Hey y’all! Welcome to the series Weekly Eating.
Here is where I’ll talk about the week’s meal plan versus reality, what we ate for the week, and how we did budget-wise. I hope it gives readers a behind-the-scenes look into our life through the lens of food, and it’s also a way to keep us on track with meal planning and grocery budgeting.
Feel free to share your wins and lessons in the comments below!
Happy Spring Forward! Yes indeed it is time to change the clocks yet again, if you haven’t yet. I won’t get on my soap box about the pointlessness of Daylight Savings in today’s day and age… I don’t make the rules, I just follow them.
Well, we didn’t get to build the coop yet, but the greenhouse did get put together last weekend. So I’m pretty excited about it. Now I just need to actually start some seeds and get them inside.
And I led a really fun Durham Food Tour, everyone was talkative and just there for a good time. The food was great as always, and now our last stop started giving us wine! We were all ok with that.
Then I candied a bunch of orange peels and pickled several dozen quail eggs for next week’s coming food swap, and moved the eggs from the turner to the hatcher level of the incubator! CHICK TIME.
Monday:
Breakfast – hashbrown and eggs cooked together into a patty with lunch meat and avocado between; actually pretty darn delicious
Lunch – leftover food from the Food Tour, an apple, and tea
Dinner – mishmash of leftovers
Tuesday:
Breakfast – breakfast scramble with potato, peppers, zucchini, and onion, then poured scrambled eggs on top and mixed it all up.
Snack – a baklava leftover from the food tour
Lunch – leftover colcannon, I made a huge batch over the weekend
Snack – apple with almond butter and raisins
Dinner – sweet potato and squash noodles with meat sauce and ribs
ANNNNNDDDD I came home to 3 little chickies already hatched!
I set up the brooder in the spare room, and stared at them in amazement until bedtime.
Wednesday:
At least 2 more are a-hatching this morning!
Breakfast – apple with almond butter and raisins. I’m starting to crave this particular combo daily
Lunch – leftover ribs & veggie spaghetti, hummus with raw veg
Snack – a monster cookie from work
Dinner – boiled potato, celery, carrot, and onion until soft and then blended it until smooth. Added some cashew cream, nutritional yeast, and chimmichurri from a previous steak dinner, and threw in some cooked ground turkey. Kind of a kitchen sink soup, it was tasty.
SEVEN MORE CHICKS! Up to 10 Total out of 14 eggs now. Literally popped some popcorn and sat and stared at them all night again. #FreeEntertainment #FrugalHobbies
Thursday:
Breakfast – apple with almond butter and raisins
Lunch – veggie stir fry and a krispy kreme donut at work
Dinner – pork chops with a massive veggie stir fry & cauliflower rice
Snack – made a Whole30 compliant sort-of apple crisp with my instapot applesauce, almonds, coconut, and spices. Don’t even @ me about SWYPO because I already think the whole thing is bunk.
Friday:
One of the remaining 4 eggs is hatching!!! I’m glad I didn’t give up, and let them go one more day.
Breakfast – apple with almond butter and raisins, surprise! When I find a thing I like, I tend to play it on repeat. Saves time and money.
Lunch – egg salad with flax crackers, hummus and veggies
Snack – someone brought Panera pastries and I had a cranberry one
Dinner – sheet pan ginger salmon with broccoli, and potato and yellow squash fries
The Weekend
Okay for real this time, we will build the coop. Quail grow fast, and these lil guys will be not so little and ready to move outside in 4-5 weeks, so I want to be ready.
Can you EVEN with this face?? He’s SNUGGLING MY FINGER WITH HIS TEENY BABY WINGS. My heart is a puddle on the floor.
Food Total: $29.58 + 68.32
Weekly Produce Box = the Keto Box, since it was the best value for the most Whole30 compliant items. We got white sweet potatoes (some of which I’ll try to sprout and grow!), yellow squash, kale, lettuce, spinach, cucumber, broccoli, and cherry tomatoes. All the plastic packaging will be returned for them to reuse!
And at the store I stocked up on more eggs, a few different types of meats that were on sale, some spiralized veggies to try out (no I do not have a spiralizer yet, and yes I will get one maybe someday).
| Meats | $28.60 | Dairy | $5.00 | Staples | $2.28 | Fruit/Veg | $31.10 |
| 3lb ground turkey | 9.97 | 2 dozen eggs cage free | 5 | whole wheat pasta x4 | 2.28 | carrots 2lb | 0.99 |
| chicken sausages | 5 | spinach 9oz | 2.99 | ||||
| London broil steak | 6.36 | clementines 3lb | 2.99 | ||||
| org chicken breast 2 | 3.28 | spiral veg squash/zucchini | 7 | ||||
| pork chops 2 | 3.99 | spiral veg fresh sw pot zucchini | 7.98 | ||||
| russet potato 8lb | 2.79 | ||||||
| celery | 2.79 | ||||||
| parsley | 1.59 | ||||||
| The Produce Box 3/4/19 | 29.58 | iceberg | 0.99 | ||||
| blackberries | 0.99 |
Lessons Learned
Y’all, raising quail is a delight! I had thought I would like it, but now that they are here, I could not be happier. The adults are everything I dreamed and more, and hatching my own is a g#$ d*&$ miracle.
Seriously. I am meant to be a farmer, I believe it with my whole heart. Taking care of critters and plants makes me so unbelievably happy, and to make an omelet or sandwich from eggs I collected myself that morning? Total bliss.