Moroccan Tagine with Spring Vegetables

Another wonderful recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance. Seriously, go get this book! lol

It's a delicious stew full of spices, vegetables and lentils. I actually used more of the vegetables than called for in the recipe, but that's just how I roll. ;) This was really hit and miss with my kids. Some loved it. Some took a bite and decided they'd rather not eat dinner. My husband and I both liked it so much that we had the leftovers for lunch today. (We're really not a leftovers kind of family. Food usually gets eaten or thrown away. I need to figure out how to make leftovers not seem so...leftoverish.) I really need to remember to take pictures of the food I cook!

Total for the meal that fed everyone (or would have if they had eaten it) and left enough for lunch for two adults: $29.82

Sloppy Lentils

Many thanks to my friend, Amanda, over at The Screaming Penny for this recipe. The only thing I changed in her recipe was to adjust the amounts to feed my family and added the worcestershire sauce. We ate this on organic whole wheat buns and had broccoli on the side. (I really must get my kids to start eating vegetables other than broccoli!)

2 T Olive Oil
2 green bell pepper -diced
2 medium onion- diced
8 cloves of garlic- minced (adjust to taste)
6 T chili powder
3 C dried lentils, rinsed and picked through
6 C water

28 iz crushed tomatoes (can use diced w/ juice instead)
1 small can tomato paste
4 T soy sauce or tamari
2 T mustard
4 T brown sugar
2 T worcestershire sauce (not organic)
salt and pepper to taste

Saute peppers, onion and garlic in oil. Add chili powder and cook one more minute, stirring frequently. Transfer to slow cooker and lentils and water. Cook on low for 7 hours. Add other ingredients and cook on high 1 hr. Serve on buns like Sloppy Joes or over rice/quinoa,etc.

Now, I don't have a completely accurate cost analysis on this meal because I don't remember how much my lentils cost. The next time I'm at Whole Foods I will price them and update this post. For now, I'm going to assume $1 for 1 cup of lentils.

Total price for sloppy lentils on buns: $22.38
With side of brocolli: $28.36

Firecracker Shrimp

I must give credit to The Pioneer Woman for this recipe. Honestly, not a whole lot about this meal was organic, but it was delicious, so I'll share it anyways. lol

Recipe has been adjusted from the original to feed our family.

3 lbs shrimp, shelled and deveined (I found it on sale for $5.99/pound! :D )
6 T. Sriracha hot chili sauce
6 T Olive oil (organic)
3/4 t salt
2 T sugar (organic)
15 cloves garlic, pressed (organic)

Combine all ingredients in a large Ziploc bag, then add shrimp and marinate for 20 minutes to 2 hours. Skewer shrimp and grill until opaque and brown, with black bits.

Most of the kids absolutely loved this! I have one who hates shrimp, so she refused to eat it and just had broccoli for dinner. The rest of the kids gobbled it up. The baby (she's 2) ate one, cried, drank some milk, ate another, cried, drank some milk, ate another...and on and on. They were VERY spicy, but she liked them so much that she was willing to put up with the spice to eat them all! lol

Total for firecracker shrimp: $22.45
Total with broccoli: $28.43

Mushroom and Sun-dried Tomato Risotto

YUM! I can't stand mushrooms, and still...YUM! Yet another wonderful recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance : Over 150 Delicious, Cheap, Animal-Free Recipes That Rock.

Cremini mushrooms, shiitake mushrooms, sun-dried tomatoes, rice, and...wait for it...black truffle oil! I have never had truffle oil before because it is so dang expensive. ($16 for a small bottle at Whole Foods) I decided to splurge this time and go for it and I'm REALLY glad I did. Now, I'm not saying that this made the meal because, honestly, I'm not sure if I tasted it or not because I didn't have any without the oil, but I got some on my finger, licked it off and it was YUMMY! Now I just need to find other recipes to use it in. I don't want a $16 bottle of oil to just sit on my shelf and never get used again!

Mushrooms aren't cheap. So this meal wasn't terribly affordable even though the risotto was the only thing on our plate tonight. (I didn't realize just how long the risotto was going to take to make, so by the time I actually finished making dinner, the kids were so hungry that they didn't want to wait for me to make a side dish)

Most of the kids LOVED it. My four year old wouldn't touch it, though. She likes mushrooms even less than I do.

