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!
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