Eating to stay healthy this Fall/Winter – menu ideas

We’re wanting to make sure the bulk of our food this fall and winter is wholesome real food so that we are in tip top shape to avoid illness. Here some ideas, since sometimes thinking of what to cook is more work than actually cooking it.

Breakfast:

As always, eggs and whole grain (soaked) toast. We like ours with coconut oil right now, and crabapple jelly, though that has refined sugar in it I decided it still fit in my ‘80/20 goal’

Soaked waffles can be made in a large batch on the weekends, then popped in the toaster on week days. With good quality butter or coconut oil and natural peanut butter, this is an easy breakfast. I’ve found that adding apple or pear sauce to the waffle batter helps them to be lighter and crisper. When I don’t add the apple sauce, I think they taste too much like bread.

If you’re avoiding gluten, I really like some of the gluten free mixes that use brown rice (whole grain!) flour in them. I try to avoid refined grains (white rice) for my gluten free baking as well.

Soaked cereals, you can vary the grains. One of our local health food stores has a great bulk section, where we get bulk organic grains for pennies a serving. We store them in glass jars in the pantry. Right now we have oats, millet, buckwheat, and brown rice we eat as cereal too. Adding in lots of fat (if you’re confused, check out what the Weston Price Foundation says about fats) and this breakfast will stick with you much better than ‘low fat’ cereal, hot or cold. We like to stir in about 2 tablespoons of coconut oil and a little real maple syrup.

Smoothies- kind of cold for these, but some of you dislike breakfast, so I thought I’d list them anyway. I add raw eggs to mine, usually 2 or 3, and 2 tablespoons of good quality coconut oil. Without the oil at least (I know that many aren’t going to go for raw eggs) it is a much more satisfying complete meal.

Lunches

Leftovers, as always

Sandwiches

Cheese, if you can do that, and whole grain crackers. We buy beef summer sausage too, which has nitrates in it. I’m sure there is nitrate free available at health food stores, but I’m pretty sure that’s out of our price range.

Dinners:

We’ve been doing a lot of brown rice with red meat sauce over it lately. I like the rice better than wholegrain pasta. I like brown rice the best when I cook it for a long time, at least 1 hour. And I use a little more liquid than called for in the recipe, usually at least part chicken broth from Monday’s Crockpot Chicken.

Lentil soup. Lentils are packed with nutrients. A little organic ground beef can be stretched in this, and coconut oil can be added to make it more substantial. I like cubed potatoes in mine, and we add carrots and celery and lots of garlic too.

Chili and cornbread. I do buy organic cornmeal so it’s not genetically modified. Both chili and cornbread freeze well.

Snacks:

Nuts and fruit

Peanut butter on toast

Smoothie, as described above

Popcorn, made with coconut oil and sprinkled with real sea salt

Home made clif bars.

Not great, but better than junk: Fruit leathers that Costco has, they’re made with all fruit puree (but lack the rest of the good stuff that comes from real fresh whole fruit)

I’ll get back to posting what we eat more often again, with pictures. We eat pretty simply, but I try to make sure we don’t just eat the same thing over and over again. I’m doing gluten free/casein free with my daughter right now, so that has kind of consumed my brainpower and hasn’t left much left for posting or cooking a whole lot. We try to make our meals mostly GFCF so that we all eat the same thing together, but I often add cheese to hubby’s or use wheat bread for both hubby and I.

This week’s Menu

I don’t plan out my snacks, so here is breakfast/lunch/dinner with snacks as listed above

Monday:
Soaked oats, coconut oil, maple syrup. We buy GF oats

Fried rice; leftover brown rice with 2 scrambled eggs, chicken

Brown Rice, Red sauce with ground beef (cook 1 lb ground beef, add 1 can red pasta sauce - I use the organic stuff from Costco-cook over Med until heated through)

Tuesday:

Eggs, GF waffles (toaster), coconut oil, jelly
Leftover rice & meat sauce for the kids and I; sandwich, tortilla chips, banana, cookies for hubby
Homemade pizza for dinner, with cooked veggies

Wednesday:

PB and coconut oil on waffles
Tuna salad with homemade mayo and brown rice crackers (Costco has these)
toquitoes (beans, brown rice, ground beef wrapped inside a corn tortilla, baked with the seam down) served with guacamole

Thursday:
Eggs
Leftovers
Waffles, eggs, beef sausage, fruit as toppings. Thursday is our breakfast-for-dinner night

Friday:
Soaked Buckwheat cereal, coconut oil, walnuts
Rice and chicken soup
Quesadillas (corn tortillas with beans for the kids and I, cheese too for hubby), salsa

Saturday:
Eggs, toast
Cheese/meat on crackers
Friends over for dinner- Burritos: Homemade refried beans made in the crock pot with chicken stock, brown rice, ground beef seasoned with red pepper and cumin, then all the toppings. Sometimes I make the bean/rice/meat burritos ahead and bake them so the tortilla gets crunchy (we’re using white tortillas for this other than my GF girl) then add the toppings as you want at the table.

Sunday:
I don’t really plan Sundays. Generally whatever is in the fridge that looks good for breakfast/lunch, then dinner is nitrate free beef or chicken hotdogs.

This monster menu post is part of Menu Plan Monday and Real Food Wednesday, as well as Fight Back Fridays

Another post on the subject:

My thoughts on supplements to prevent illness

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