Meal Plan! Week 7 {Plan It - Don't Panic}

Here's my meal plan for the week.  Usually things don't go exactly as planned, but it is awesome to have this plan in place, as it is easily adjustable if things don't go as planned.  It is such a blessing to have the weekend planned so that it doesn't surprise me and make for a stressful weekend when all I want to do is be relaxed!

Our camera was out of order last week, so I didn't get to share my broth making system, but I will this week!  I hope to share some more recipes as well as more on GAPS intro.  Soon (hopefully this week) I will start getting into our journey in getting to the way we eat and why.  I am excited to share our process and what we've learned.  I also will share ideas on steps you can take to eat in a more nourishing and healthful, life-giving way!

(meatballs that will be my best friend on Thursday because they're already made and in the freezer...all i have to do is stick them in a pan or crock pot to cook!!  i made 4 lbs worth more than a month ago and they have blessed me on busy days or days I just need a break!)

Monday: 
Lunch: chicken 'noodle' soup
Dinner: Simple Chicken Enchilada Soup

Food Prep: debone chicken, freeze broth, freeze bones for bone broth, possibly make some GAPS cookies to use up egg whites, take 2 roasting chickens and beef meat soup bones out to thaw, batch of yogurt


Tuesday: 
Lunch: leftovers, salad
Dinner: Roasted Chicken (making 2 to freeze 1!) with carrots and onions, Tomato Basil soup, kale


Food Prep: Roast beef meat soup bones and make beef broth, prep veggies for Wed's dinner, make new batch of sauerkraut, kale chips with whatever not used for dinner, make cucumber salad for lunches

Wednesday:
Lunch: Leftover Chicken, Salad, soup
Dinner: Meatloaf maybe kind of like this one.  Mashed cauliflower, broccoli or roasted asparagus

Food Prep: finish beef broth, prep marinade and sauce for Thursday's dinner if time

Thursday: 
Lunch: Leftovers, Salad
Dinner: Meatballs with spaghetti squash, summer squash soup


Food Prep: make snack for small group,  take out hindquarters, bacon, and ground pork to thaw

Friday: 
Lunch: leftover chicken and soup, raw cheese, green beans with butter if needed
Dinner: Chicken Hindquarters Roasted with this marinade and served with the sauce (or use leftover roasted or boiled chicken), butternut squash fries, summer squash soup (broth with cooked veggies already in freezer!)

Food Prep: Prep breakfast sausage, shred zucchini, make carrot soup for weekend, take out stew meat, prep veggies for Saturday

Saturday:  
Breakfast: sausage, eggs scrambled with veggies, zucchini fritters (company, so extra breakfast!)
Lunch: leftovers, carrot soup
Dinner:  beef Bourguinon!!! and spaghetti squash and salad and broccoli


Food Prep: prep breakfast casserole for Sunday, prep veggies and meat for Sunday

Sunday: 
Breakfast: breakfast casserole with sausage or bacon, smoothies
Lunch: Baked salmon or salmon patties, squash fries, green beans, carrot soup
Dinner: Taco Soup in Crock Pot


Food Prep: hopefully just throwing meals together because hopefully all prep work will be done Saturday :-) If not, we'll eat out for a meal to allow for a sabbath.

Creamy Cauliflower Meatball Soup {GAPS Stage 1 Recipe and beyond}

This is a simple recipe that you can easily modify to fit your taste preferences and dietary tolerances.  We all enjoyed this soup - it is something I will fix again for sure!  I don't think I would serve it to company :-) but that doesn't mean it's not enjoyable, especially for the early stages of GAPS!  It's nice to have a really creamy thick soup to change things up a bit. 

First I will share exactly what I made and then the basic approach to where you can modify it to fit exactly what you need. 

Creamy Cauliflower Meatball Soup
Ingredients: 
Stage 1:

• 2 heads of cauliflower, stalks removed
• 1 quart of broth (I used beef)
•  2 lbs ground beef
•  Salt (I use about 1 tsp per lb of meat) and pepper
•  2-3 cloves garlic, crushed

 Stage 2 additions:

• 2 eggs (only late stage 2 and beyond, once you have successfully introduced cooked egg)
•  parsley or other fresh herbs (stage 2 and beyond) (I used about 1 Tbsp dried parsley)

Instructions: 
Boil/Steam cauliflower in broth until soft.  While cauliflower is cooking, mix ground beef with salt, pepper, and garlic (and eggs and desired herbs if you are at that stage).  When cauliflower is done, puree it (along with the broth) in blender, food processor, or with stick blender - in batches. Return to pot.  Bring to a simmer.

