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Happy Monday!
Last week I shared my excitement of our new pantry being installed. I’m happy to report it’s *almost* completed! All of the shelves are in and we’ve started organizing it. The door still needs to be added and the trim done. It’s pretty exciting to have a functioning pantry. And I love that I can now find what I’m looking for.
Here are a couple of photos taken, by my helpful son, while the construction was in process. The pantry is part of our arctic/mud room addition which is 10 feet wide by 12 feet long. We carved out a space of just under 5 feet wide and 8 feet long. Our chest freezer is on the short wall nearest house (see photo on the left). We had a couple of deep, sturdy shelves added above this. I’ll use these for my canning and dehydrating supplies. You can just catch a glimpse of the above-the-door shelf in this photo. We’ll keep seldom used items up there like the meat grinder, food processor, and other miscellaneous things.
The photo on the right shows the rest of the shelving. We had a space left at the bottom for 5 gallon buckets since we buy many things in bulk and store in these buckets. The wider shelves on the bottom are perfect for gallon jars. This pantry, as part of our mud room, isn’t heated. It is well insulated but we’ll still expect it to get quite chilly out there in the winter so will use it for dry good storage only. Cans and jars will be kept in the house. The nice thing is this room doubles as a walk in cooler. 😉
Last week’s menu worked out quite well. I forgot to get my lentils going for Tuesday so we had Wednesday BIG Salad (with venison as our protein) on Tuesday and Lentil Soup Wednesday. I made such a large pot we had soup Thursday night also. Friday night we had dinner with friends, Saturday night Joe was hungry for tacos. You’ll see a couple of last week’s dinners this week.
We’re also starting to plan food for our summer backpacking trips. My plan is to make a big pot of something, like chili or lentil soup, have it for dinner and then dehydrate the rest for our trips. Backpacking Chef and TCS Dehydrating eBook are excellent resources for healthy meals you can prepare at home and take into the woods.
Since the first of the year Joe and I have been using the Trim Healthy Mama plan. Both of us needed to stop our middle aged spread and I need a little help with balancing my hormones. THM is known to help for both. While this is working quite well for us, I’m not sure how much we’ll plan to stay on plan for our hiking meals. When dehydrating we want meals that are low in fat (fat become rancid when dehydrating) but on the trail fat and carbs help with energy. For now, I’ll dehydrate as appropriate and then not worry too much about mixing our fats and carbs on the trail. That said, on this menu, we’re following Trim Healthy Mama and you’ll see letters after the meals. These are references to Trim Healthy Mama meals.
Our schedule; Monday through Friday my husband works a split shift. He works several hours early morning then comes home for breakfast about 8:45. He leaves again around 11 am and returns at the end of his day around 5:30. We have breakfast together, our son and I eat a light lunch early afternoon, and we all enjoy dinner together. Joe takes snack foods for lunch such as boiled eggs, cheese, cooked meats.
Note: THM separates fuels so we don’t eat carbs (E meals) with fats (S meals). Our son doesn’t need to lose weight or balance his hormones. While he eats the same meals as we do his become Crossover (XO) meals by adding additional healthy fats to E meals and helpful carbs to S meals.
Monday
Breakfast: Eggs with greens and cheese (S)
Lunch: Sriracha Egg Salad over lettuce (S)
Dinner: Layered Crockpot Balsamic Chicken (E)
Tuesday
Breakfast: Super Prepared Purist Grains — Steel Cut Oats (E) from Trim Healthy Mama Cookbook Good Morning Grains with 0% yogurt and a few apple slices
Lunch: Just Like Campbell’s Tomato Soup with chicken (S) from Trim Healthy Mama Cookbook Quick Single Soups
Dinner: BIG Salad (S)
Wednesday
Breakfast: Super Prepared Purist Grains — Steel Cut Oats (E) from Trim Healthy Mama Cookbook Good Morning Grains with 0% yogurt and a few apple slices
Lunch: Waldorf Cottage Cheese Salad (E) from Trim Healthy Mama Cookbook Quick Single Salads
Dinner: Venison and Bean Chili (E)
Thursday
Breakfast: venison steak and eggs (S)
Lunch: Big Salad with tuna (E)
Dinner: Slow Cooker Whole Chicken, side salad (S)
Friday
Breakfast: Yogurt with frozen berries (S)
Lunch: Whatever happens to be hanging out in the fridge
Dinner: Meatza Pizza (S)
Saturday
Breakfast: Super Prepared Purist Grains — Steel Cut Oats (E) from Trim Healthy Mama Cookbook Good Morning Grains with 0% yogurt and sauteed apples
Lunch: Sriracha Egg Salad over lettuce (S)
Dinner: Slow cooker venison roast with vegetables (E)
Sunday
Brunch: Egg white omelet with sourdough English muffin (E)
Dinner: Meatball Minestrone (E)
What’s on your menu?
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Millie Copper (Homespun Oasis) is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking amazon.com.
