Five days into the challenge and I finally have gotten my sea legs. You would think it wouldn’t be a challenge for me considering I grow and raise food to sell, not to mention the chefy thing. The fact is, I try to sell it all, leaving almost nothing for myself. Sounds ridiculous doesn’t it? But I can’t justify eating a cut of lamb when I know I could sell it or reduce the balance of a CSA member’s account. What makes matters worse, and I’m just being frank here is when I am at the farmers market, it is sometimes really hard to step away from the booth and shop, unless I absolutely ; 1) have a plan of what I want or need and 2) just grab some money and do it. The challenge has made me more aware of the missed opportunities for buying real and clean food.
Last night was a super fast meal of sweet potato curry soup, with homemade bread (Linda makes the no knead bread from Mother Earth News) and a fresh salad from the garden with honey mustard vinaigrette. It was simple took about 30 minutes to make and delicious! Made enough for lunch the next day too. The key for me is planning. I can’t trust myself to have the mind to make stuff up as I go anymore, I’m too busy, and when meal time comes around I’m usually famished and will eat whatever I can reach and sometime times that’s nothing or something probably not in my best interest. Hunger gets me in trouble, Always has. Can’t think.
So here’s what works for me; I do best with structure, set meal times. Getting my body used to a routine. Writing a weekly menu including all meals allows me to write a concise shopping list with the amount I will use up in a week. This ends up saving me lots of money cause I don’t buy things that are not on the list and I don’t have too much left in the fridge to go bad. I always write my menu when I am hungry. I write a menu based on my energy needs because I have to. On days that I know I’m going to be really pushing myself hard like this weekend when I unload 100 bales of alfalfa that weigh 80 pounds or more each. I’m going to increase carbs and protein but reduce meat so I’ll be basically eating rice, beans and salad just eating more often and probably larger portions than normal. Everything I eat will go towards energy that I need to work not digest.
Finding the time to cook, Okay, I have never had a problem with this in the past but I am telling you since I’ve gotten so busy with things on the farm I don’t make the time that I used to for cooking. This is very bad! I honestly don’t know how people do it, just changing priorities and getting into a routine I guess, but dang! I’ve never had to think about it before because I cooked all day and night at the restaurant and never gave it a second thought. There was so much food at my fingertips, even on my day off. But now at the end of the day sometimes that might be 8 pm I’m so tired. That’s where the list comes in handy. No guessing no trying to figure it out.
So I’m feeling good, I feeling like I’m right on tract, got a fridge full of awesome foods ready to be turned into delicious meals. I’m fighting my bad habits with humor and stride and making the time for things that are important to me. That seems good. That’s my report. How are things with you?
The meanderings of an accidental farmer
Our internet is back up and running. So glad because now I can read your posts about the 30 day challenge. I was so excited when you threw this out there! Really, really excited!! Eating local, healthy, nutrient dense foods is something Ray and I have been getting progressively better about in the last year or so. Now is the time for us to fine tune and learn what great things other folks are doing. Before that, we were the fast food, stuff it in our mouth until our pants wouldn't button commandos. But, something changed - for the better - and let me just say making these changes has saved our lives. Literally.
ReplyDeleteDuring the next 30 days I'll share some of the things that are working for us. And, thanks again for issuing the challenge. I am really looking forward to hearing what others are doing so I can incorporate some best practices. --Lori
Thanks, Lisa. Your description of how life sometimes gets in the way of eating aptly describes our situation. That, and I've never had a rack of lamb, because we sell it all! I'm eating 3 meals a day now, thanks to you, but actually gaining weight. So I must exercise more and watch WHAT I eat. We shall succeed! Go challenge team!!
ReplyDeleteOkay, last night we ate leftovers AGAIN. This is one of our challenges because we so often eat out at lunch and then always have leftovers to eat at night. So we have decided to share one thing at lunch in order to stop having leftovers so we will cook our wonderful good food at night.
ReplyDeleteSo tonight I finally cooked an entire supper: those pork chops form Pork 'n' Greens, cooked on the grill by my hubby (How to make men cook? Make it dangerous, like live fire). I cooked a variety of yellow squashes with onions the way my mama taught me. They were fantastic. Had salad from Lisa and Linda with cherry street vinaigrette--I LOVE that stuff. And cornbread and butter. Only thing not local was the olive oil I used to cook the squash, and the milk I put in the cornbread because I haven't been to Swann's lately.
We have squash left over and the last of the lentils, which we will have tomorrow night with the cornbread.
Jan
can we build a commune?....i want to share dinners...everything i read sounds so good!!
ReplyDelete