Drop the meat mixture in desired size of meatballs into the simmering soup.  Try to evenly distribute the meatballs around the pot so you don't have to disturb them before they're done cooking.  And don't expect the meatballs to form like 'normal' meatballs with bread crumbs - they will be very soft.  But don't fear! Just drop them in and let them cook!

Simmer the soup after all the meatballs are dropped in until they are done.   I just let mine simmer for 20 minutes or so, turned off the heat, covered it and let it sit a while because dinner was still an hour or so away.  Then salt and pepper the soup to taste!  You can add some fat like tallow or ghee into the soup as well! 

Variations: It would be so easy to do variations to suit your taste, how much broth you need, what vegetables you like, etc.  Here are some ideas, and I am sure you can easily come up with your own! 

• Use different broths - I used beef, but I am sure chicken would be good too! 
• Use more broth to make a thinner soup, and that could help stretch it farther as well. 
• Add other veggies to the soup - either to puree with the cauliflower or chopped/diced and simmered in with the meatballs. I think peas would be super yummy and go really well with the creaminess of the soup and the meatballs.  
• You could totally try chicken meatballs - puree boiled chicken and then mix with egg and seasonings and form into meatballs.  Definitely not the same as beef, but maybe it could be good? 
• Sneak some ground liver into the beef meatballs! 
• Serve over spaghetti squash as meatballs and 'gravy'.  It's that thick :-).  
• Different herbs would make fun variations!   

This isn't the most exciting recipe, but we really enjoyed it (both our little boys ate it well!) and it's a nice option for early stages instead of just broth-y soups.  It's very filling, too! 

Egg Drop Soup {Another Favorite Recipe - GAPS/Paleo}

Whenever I make egg drop soup, I always feel like it's my favorite thing ever.  I don't know why I love it so much, but I do.  My boys like it, too.  It's nice to have a quick and easy soup like this for lunch or even snacks.  It is easy to make your own variations of this soup depending on what you have on hand and like.  There are notes for variations below the recipe.

This can easily be made in late stage 2 or early stage 3 for GAPS - and to me, this is a great breakfast soup!  But that just might be me :-).  Part of the reason I love this soup so much is that it is nice and dense, so you get lots of goodies in each bite!

 (Pardon the cell phone picture :-) )

Egg Drop Soup
Ingredients: 

• 4-6 cups chicken broth (have a total of 6 cups of liquid.  I used 4 cups broth and 2 cups water.)
•  3 stalks celery, sliced
•  4-5 green onions, sliced, keep whites and greens separate
•  1 tsp cold pressed sesame oil
•  1 inch ginger, peeled and grated (easy to grate when frozen) 
•  2 tsp plus more salt to taste
•  1 1/2 cups sliced shiitake mushrooms
•  6 eggs
•  Optional: 1/2 - 1 tsp wheat free tamari (soy sauce, make sure organic, this is not GAPS approved)

Instructions:
Saute celery (omit celery if needed, or use celery root) and white onion parts in butter (or ghee or coconut oil).  Add broth, grated ginger, sesame oil, and salt; bring to boil.

Add mushrooms when celery is almost tender.  Simmer about 5 minutes until celery and mushrooms are tender.  With soup at low boil/simmer, stir gently while slowly pouring in whisked eggs.

Turn heat off, add green onion parts, cover and let sit for 5 minutes.  Salt additionally to taste and serve!

Variations: 

• Stage 2/3 adjustments: omit celery (celery root is an option), add yellow onion for more filling if desired.  Omit sesame oil.  The great thing about using a well flavored mushroom like Shiitake is that it brings a great flavor to the soup without having sesame oil and/or tamari in it.  It's still great without the sesame oil!
• use chopped onion instead of green onion, cook at beginning with celery. 
• Omit mushrooms, or use a different variety. 
• more or less ginger, to your taste preferences
• less eggs for a more 'brothy' soup
• many recipes for egg drop soup call for toasted sesame oil, so you could use that instead
• Some others around the web: Food Renegade (omit some GAPS illegals), Grain Free Foodie, Nourished and Nurtured

Taco Soup - GAPS and Paleo friendly! {A New Favorite Recipe}

This was one of my experiments this past week, and it turned out amazing!!  We all loved it!  My husband and sister said that it is one of (if not the best) soups I've ever made.  We were so excited to eat this since all taco soup recipes I have ever encountered are full of GAPS and Paleo no-no's like corn, beans, and sometimes rice.  This was so filling, even without all that stuff!

