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While doing a little more research on meal planning during the wee hours this morning.. thanks to being pregnant... I came across a few more helpful links that I wanted to add to yesterday's post.

Stephanie over at KeeperoftheHome has totally inspired me! Here are some posts she has done:

Favorite Recipe Lists

21 Meals

Creating a Homemaking Binder

I spent many hours today pulling together our "21 Meals," a month's worth of menus, and I'm almost completed with our grocery lists for the month. I have one list for meat that I will buy at the beginning of the month (and also grains), and then four weekly grocery lists that will be for the veggies and fruit corresponding to that week's menu. I am so excited to see how the month of August works for us. As I mentioned yesterday, we are paid at the beginning of every month, so I believe this system will work beautifully for us!

I have kept my menu planning simple since I'm pregnant and our life is about to get busy as the school semester starts back up. (My husband is in seminary and I am actually hoping to take a class as well this fall.) In order to cut costs, I have one night a week set aside as breakfast foods (eggs, pancakes, etc...), one night a week as soups (mainly vegetarian), and one night as "fun foods" like homemade pizza, spaghetti, burgers, etc... This will allow us to have healthy homemade "comfort foods" as well as keep the budget smaller.

My husband offered to laminate my monthly meal plan for our fridge. It will be perfect because I can use a dry erase marker on it if I need to make any changes or keep track of where I am. Yay!

Enjoy working on your own menu planning!

So, let me be honest... I've struggled more with food and food prep since being pregnant than ever before in my life! As of January (right before we got pregnant), our family changed to receiving paychecks once a month verses every two weeks. These two things coupled together, have proven to increase my struggle and fight to fix real food on a cheap budget for my family. Also, with the increased need for me to eat more consistently due to being pregnant (high in protein) and both my husband's desire and mine to have healthy, yet yummy snacks around the house to munch on, I've been at a loss as to how to meet these needs and desires.

Wanting to garden this year but are not sure how to begin? That's us! We're hoping to start a little garden this spring but haven't been sure where to start. So... I came across this blog today and thought I'd share the link for other "beginning gardeners"! I hope this blog post and the links offered below it will be helpful for you (and us!).

Also, the Body Ecology Diet website gives a great step-by-step guideline to making coconut kefir and coconut cheese.

Step-by-Step Pictures

I made my first batch of cultured veggies, coconut kefir, and coconut "cheese" last night. It took me about 3 hours to complete, not including the dishes!

I used the Marinara-Style Cultured Veggie recipe. I also consulted glued myself to this article with step-by-step instructions and pictures. My jars turned out beautifully, just like the recipe. It's really not that hard, just a little time consuming! Now they just have to sit for 4-7 days to finish culturing.

Next came the Coconut kefir. I enlisted the help of my strong husband to crack these things!

First he bored three holes into the tops of the young coconuts for us to drain the coconut water out of. Each coconut contains about 1 1/2 cups of sweet water. It's really quite yummy. After collecting the water, I heated it slightly, then added the Body Ecology Kefir Starter. In about 4 days we will have a great tasting Coconut Kefir to drink. It is highly nutritional for our bodies, especially for those of us who have a dairy allergy and cannot drink kefir made from cow's milk.

Lastly, this was the exciting part... cracking the coconuts open to get the meat out. Thankfully, Kyle is a very patient man and proceeded to spend a while cracking open the coconuts with a screwdriver and hammer.





Kyle cracking a coconut open from Michelle Roland on Vimeo.


***Note: Today is day 7 and I opened my veggies and they are great! Definitely a very strong onion and garlic taste, but mixed with a salad or other veggies they will make for a great, healthy addition to our meals. My Coconut Kefir however, did not turn out so good when I opened it on day 4. I think I let it sit out too long and it turned almost into a coconut vinegar. SO... next time, I'm doing only 2 days!***