Now, I've never made actual risotto. I've thrown some spaghetti sauce into my rice cooker with my rice and some water and called what came out of it risotto, but I've never spent 30 minutes standing at the stove stirring anything! It's not terribly labor intensive, so much as time consuming. With six kids, I'm not a big fan of being forced to stand at the stove or risk ruining my dinner. I get called away from the kitchen quite often during the dinner making process to solve one crisis or another, so any food that takes that kind of commitment doesn't usually end up on our dinner table. However, it's also nice to have an eleven year old who you can tell, "Here, stand here and stir this," while attending to the needs of other children. She got that quite a few times tonight.

I don't know what risotto is supposed to taste like, but this was absolutely delicious and perfect, if I do say so myself. ;)

Total price of the meal, with just enough leftover to send to work with the husband for lunch tomorrow: $36.10

The most expensive aspects of this meal were the vegetable broth (I am planning on switching to bullion with my next shopping trip because 1/3 of the price of this meal was broth alone!), dried shiitake mushrooms (oddly enough, I think fresh might just be cheaper) and the rice, which I don't have a cheaper solution for, since they don't sell arborio rice in bulk at my Whole Foods. Perhaps I could use a different rice?

Individual buffalo meatloaves

Last night we had individual sized buffalo meatloaves. All of my kids LOVED this, except for Sera. She isn't a huge fan of red meat, so she really didn't like it.

Individual Buffalo Meatloves

3 lbs. all natural buffalo meat
1 lb. crumbled feta cheese
4 T fresh Oregano
2 small onions
1 C Italian style panko
3 eggs
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350*

Mix all of the ingredients until well combined.
Divide into 8 equal portions.
Form each portion into a "loaf" shape.
Arrange on cooking pan so sides are not touching.
Bake for 30 minutes.

For sides, we had spinach cooked in a little bit of butter and fingerling potatoes that had been brushed with olive oil, sprinkled with some salt and pepper and roasted at 425* for 45 minutes.

The kids dipped everything except the spinach in ketchup.

This meal was rather expensive. Buffalo is pretty expensive in California at $6.99/lb. I bought a cube of feta cheese instead of the precrumbled stuff, which saved quite a bit of money. Feta is SUPER easy to crumble, so it's really pointless to buy the dry, precrumbled stuff if you can get the good, whole stuff. The feta wasn't labeled organic, but was labeled RBST free, which is one of the most important things to me when it comes to dairy.

The kids wasted a lot of this meal, even though they loved it. It was just too much meat for them. I could have easily gotten away with 2 lbs of buffalo instead of the 3, which would have cut all of the ingredients by 1/3, which would have saved about $10.

Total for meatloaves: $29.05
Total for spinach and butter: $6.29
Total for potatoes: $9.10
Total for ketchup to dip everything in: $0.44
Total for meal: $44.98

Not a huge hit

So, tonight I made Millet and Spinach Polenta with Sundried Tomato Pesto. None of my kids wanted to eat it. :( Some of them did just because I promised them chocolate hemp milk for dessert if they ate it all. For some, that wasn't even incentive enough.

I, on the other hand, LOVED it. I thought it was absolutely delicious, as did my husband. I guess it's just not a terribly kid friendly meal. Definitely something to keep in mind as it's not the quickest meal to make, so it's not really worth it if my kids aren't going to eat it.

Unfortunately, I can't share the recipe because it's from a cookbook. However, like the previous entry, I HIGHLY recommend you go out and buy this cookbook. Quick...like a bunny. I'll wait for you.

I suppose the name of the cookbook would help, no? It is Vegan with a Vengeance : Over 150 Delicious, Cheap, Animal-Free Recipes That Rock. Can you tell I'm a huge fan of Isa's work? Look at me, pretending I'm all cool and on a first name basis with someone I've never even conversed with.

On the side, we had some frozen broccoli. (Well, I did cook it, so it wasn't frozen when they ate it!) I just steamed it. My kids like it plain. Weirdos.

Thankfully, the meal was VERY affordable, so it wasn't so terrible that so much of it went to waste. (The two year old had GREAT fun playing in it. I'm just happy she didn't throw her plate...note to self: invest in plastic plates.)

The total for the entree: $15.49
The total for the broccoli: $6.00
Total for the meal: $21.49

Not bad for feeding six kids and two adults! The only ingredient in the meal that wasn't organic were the almonds that were used in the pesto.

Chicken Noodle Soup

Tonight's dinner was a HUGE success. I mean HUGE HUGE HUGE!! I don't get many meals where every single child LOVED the meal! Every single ingredient was organic!