The great thing about a soup like this is that you can really put any amounts of veggies or meat into it - whatever you like and sounds good to you!  You can use more or less of any vegetable, and it would still turn out fantastic.  You could also probably throw some cabbage or spinach or kale in there (although I haven't tried that).  I bet you could even easily sneak a little ground liver in... ;-) And if you eat beans, properly soaked and cooked black beans would be super yummy in here. 

What makes this soup is homemade beef broth (I am going to share my broth making process this week!) and the herbs and spices.  Never underestimate the power of homemade broth!!!

Taco Soup {Recipe - GAPS (Stage 3+), Paleo}

Ingredients: 

• 3-4 Tbsp of any fat: butter/tallow/lard/coconut oil
•  1 1/2 lbs ground beef (or combination beef and pork)
•  3-4 cloves of garlic, minced or crushed
• 1 large yellow onion, diced (or 2 small - medium)
• 1 cup sliced/chopped carrots
• 3 stalks celery, sliced (omit if not tolerated yet on GAPS intro)
• 2 small-medium turnips, diced (or 1 large)
• 4-10 tomatoes (4 large, 6 medium, 8 of the size on the vine, 10 Roma tomatoes, you get the idea), chopped
• 6 cups homemade beef broth

• 1 Tbsp chili powder
• 3/4 tsp garlic powder
• 3/4 tsp onion powder
• 1 tsp oregano
• 1 1/2 tsp paprika
• 4 tsp cumin
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• Celtic or Himalayan or Real Salt, to taste (we used about 1 Tbsp - our broth was unsalted)

Optional: Top with sour cream (or yogurt), raw cheddar cheese, and avocado.  

Instructions: 

• Melt the fat in a warm dutch oven or soup pot (I always warm my pot up on medium heat).  Brown and crumble the ground beef.  Since the soup will cook more, the meat doesn't have to cook all the way, so you can proceed whenever it is browned enough to be crumbled.  Add garlic, onion, carrots, celery, and turnips.  I also like to add in all the spices/herbs at this point, although you really can add it at any point, as long as you have it in there before simmering.  Stir and cook about 5-10 minutes or so.
• Add chopped tomatoes and broth (and seasonings if you haven't already).  Simmer at least 20-30 minutes to let flavors mingle and until all veggies are cooked.  Adjust any seasonings to taste (most importantly salt - you don't want too little or way too much!).  I usually start with 1 tsp and then adjust upwards to taste.
• This made our dutch oven completely full of soup!  Top with desired toppings and serve! 

Note on spices: I actually only used 1 tsp (yes, teaspoon!) of chili powder.  I ran out!  Plus, we have some wimpy spice tolerances in this home (um, me), so I never use much chili powder.  If you want more spice, just add more chili powder!  You could also add more pepper if you really like pepper.  :-) 

Meal Plan! Week 6 {Plan It - Don't Panic}

Last week hit us with a stomach bug in all 3 of the men in the house, me with a nasty cold, and our house with an issue.  So...all that to say we had a night of impromptu eating out and our leftovers stretched longer than I expected (which is always exciting!).  Therefore, there are a few repeats from last week's menu that I get to do this week! 

Monday:
B: Bacon, Scrambled Eggs, Spinach sauteed in bacon grease
L: Leftovers
D: Salmon Patties, Green Beans with bacon grease and onions, bone broth

Food Prep: Make Chicken Bone Broth and sauerkraut, Get supplies for rendering lard/tallow

Tuesday: 
B: egg muffins (save leftovers for Thursday morning)
L: egg drop soup with shiitake mushrooms and green onions
D: Creamy cauliflower Meatball Soup with salad and steamed broccoli with raw butter

Food Prep: finish chicken bone broth, roast beef meat soup bones, render lard and/or tallow

Wednesday: 
B: Smoothies and fried eggs
L: Chicken 'Noodle' Soup
D: Brisket with Carrots and Onions, Side Salad

Food Prep: beef broth (with roasted meat bones and 'dog bones'), prep meat and veggies for Thursday's dinner

Thursday: 
B: leftover egg muffins
L: leftover brisket, salad
D: hamburger soup in crock pot (start AM), Side Salad

Food Prep: finish beef broth

side note: look at all those marrow bones and knuckle bones and meat bones...so rich and wonderful!! 

Friday: 
B: Smoothies and scrambled eggs
L: Pizza (cauliflower, egg, and raw cheddar cheese crust) or leftovers

D: Zucchini Noodle Chicken Spaghetti 'Casserole', Side Salad

Food Prep: Boil Chicken, Save Meat broth, De-bone chicken (meat for weekend meals)

Saturday: 
B: casserole (leftovers for Sunday breakfast)
L: baked salmon (leftovers for Sunday lunch) with salad and veggies
D: Chicken Rosemary Soup (leftovers and any other leftovers for dinner Sunday)

Food Prep: make sure plenty of leftovers for meals Sunday, make chicken salad

Sunday: (leftovers - no cooking!)

