you ever need a dessert to feed a crowd and don’t want questions about it being gluten free, this is your cake. It makes a big cake and tastes just like regular pound cake, maybe better.
• Whipped cream because I had to buy a quart of cream last time because that’s all they had at the store. I put cream in my husband’s quiches so this is a staple on my grocery list. This time, it just so happens that we’re out of eggs (sorry honey), but have cream left so whipped cream it is (yay! for the rest of us).

Monday: Grilled cod, Cole slaw and AIP tortillas

• Cod is frozen and from my last Costco haul
• Cole slaw is thanks to a half a head of cabbage I found in the bottom of the crisper drawer. It has some mold on the outside, but I will just cut that off. It will be fine.
• AIP tortillas – just takes some basic paleo flours and lard, which I have plenty of because nobody else wants it and so it was easy to come by during my last shopping trip. I’ll double the recipe so we have leftovers for the kids to make quesadillas or just snack on. They’re really tasty. If you haven’t made these yet, I highly suggest you try them.

Tuesday: Chicken fingers, roasted sweet potatoes, broccoli

• Chicken tenders from last Costco trip
• Sweet potatoes from last Whole Foods trip. I put these in the fridge so they would for sure last a few weeks
• Broccoli – score! Two bags of frozen broccoli buried in the back of my freezer!!!

Wednesday: Pancakes, Bacon and Fruit

• This might be a wish and a prayer meal. I do have bacon in the freezer, but I am desperately low on eggs. And fruit.
• Aldi has shopping hours for people considered high risk on Tuesdays and Thursdays so I am tentatively planning to go Tuesday as soon as they open to restock my produce and hopefully get some eggs. They’ve been limiting eggs so I hope to get two dozen.
• If I can’t get eggs to make pancakes, I will see if I can make do with a flax egg substitute since I do have plenty of flax meal.
• Fruit will be frozen berries (I’ve been saving two bags because they make my favorite pie) unless I do get to Aldi and stock up on fresh fruit. Hey, as I write this, I just had a genius idea! I can just use those berries to make my berry pie! The crust can be the pancakes, the filling is of course the fruit and we’ll have bacon on the side. Wouldn’t my family love it if I served pie and bacon for dinner!!! Who wouldn’t love that!? The great thing about this pie (other than that it is delicious) is that it contains very little added maple syrup. And it’s jam-packed with antioxidants because of all those berries. It’s basically health food, just like the edible cookie dough.
• This meal is subject to change to something else entirely!

Thursday: Tuna Noodle Casserole

• May be the real deal recipe with squash (if I get some) or may include gluten free pasta since I have about a half a box of that left in the pantry.
• Unless I go to the store, the only vegetable I will have left by this night is a head of cauliflower which I will roast.

Friday: Pizza

• I have frozen Costco pizza, a pizza crust mix and if I have eggs, I could make Crazy Crust Pizza. So we have lots of pizza options.
• I should have some sort of cheese left (mozzarella or provolone, I believe) and I have a package of Applegate pepperoni in the pantry. I didn’t know they sold this shelf-stable kind, but I snatched it up a while ago and I just found it in the cupboard.
• Last bag of frozen broccoli! I actually also have a bag of frozen spinach which has been in my freezer for a LONG time. Years, I believe. If we have to eat that, I’m not sure what I’ll do with it. Smoothie probably. It might be a spinach and water smoothie. Hey, they had pie and bacon for dinner the night before, so no one is allowed to complain.

It’s getting interesting this week. If not for my desperate need for eggs (my husband really needs them for breakfast every day) then I would absolutely not go to the grocery store for another week. For one, I don’t want to expose myself and therefore my entire family, to this virus. And secondly, I am kind of loving the challenge of “making do.” Hmmm…not sure how this will shake out, but I will definitely let you know.

I hope you make it a great week. I hope all of you mothers, grandmothers, aunts, sisters, friends…had a wonderful Mother’s Day. Whether you are an actual biological mother to someone or not, there is some child for whom you play an important role and I thank you for it! You are doing a good job. None of us are perfect and we all need help to continually improve, but if you are loving someone, giving of yourself in some way, then you are being a good mother and I thank you and I honor you!