Chicken Noodle Soup

1 lb boneless skinless chicken breast
1 lb boneless skinless chicken thighs
1 box Chicken Broth
1 box Vegetable Broth
4 carrots, peeled and coined
3 small onions(or 2 medium), coarsely chopped
1 full heart of celery, chopped
4 T coarsely chopped basil
2 T minced Thyme
8 cloves minced garlic
1/2 box Eden soy vegetable ABC's (or noodle of choice)
1/2 C soy sauce

Pour chicken broth and vegetable broth into a stock pot and begin to heat. Meanwhile, chop all chicken into bite sized pieces. Add chicken to broth. Add all vegatables and seasonings to broth and chicken. Bring to a rapid boil. Boil five minutes. Reduce heat. Cover and simmer for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, cook noodles according to the directions on the box. When soup is done simmering, add noodles and soy sauce. Stir. Simmer five minutes more.

Okay, so it's obvious I don't write recipes. If any of this is unclear, let me know.

Every single one of my children RAVED about this soup. They each had seconds...then were bummed when there wasn't enough for thirds!

I had originally planned on making garlic butter breadsticks (using the same bread recipe as the other day, but rolling them into sticks before cooking, then brushing with garlic butter. However, I didn't start them early enough, so it was just the soup tonight. I'm going to total up this menu as though we had the bread sticks though because it was supposed to be part of the meal.

Total for soup: $29.13
Total for bread sticks: $7.25
Total for meal: $36.38

Things I could have done differently: I could have used chicken bullion and vegetable bullion instead of the boxes of broth. I could have used dried thyme and basil instead of fresh. I could have used regular garlic instead of pre peeled garlic. This probably would have saved me around $5.80 on this meal. I had originally thought that was pretty slim, but saving that much on every dinner would save me $174 over the course of a month!

I think I may start buying bullion instead of the boxes of broth. I'm afraid it will greatly affect the overall taste of the meal, though. We'll see!

The kids rotate nights helping me cook dinner. Tonight's meal was brought to you by Sera!

Hot and Sour Soup.

Unfortunately, there will be no recipe for this soup. I got it out of Veganomicon: The Ultimate Vegan Cookbook, so due to copyright issues, I can't share it with you. You can, however, go out and buy the cookbook because it is down right awesome!

I'll give you the gist of things:

mushrooms
chile oil
tofu
more mushrooms
carrots
napa cabbage
other stuff
deliciousness!

The entire meal, which filled the six kiddos and the two adults with nothing to spare, cost a whopping $31.21! The ingredients really don't do the meal justice. It was SO good!

I have all of the kids rate their meals after they eat them, so I will start adding those to the posts soon. Most of the kids LOVED this last night! Hubby had some constructive criticism regarding things that could have been done differently that would have made it more enjoyable for him. I'll have to implement those things the next time!

So...

I got the printout of my receipt from Whole Foods on Saturday. Then I spent quite a bit of time typing it all out into html so I could post it here, but for some reason, it's just not liking me and the formatting is all wrong. So, it will have to be put off yet another day until I can figure out how to properly format everything.

On a separate note, please ignore any typos I may make in the next week or so, as my left index finger had a brief, but eventful run in with the vegetable peeler while peeling the butternut squash for dinner a couple of nights ago and the peeler definitely came out the winner of that one! It's not exactly easy to type without the use of your left index finger, that's for sure!

As I looked over my receipt and typed out all of my notes on the different things I bought, I realized that this blog should be good for me! The purpose is to show that you can feed a large family a healthy, mostly organic diet without it costing your eighth born. However, as I made notes, I came to realize that there are a LOT of things I could be doing differently to make things more affordable for my family. This is going to be a learning process for me and hopefully, it will help you out as well!

Since I can't share my grocery list just yet, let me at least share what we had for dinner the past couple of nights.

On Saturday night, we had butternut squash soup and homemade bread. This was my first foray into bread making since high school. It didn't go too well. LOL Thankfully, my kids LOVED LOVED LOVED it! They all said it was the best tasting bread they had ever had! Just imagine what it would have been like had it not been heavy and hard enough to knock someone out with!!! I got the recipe from my friend, Larissa, on Friends and Families.

This is what she posted:

This is the recipe that I use for whole grain bread: (I use hard white wheat, oat groats, and kamut - but you can use any combination of grains that you wish. When I am running low on kamut or oat groats, I just modify the amount)

2 1/2 Tablespoons Grapeseed Oil (you can use whatever oil you want or butter)
2 1/2 Tablespoons honey
1 1/2 cup warm water
1 1/4 cup of whole grain flour
2 1/3 teaspoons of yeast

Mix the above ingredients together, cover with towel and let sit for about 20-25 minutes.

4 Tablespoons Gluten
2 teaspoons sea salt

Mix the above ingredients into the other mixture, cover with towel and let sit for about 45 minutes.