I am listing some possibilities for sides/snacks/small meals to make - these are just in case I need more for a meal.  I won't be making all of these, but I wanted to have them listed as a quick resource for my easily distracted brain! :-)

Possible Sides: cucumber salad, beet salad, green salad, green beans in bacon grease, zucchini/yellow squash fritters in bacon grease, butternut squash bake, roasted butternut squash, carrot soup, summer squash soup, pea soup

GAPS {Stage 2 Information} and When to Move On

Now, I don't claim to be very experienced at doing GAPS intro slowly or at doing it with trying to deal with difficult issues.  We did this intro diet to reset our guts, to help clear out bad stuff, and to try and heal some digestive and skin issues with our boys.  I also wanted to do this to help my body for any kids we may have in the future - to give them a better start with health.  Hubby has allergies and asthma, and I know my gut isn't where it should be after years of eating how the government said we 'should' and also eating junk food, tons of sugar, more sugar, and even more sugar.

So when I share my thoughts on moving on stages, it is mainly from what I have learned from reading other people's journeys and our easy experience.  Just keep that in mind.

Never in my life did I feel so excited about egg yolks as I did after a couple days on Stage 1!  We decided to move into Stage 2 pretty quickly.  We were all feeling pretty decent and felt like it was time to move on.  So we added 1 egg yolk in 1 bowl of soup.  Made me so happy :-).  You can read about our Stage 2 days here. 

Here are my 'cheat sheet' notes for Stage 2 that lived (still live actually) in my kitchen.

Stage 2 Introduction

• Same as stage 1 but add: 
• FCLO (the what and why) (this brand)
• 1 raw egg yolk to soup per day, increase until 1 raw egg yolk in each bowl of soup
• When the egg yolks are tolerated well, add soft boiled egg to soup (white cooked, yolk still runny)
• Include as much animal fat as possible
• Add stews/casseroles with fresh herbs
• Probiotic food in every serving of food (sauerkraut or 24 hr yogurt)
• Introduce Ghee, starting with 1 tsp a day and increasing

Read the GAPS Dr's guide to Stage 2 here (scroll down to stage 2). 

With us, we added egg yolks in and within 3 days were putting an egg yolk in every bowl of soup we had.  I added herbs into soups on day 2 of Stage 2 (so only day 4 of the intro).  I never noticed any difficulty with herbs.  The diet says to only use fresh herbs, but I pretty much only buy parsley and cilantro fresh.  So I used my dried herbs...I figure they are boiled in soups, so they shouldn't be too bad, right?  I have heard of others doing this as well.  Some herbs make a big difference, especially cilantro!

Also, after a couple of days of egg yolks, I added in hard boiled eggs.  I never got around to trying soft boiled eggs (yolk runny).  I liked the idea but just never got around to it.

I will do another post soon with a few recipes for Stage 2 (casseroles and 'stews').  But really, it is fairly simple to move into this stage just by adding the above things and increasing the amounts.  Adding ghee is exciting, too, and is a way to get more fat into people and add a little new taste to soups.  This also provides to ability to mix some honey in with ghee for a 'snack' for energy and fat!


So how do you know when to move on? 
This is going to sound so annoying...if you like easy formulas for answers (I do!).

1. Listen to your body and your instinct and...
2. Pray! 

You will probably need to go through Intro more slowly if you are trying to heal severe digestive issues or food intolerance.  Read here from the GAPS Dr about the introduction diet and going through intro.

But really, I think the biggest key is seeking God for wisdom and peace about how to pace through this thing.  The only thing I have read (that I remember clearly) in the GAPS book about when NOT to move to a new stage is if you are having diarrhea.  You should wait till that clears to move on.

Here are some tidbits of thoughts and what I have heard from others about this process... 

