This Week's Plan

So, in the future I hope to gets these meals plans out early in the week and and I can do more posts highlighting the individual recipes and what-not.  The plans will always end at Saturday morning because after breakfast is when we head out to the farmers' market and do our grocery shopping.  Here is our plan for this week:

	Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
Breakfast	Eggs, Sausage, Potatoes, Toast (GF English Muffin for me)	Homemade Granola and Puffed Brown Rice, Almond Milk and Strawberries or Bananas or Apples	Oatmeal with Honey, Vanilla, Cinnamon and Fruit	Homemade Granola and Puffed Brown Rice, Almond Milk and Strawberries or Bananas or Apples	Oatmeal with Honey, Vanilla, Cinnamon and Fruit	Homemade Granola and Puffed Brown Rice, Almond Milk and Strawberries or Bananas or Apples	Greek or Coconut Milk Yogurt with Homemade Berry Sauce and Homemade Granola
Lunch		PB&J on Whole Wheat Bread or GF Tortilla and Peaches	Smoothie with Fruit and Spinach, Carrot Muffins	Hummus with Triscuits or GF Crackers, Grapes	Tortilla with cream cheese, cinnamon, raisins, and apple fries	Tortilla Soup (frozen from the party) and Fruit
Dinner	Grass-Fed Beef Burgers on Whole Wheat or GF Buns, Oven Fries	Chicken Cacciatore with Polenta	Lentil Soup and GF Cornbread	Turkey Meatloaf, Brown Rice, Roasted Green Beans	Almond Crusted Tilapia, Roasted Potatoes, Broccoli and Corn	Homemade Whole Wheat Pizza, GF Pizza

In the next week or so I'd like to feature some of our basic recipes that we have come to love that provide the base for a lot of the meals we eat.

We have designated Fridays as "Pizza Night"  and the kids really look forward to it each week.  They love helping with the dough and making their own pizza and putting the cheese and various toppings.  I think it helps them to try different things.  One day my daughter saw us putting fresh spinach on ours so she wanted to try it.  She didn't care for it but I was excited she at least tried, which any parent of a picky eater will understand how exciting that is.  For myself I have been having an Udi's Gluten Free Pizza Crust but I'm hoping to find a GF crust recipe in the future that I like.

Also, thanks to 100 Days of Real Food, we have found some great recipes that I have been making like the granola, whole-wheat tortillas, berry sauce, and I have even adapted the zucchini bread recipe to make it gluten free.

The week has been pretty good so far but my picky eaters like to constantly challenge me.  My 4-year-old daughter has decided she doesn't want to eat oatmeal anymore.  I'm going to have to think of something new.  I'm thinking maybe a baked oatmeal  or breakfast "cookie" sort of thing.  She's also been wanting to try her fruit less this week.  But she does love smoothies.  Yesterday we made one with grapes, watermelon, strawberries and spinach.  I think maybe I need to make more and freeze them in portions for her.  Our other issue was with my 2-year-old son who refused to try his lentil soup last night.  I know he would have loved it too.  I think it was a combination of no nap and the fact the he wanted some of the delicious looking cornbread.  Oh well.  I have high hopes for the rest of the week.