Want to help a newbie meal plan?

[Daisie125]

I know the whys, but not the how-tos. (So basically I need directions and ideas but don't need convincing We are usually about 80% whole foods, but are looking to get more towards the TF end of things )

DH and I just grocery shopped with the goal of shopping the perimeter of the store, and did quite well... We had no list, just bought good deals. I'm going to try and give a good idea of what we have on hand and hope you can all give us some ideas

I know some stuff is not WF/TF, but I'm not one to throw out food, so it does have to be used up eventually.

(I probably have other stuff too, just going off the top of my head here...)

6lb ground beef
3lb ground turkey
1lb bacon
5-6lb whole chicken
4-5lb pork loin
7lb lamb roast

Nearly every type of dried bean
WW flour
Vital wheat gluten
yeast
Brown rice
White sushi rice
Rolled oats
Steel cut oats

Butter
sour cream
yogurt
milk (not raw)
eggs
Cold pressed olive oil
coconut oil
vinegar (white, rice & balsamic)

15lb potatoes
6 sweet potatoes
a bunch of collard greens
lots of onions
celery
carrots
2 heads cabbage
2 heads broccoli
1 spaghetti squash
1.5 rutabaga
A 'zesty' sprout mix
mung beans

Lots of canned tomatoes
honey
maple syrup
raisins
most common dried spices/herbs
salt & pepper

[WuWei]

Check out KerryAnn's menu mailer for TF recipes and ideas.

Pat

[Daisie125]

Yeah, I've looked there, and all over the forum, and in every link I could find... I'm 11 days post partum and just keep getting overwhelmed and was kind of hoping someone would take pity on me and do some hand holding

[motherbirth]

Originally Posted by Daisie125

I know the whys, but not the how-tos. (So basically I need directions and ideas but don't need convincing We are usually about 80% whole foods, but are looking to get more towards the TF end of things )

DH and I just grocery shopped with the goal of shopping the perimeter of the store, and did quite well... We had no list, just bought good deals. I'm going to try and give a good idea of what we have on hand and hope you can all give us some ideas :-*

6lb ground beef
3lb ground turkey
1lb bacon
5-6lb whole chicken
4-5lb pork loin
7lb lamb

Nearly every type of dried bean
WW flour
Rolled oats

Butter
sour cream
yogurt
milk (not raw)
Cold pressed olive oil
coconut oil
vinegar (white, rice & balsamic)

Do you have any veggies? What do you have for spices? What cut of lamb do you have?

Tomorrow we are having a roasted chicken with roasted root vegetables (turnip, sweet potato, carrot). Then we will use the carcass and gizzards to make stock. You could do that, and then make a bean soup in the stock, maybe black beans, carrots, onions, spices. Peppers if you have them.

With 1# of the ground beef, you could make some kind of stroganoff. Brown ground beef and onions, add salt and pepper, stir in sour cream and just heat. Serve with rice, noodles, or potatoes if you have any of those.

Another thing you could do is to make a Mexican beef and bean thing. Maybe you can cook a bunch of black beans so you have some for soup and for the Mexican dish. You could make tortillas with the WW flour and then make burritos.

[Daisie125]

Originally Posted by motherbirth

Do you have any veggies? What do you have for spices? What cut of lamb do you have?

Sorry, that part of my list got cut off... I edited! Off to read the rest of your post (I'll have to check the lamb)

[Magelet]

Possibilities:
Soak and cook a pot of navy beans.
Chili: Sauté onions in buter or oilive oil or coconut oil. Brown 1-2 lb ground beef depending on size of family. Add some canned tomatos, some beans, some garlic, cumin, chili powder, paprika, optional cayenne, and some salt. You could also add some sweet potatoes. Cook until nicely flavored throughout, and potatoes cooked. Depending on the size of your family and your appetites this will likely be at least 1 meal + lunch, or more.
Cook bacon, reserve the fat. Use a little bit to sauté up some onions with a little salt, when they are soft, add and sauté collard greens with salt to taste, with bacon. Use the rest for refried beans, (mash some navy beans, fry in the bacon fat, stiring until they are the texture of refried beans (they will absorb most of the fat, with some salt). If you need more fat, butter, olive oil, or coconut oil will work, depending on what you like the taste of.
For breakfast soak 2-3 c. of oats in the same amount of water, and a spoonful of yogurt. The first day take out about ½- ¾ of a c. for two people, add rasins and water, cook up, serve with honey, milk and butter. The second or third day, cook the rest of oatmeal (after a 2-3 day soak, it has a nice slight tangy sour flavor that I love. If you don’t like that, cook it all up the first day when it won’t have that). To reheat cooked oatmeal, add a little more water, and stir constantly for a few minutes over med-low heat. Steel cut oats do this slightly better, but rolled oats should be fine.

Side dish: roasted broccoli. Mix olive oil and a little acid a touch of white or rice maybe? Lemon juice is good, but you don’t have it atm. Toss broccoli in this. And then toss some salt on it. (all of broccoli should be well coated and colored). Roast at oh 350-400 until done and delicious.
Day 1: Roast chicken with onions in the same pot (these melt into the gravy), and potatos, sweet potatos and carrots in another pan. Make gravy. Devour a portion. Pull all the meat off, and make stock with the carcass. Freeze some stock to use in your next batch of gravy and other uses.
Lunch: chicken sandwiches, or leftovers as is heated up (or cold. I love cold gravy lol)
Another day: simple chicken soup. Saute collard greens and onions in chicken fat and a little salt. Heat up some stock, add some leftover chicken, and salt it slowly until it tastes good (this might be a LOT of salt). Cut up a sweet potato or reg potato til small, and cook in the soup. Add the greens and onions and spices if you like.
Day three:
Baked sweet potatos, leftover chicken and veggies heated with gravy. Bake the potatoes like you would regular baked potatoes, eat with lots of butter and salt.


As you can tell, we love sweet potatos.

Also, when I menu plan, I wouldn't put all of those things on a single week, likely. we try to stretch a chicken for a whole week for example, (or close to, with a few egg or cheese as protein meals), for our budget.

I've gotta run but I'll talk more about how I menu plan later, ok?