• Even if you only do each stage of introduction for a short time (even just 1 day), it WILL help heal you!  So truly you can move through intro pretty quickly (a week if you do 1 day per stage) if you aren't dealing with really huge issues.  And that is assuming everything that is introduced is tolerated well.  Remember that if you are dealing with severe digestive issues or food intolerance, it will take longer.  
• You could just make a plan and go through it.  You could do 1 day on stage 1, 2 days on stage 2, 3 days on stage 3, and so on.  Sounds fun, huh?!  That is random, but my point is that you can move through it at a pace that is comfortable to you with whatever issues you are healing from and how it best works for your family!  You can ALWAYS go back and do intro again and at a slower pace.  You can always pause on a stage or go backwards a stage if you feel you went through it too fast.  Don't feel like you have to do it 'perfectly'.  There is no 'standard' way to do it!  Each person is different, and with this lifestyle and diet, you must figure out what works!  That sounds hard, and it can be.  But true healing takes work and time.  And it's worth it.  
• Healing foods - broth, egg yolk, probiotic/fermented foods - can cause BIG reactions of die off!  This can seem like intolerance or that you 'weren't ready' for a new food.  That doesn't mean you are doing something wrong, moving forward too quickly, or should move back.  I have read over and over that sometimes you just have to push through those kinds of things.  HOWEVER, you also must be wise and back off on certain foods or the amounts of foods if reactions are something you or a child cannot handle.  Move slowly if needed! 
• If your kids are refusing to eat or feeling awful because of die-off and not eating, it's okay to just move forward and methodically introduce things.  Again, you can always go backwards and re-do a stage!  I have read of people giving kids fresh juices or cooked apple to keep blood sugar up and slow the die-off process down.  At the same time, when problems like Candida overgrowth are determined, parents often have to fight through this and not give their child any fruit.  Again, seek God for wisdom and ask people for help and wisdom in a GAPS community! 
• Read through Dr Natasha's FAQ's here!  There is a wealth of information here that could help you dramatically!

I am in no way an expert on this.  Please do your own research, seek help, read others' experiences that are dealing with the specific thing you are dealing with, and seek the Lord for wisdom.  But I wanted to share my thoughts, and I also want to encourage anyone that this is doable.  Even if you have no 'problems', going through something like this heals things you didn't even know you had wrong with you and just makes your gut and therefore immune system stronger.  It can also truly free you from food addictions (sugar, anyone?!).

I will share Stage 2 recipes next!

Meal Plan! Week 5 {Plan It - Don't Panic}

I am loving doing this.  It is helping so much with my peace of mind, preparation, and order during the week.  I also plan on starting to do monthly planning starting in November, so having these weeks of plans on the blog will make it much easier to organize a big plan like that.  I am sad about one thing, though...haven't been able to get to the farmer's market in more than 2 weeks, so I'm missing my usual great big stash of veggies like this...sigh...

First, update on last week - last week I made a huge plan that involved a lot of work early on in the week because sweet hubby and I were going out of town for the weekend.  It actually went well!  I accomplished almost everything on my lists, although a few things were a day or two later than planned.  But we had plenty of food left for the weekend to where there was no cooking needed, and we even have had leftovers through today!  So yay!  It was worth it and I am going to try and start doing a crockpot meal once or twice a week that is not the meal of the day - that way I can save it for the weekend when I want to be doing more with family, doing projects around the house or outside, seeing friends and family away from the house, and just having more time of rest.

So here's the week's plan!  I have a recipe that wasn't made last week because we had plenty of food, so that's at least 1 meal I didn't have to think about :-).

Monday: We had leftover breakfast and food for both lunch and dinner!  Yay!

Breakfasts for the week: scrambled or fried eggs, bacon, breakfast sausage, smoothies, veggie soups (below) to drink

Lunches for the week:   Chicken Salad (chicken, cucumber, tomato with salad dressing - italian one with salt instead of parmesan cheese), leftovers, pizza (sub raw cheddar cheese for mozzarella), egg flower soup, veggie soups (below) and yogurt

Dinners for the week: 
Tuesday:
*Meatball Soup
     On Side: Salad, Mashed Cauliflower

Wednesday: 
Pork Loin and Butternut Squash Stew
     On Side: Steamed Broccoli

Thursday: 
*Taco Soup 
     On Side: Avocados

Friday:

Baked Salmon
     On Side: cucumber salad, butternut squash 'fries'


Saturday: 
Salmon Patties and maybe stir fry cabbage (sub some ingredients for GAPS) (lunch) and Roasted Chicken (dinner - Already cooked and in the freezer) with...On Side: Carrot Soup, Green beans in Bacon Grease

Sunday:
*Chicken Enchilada Soup (in crock pot)
     On Side: Avocados

Non-Meal Soups to make to go with meals and lunches: 
Carrot Soup
*Pea Soup
More Summer Squash Soup


Some of these recipes (ones with '*' next to it) are going to be 'made up' or adapted recipes, and I will share their success later in the week.  I think it's also hilarious how every week I plan our meals, the blog post looks totally different.  It varies with what is going on in life at the time of the post and what our week is looking like.  Fun, huh?  Well, that was random and uninteresting.  More random: time to go outside with the family and plant some seeds in the garden!  Yay!