The remaining 3-4 cups of whole grain flour

Mix the remaining flour into the other mixture and knead for 5-6 minutes.
Pull the dough out of the mixer and roll into a loaf. Place in a loaf pan. Put the loaf pan in a cool oven. Place a pot of boiling water under it. Let rise for about 45 minutes.

Pull the loaf and the pot of water out of the oven and preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Bake the loaf for 34 minutes.

***you can put your loaf anywhere you want for the rise. I have just found that my best rise comes in the oven in a humid and warm atmosphere.

I ended up using half kamut and half spelt flour. It was hard, it was dense, but it was still delicious! lol



The butternut squash soup was:

8 1/2 lbs organic butternut squash
6 T. organic olive oil
3 med organic yellow onions, diced
8 cloves of garlic, minced
2 T grated organic ginger
1 T sea salt
8 C. organic vegetable broth
2 T. organic maple syrup
juice of one organic meyer lemon

Heat oven to 425*

Start by peeling the butternut squash. I cut the round part apart from the straight part first. (How is that for technical terms?) Then, I cut each part in half, the opposite direction. Scoop out the seeds and stuff from the bulbous part. I then peeled them with a vegetable peeler. Word to the wise...KEEP YOUR FINGERS OUT OF THE WAY!!! Yes, I know that should go without saying, but I can only use four fingers on my left hand right now due to ignoring this simple rule, so it's worth mentioning!

Place each piece, cut side down, on cooking sheet. Make sure it has edges so that the oil doesn't spill over while cooking. Brush each piece with olive oil, using 4 of the 6 tablespoons. Bake for 40 minutes, or until fork tender.

Heat the remaining olive oil in a pan. Add onions and cook 5 minutes. Add garlic, ginger and salt and cook another 3-5 minutes.

Pour the vegetable broth into a stock pot, add the onion mixture and the butternut squash. I used an immersion blender to blend it all together, or you can do it a little at a time in a regular blender.

Add the maple syrup and lemon juice. Heat on the stove until heated through, stirring as it heats.

Some of my kids loved this. Some of my kids hated it. I thought it was delicious, as did my husband. My two year old threw her entire bowl on the ground, breaking the bowl, spraying butternut squash soup everywhere. My nine year old had thirds. It was really hit and miss. lol

So, the soup, which fed the whole family and had some leftovers cost: $22.03
The bread, which disappeared, leaving the kids wanting more, but not hungry cost: $5.85

So, the entire meal, to feed a family of 8, with leftovers was: $27.88

If you add in the price of the bowl that was broken, it cost: $29.88

So, an almost entirely organic meal for 8 for less than $30!

Oops!

Okay, so today I did my first official "big" shopping trip for my new blog! I shopped, I took notes, I compared prices, I had an overflowing cart, I checked out, then I LOST MY RECEIPT!!! I mean, seriously...first day and I'm already screwing up? Where is my head?

Thankfully, Whole Foods is awesome. I called them up when I got home and explained to them that I had just been there shopping and I couldn't find my receipt and asked if there was any way to get another one printed out and they said that wasn't a problem and it will be waiting at the customer service desk tomorrow! Yay Whole Foods!

Now, the bill is going to be SHOCKING...especially considering this is supposed to be a blog on how feeding a large family mostly organic foods isn't all that expensive and you don't have to eat crap all the time just because you don't have a ton of money. Keep in mind that this is a learning curve for me as well! lol Tonight I spent...oh my goodness, I don't even want to type it...I spent about $485 on two weeks worth of groceries. I know...flog me now and get it over with.

Seriously though, I do have a reasonable excuse...at least I think it is, and it's my blog so I get to deem what is reasonable and what isn't! We semi recently moved across state. I didn't want to take the space or spend the money to have a lot of my food moved, so I tossed out or gave away A LOT of the stuff in my kitchen, including all of my oils, a lot of my bulk goods, etc. We also didn't have a fridge in the house we moved into. We just got a fridge a few weeks ago. Today was actually the first day that I made a shopping trip that filled the fridge. Because we didn't have a fridge, I wasn't making very good meals, so I never got around to replacing a lot of the things I left behind in San Diego. Tonight's trip included purchasing a number of things that I usually have in my fridge or pantry already. When you already have things, it makes your shopping trips cost a lot less. I'm slowly rebuilding my stash of staples in the kitchen.

We won't mention the few extra splurges that I threw in that I don't normally purchase. lol

So anyways, tomorrow, after I get back from Whole Foods, I'll give you a run down of what I bought, how much it cost and what I plan to do with it! I have a feeling the kids aren't going to like a few meals in the next couple of weeks, but they may just surprise me! Crossing my fingers for that!