Help with food ideas for pregnancy!

[Julia R]

I am 26 wks and completely exhausted. I started taking floradix iron and am taking prenatals. I am not really dealing with morning sickness anymore as long as I can keep my blood sugar level. I do better when I eat protein throughout the day. I am not interested in food until I am completely famished. I don't have the energy to spend long in the kitchen. I used to cook everything from scratch and put a lot of thought into the family's nutrition. Now, I can't think. Especially when I get hungry and tired, my brain is not working. I think if I could eat better, I'd feel better and get out of this rut.

I need easy, healthy meal suggestions. I could stare into the fridge or cupboards forever and can't figure out what to eat. Nothing sounds good. I know I should be eating whole grains, leafy greens, etc... pg power foods. But, when I read those things, I imagine crunching on a handful of wheatberries and grazing on leaves like an animal. I can't figure out ways to prepare them! We've been eating natural pb on whole wheat bread every day for months. I need suggestions to get more of those pg power foods in our diet.

Anyone know of good websites, cookbooks, or other threads with easy, healthy recipes? Or whole foods meal planning ideas for pregnant ladies? We are dairy free due to casein and whey allergies, but not vegan. We do eat meats, eggs, etc... Most cookbooks seem to be conventional foods full of white starches, bad fats, and processed foods. Others I have are completely vegan and I spend all day making a single dish because I first have to make all the ingredients.

I am hoping someone here has some suggestions for me.
TIA

[ContentMom]

A website that I really love to search recipes at is Recipezaar. You can search by ingredient, type of cooking, etc. I have found some great recipes there. :

P.S. It's good to hear that your morning sickness is over; that is so miserable. I hope your energy returns soon!

[wife&mommy]

I know it's hard, I recently went through the same thing. You can check my blog for ideas if you think that would help, but it's not dairy free.

Green smoothies are a good way to get the dark leafy greens in w/o eating them. You can just sip on them.

[Julia R]

Thanks for the blog and suggestions. I saw your large pan of improvised quiche, which sounds good. My fridge just went out and I have 3 doz. farm eggs that I need to get out of my ice chest to make room. I also have a bunch of spinach that needs used up.

I have some beans in the crockpot and I plan to add any other veggies that I need to get used up. I do have another freezer, so I can freeze them if I get them cooked.

I just found this also-

Natural mom's Recipes

[tolovemercy]

Aww...cooking is so tough when you're pregnant.

When I was going through this a few months back, I had alot of luck with planned leftovers--like making an big egg casserole that DS and I could eat for breakfast every morning without any more work than slicing it out of the pan and putting it in the microwave. Plus, egg casseroles are a great way to get some veggies in--peppers, onions, spinach, tomatoes, potatoes.

Soups were also really good--I could make a big batch and eat it for several days. I also would cook up a few chicken breasts (enough for 3 days or so), so that I always had some protein to throw on a salad (bagged, or course ), or into a vegetable soup, etc, because I really felt a ton better if I got enough protein in (like, 100-120grams/day).

Anyway, good luck, Mama!

[Norasmomma]

One thing I did was cook a huge pack of chicken breasts every week or so, and then popped them into a big freezer bag. I used them to make wraps, stirfry, basically anything that needed chicken. I just put spices on them and put them in the oven for 30 min at 350. That was a biggie for me.

I'm trying to think what I did....I was only really fatigued in the beginning and we ate frozen pizza for 3 months because for whatever reason it was the only thing that sounded good. After my first tri I went crazy cooking.

[guestmama9904]

going through the same thing here. my midwives said i should aim for 100g of protein per day and i estimate my intake to be half of that, and yikes, i am so tired. taking floradix too but my hemoglobin level is normal so i dont think thats the problem. what to eat? i looked at the whole foods website and found some good stuff under the "kid friendly fare". i made sloppy joes from scratch last night and then messed it up by adding WAY to much cayenne pepper. i dont know what to eat either...

[Mommy2anangel]

Since it's summer, can you grill out some? I'm planning on grilling out for dinner tonight.

I may not be much help since I've been eating out at Qdoba's alot since becoming pregnant.

[foogoomomma]

just wanted to add some encouragement. I was anemic too and just finished my first bottle of floradix and am still taking my prenatals and other vitamins too. I can't believe the energy difference. I'm close to the end so of course a nap does wonders, but once all those vitamins started kicking in as well as me upping my protein intake.. wow what a difference. Hang in there! My midwife says I have to eat 2 eggs a day and I try to eat dark greens anyway I can. Hardboiled eggs in salad have helped a lot too since I am more of a salad eater than anything else. DH grills steak for me too or I'll cook up a little breakfast steak. A little goes a long way. Oh and a really easy meal is grilled/baked/skillet cooked salmon you only need a little bit. Salmon patties are yummy too. I mix eggs, canned salmon and seasoned breadcrumbs or flour and fry them up for a little while.. sort of similar to egg foo young (no idea how to spell that lol)

[ElsieLC]

I know just how you feel (lousy!). I had problems with iron and food interests. I ate a lot of hardboiled eggs, and those roasted chickens you can buy at the grocery store. I also made grazing food that I could dip into in the middle of the night, like chicken and rice salad. We kept a lot of salami on hand so I could make salami/rice cheese/cracker sandwiches to eat in bed at 2 am. Try keeping mixed nuts on hand for snack times.

It's worth figuring out how to do this, because if you're breastfeeding you'll be just as famished once the baby is here--plus it'll be hard to figure out how to cook while caring for a baby (it was hard for me, anyway). I ate a lot of the same things after the baby arrived as before.