foooodie friday!

I used to be so good at posting meal ideas and recipes that we had used every Friday and then all of a sudden I just got really, really bad at it. However, with the local farmer's market up and running again and with us having more of a desire then ever to eat more local/organic, real food... I'm picking it back up. Or, going to try to... no idea what the next couple months are going to look like for us! But here is the run down on some of the food we had this week. 

We got home from vacation Friday afternoon and instead of going to the grocery store we decided to wait and go to the farmer's market Saturday and hopefully get almost all of our ingredients from there. We bought whole wheat bread, a pound of ground beef, a pound of bacon, 2 quarts of strawberries (it IS strawberry season, after all), red and white potatoes, onion, garlic, corn, lettuce, asparagus, green beans, peaches, parsnips, tomatoes, and pasta. 

We decided it will be easier to just load up on produce at the farmer's market depending on what's in season/what looks best to us when we're walking around, and THEN do our meal planning once we get home. Then we make a trip to the grocery to get things we weren't able to at the farmer's market - milk, eggs, yogurt, bananas, etc. 

We did buy non-homogenized milk from Whole Foods this past week (and we plan to get it from the farmer's market this week) but oh. my. word. There is a HUGE difference in taste - it is so much better! It's pricier, but again, we just truly believe the cost is worth it in benefits. And with as much milk as our son drinks - we want to be sure it's as healthy as possible! And we actually got it for free because the cashier had tried it and wasn't a fan so he said he'd give it to us for free to be sure we actually liked it. Neat!

So, first up... homemade granola! This stuff is so yummy. It was super easy to make and I honestly don't see myself buying granola ever again. It's a WONDERFUL replacement to box cereals. Caedmon is not a fan, but I'm hoping if we just keep offering it, he'll change his tune. :) I added raisins to ours and used pecans instead of cashews and only sunflower seeds instead of sunflower and pumpkin seeds. 

On the stove in the photo below is honey and butter... how could this not be a good thing? :) It was so nice to have granola to munch on this week whenever we wanted a snack. My favorite way to eat it is as cereal topped with strawberries. Yum!

For breakfast we had granola, yogurt, waffles, or scrambled eggs. This is a pretty typical breakfast spread for each of our weeks. I usually will make one or two batches of waffles for the week - each batch makes enough for two meals for our family... and they're really easy. I then refrigerate/freeze the leftovers and we throw them in the toaster over on mornings when we're just not feeling cereal. It's sort of my own recipe - if you'd like to try it let me know! :) This week we topped them with local honey, bananas, pecans, and shredded coconut. Mmmm... (P.S. local honey is oh so much better than the stuff from the store - plus it's supposed to have some benefits if you suffer from allergies, like my poor hubby... so I definitely recommend getting you some!)

My favorite dinners this week were...

Baked chicken, zucchini and yellow squash with garlic, onion, and cherry tomatoes and asparagus. (Sorry, no photo!) This was great... however we were both so hungry about an hour later. So we went out for frozen yogurt - and I still had a bowl of granola cereal before bed! Our bodies definitely aren't used to dinners without carbs!

Hamburgers with homemade fries, parsnips and corn. Michael may have been hell-bent on buying parsnips and I obliged and tried to cook them - but I can honestly say I have zero desire to try my hand at cooking these things again! They're a lot like carrots but you need to core them - or chew around the core and... yea, I'm just not a fan! Props to you if you are! But everything else was great! We put our local garlic and onion in the meat and topped them with our local lettuce and tomatoes... We also used our whole wheat bread from the farmer's market - because I forgot to buy buns. I wouldn't recommend this - use regular buns if you have 'em. 

Pasta (from Lexington Pasta... this stuff is on our menu each week, so yummy!) with green beans and almonds. Again, I was still a little hungry after this meal (but Michael wasn't so I blame the baby) so next week I'll plan to have bread and maybe another veggie with this meal. 

Veggie dinner - tried to finish off all the veggies leftover from the farmers market - zucchini and yellow squash with onion, garlic, and cherry tomatoes, corn, mashed potatoes. The hubs did this meal all on his own and I loved it. Veggie plate dinners are an absolute favorite of mine!

Lunches always look a little funny around here. I typically graze throughout the afternoon and Caedmon doesn't eat much at meal times so I let him graze with me. Throughout the afternoon this week some of the things we ate were - whatever leftovers from dinner we had in the fridge, tomato and tomato sandwiches (whole wheat bread topped with a bit of mayo and a slice of tomato), peach, apple, strawberry smoothies, mango, graham crackers, pita chips and hummus, corn chips with cheese, pickles. Random, but it's what's working at the moment.

We offer Caedmon whatever we eat at dinner. I'll sometimes put applesauce or yogurt on his plate but he rarely touches it. At the beginning of the week he had a virus and so I was blaming his lack of appetite on that... but his appetite is still lacking. He'll always eat corn and pasta, and he did eat a bite of hamburger and our potato fries as far as dinners went. But he doesn't do great with meal times, honestly. I just tell myself that all I can do is offer it - if he's hungry he'll eat. I'm not worried about his weight or anything and it's really impossible to force-feed a toddler so again, it's just how things are working at the moment. Hopefully his appetite will pick up next week. Unfortunately I have no tips for getting a toddler to eat! All I can say is try not to stress about it - continually offer healthy choices and when they're hungry - they will eat. :)

One neat thing about shopping local and having produce that you paid a little bit more for - it makes you REALLY want to be sure you eat it all. We ate so many veggies this week and I'm just really proud of our food choices. The farmer's market has become sort of an event on Saturday mornings... we almost always eat a scone while walking around and it is just so fun supporting local farmers and just getting to talk to them. Caedmon loves it, too :) At one vendor Michael and I were sampling cheese and he started saying "bite. bite. BITE!" just louder and louder until he got a sample of his very own. So many of the farmers/vendors say "Glad you're starting him off right!" And i just love that... because we really are trying to instill the values of good eating habits as well as supporting our local farmers. I'll touch more on budget later on in the week... this post is long enough! :)


Whew! That was a lot about food. Hopefully not too overwhelming (or in some cases probably underwhelming, ha!) But I'm really enjoying getting back into my groove in the kitchen.