Lunch and supper are pretty interchangeable around here, because I find that the girls prefer to eat a lot at lunch and very little at dinner. So if I’m, say, roasting a chicken, I just get it going a bit earlier, because I know they’ll be hungrier for it at lunch.

Although, to be honest, since I’ve gotten pregnant I can’t roast chicken. It grosses me out. Which is so sad, because I used to roast a chicken at least once a week, more like twice. I think I’ve walked my husband through it enough times that he could probably do it without my direction- but I can’t make myself carve it even once it’s cooked. Sad. Surely after Bee comes I’ll be able to have chicken again?

Anyway, the rotation of foods we eat for lunch and dinner is pretty tight, partly because the girls like quite plain food (no sauces/casseroles/etc), partly because of our dietary restrictions (gluten free, mostly dairy free), and partly because it’s just easier to shop and cook for. 

Our most common meals revolve around a grain, a meat/bean, and a cooked vegetable. In fact, the meal that the girls most love is plain quinoa mixed with (local! grassfed!) ground beef and (the ubiquitous) green peas. There are lots of variations on this- brown rice instead of quinoa, pork sausage (again, local and grassfed- we have a great supply of local meats here) instead of ground beef, cooked carrots instead of peas. 

Our favorite grains are quinoa and brown rice. Well, I take that back. The girls would prefer to ALWAYS have quinoa. :) Our favorite meats tend to be ground beef and the pork sausage, although we do cubed chicken (from aforementioned roast chicken- also local and pastured. Awesome) and sometimes lamb. The girls like pinto and black beans best- we can get local dried black beans, which is nice. Last year we even grew some in the garden! Fun. Shelling and then drying them was endless entertainment for two wee sets of hands. It’s easy to make up vats of beans and keep them around for other things, or freeze them to use later.

Sometimes we do potatoes instead of grain- sweet potatoes, russet, yukon golds, etc. When the farmer’s market is on we like to try all the different varieties of potatoes! Last year they liked a blue one- I forget what variety it was- and the Russian Banana Fingerlings the best. The veg can be anything, really- they are extremely fond of sauteed green cabbage. Again, when the farmer’s market is running, we like to try things that are new to us. Last year they got on a rainbow chard run- that was pretty exciting for a mama! They like sauteed spinach too. Actually, Bunny especially prefers vegetables to fruit. Birdie prefers fruit to veg, but not overly so.

As for actual meals that we eat that are not variations of the above, this is pretty much the list:

• gluten free pasta (we like Tinkyada) with “meat sauce”
• corn chowder (I make up the recipe, but I’ll tell you right now, it always has bacon on top!)
• roast chicken
• chili (we almost always eat this with pumpkin muffins)
• chicken soup
• tortilla soup
• black bean soup
• miso soup with tofu and rice noodles
• a treat when we can get it- homemade chicken liver pate! We all love this but can’t get local chicken livers that often. Serve with apple slices and GF crackers, yum.

You can see the meals are pretty protein heavy- I feel ok about this for three main reasons. One, I’ve been pregnant or nursing pretty much since I’ve been married, and I feel like it’s important to have a lot of protein available for that. Two, growing kids need protein, and they don’t always get as much as I’d like if they fill their tiny bellies with just fruit, veg, and grain. I know there’s protein in that, and some kids do fine on that, but mine do not. Three, I do not buy animal protein I don’t know the source of. That’s easy for me where we live now- I honestly am not sure what I would do elsewhere. I feel like this is a really important component. Eating a bunch of locally raised, humanely treated, grass-fed animals is just totally different. We’ve been out to several of the farms where our meat is raised, and know several of the farmers who raise it. I feel safe eating it.

Another thing I do once a week is make bone broth. Essentially, this is just making chicken stock or beef stock from scratch, but with a little apple cider vinegar added in to leach the calcium out of the bones (don’t worry, you don’t taste it). I began doing it to try and heal Bunny’s system when we found out she was celiac, and have found it to be so restorative AND delicious for all of us! They say it also helps to remineralize your teeth, a bonus since Bunny has weak tooth enamel (a side effect of being celiac).

If I don’t use it up in soups, we have mugs of it as part of snack time. “Brosh” is one of the girls’ favorite things to have, and it’s full of things that are good for you. Most often I make chicken, because I always have some chicken carcasses hanging out in the freezer- beef broth is rather a more involved process, but it’s delicious. ANY stock-making process makes the house smell fabulous- I always let it cook overnight, and the girls are eager to have a mugful with their breakfast when they wake up smelling it in the morning!

Oh, this is getting long already!

Ok, stay with me for the bedtime snack action, because it’s short.

This is the time of day when I go starchy and sweet- rice pudding, sweet millet porridge, GF toast with cinnamon sugar or honey. I make the rice pudding with an egg and some maple syrup, so it’s a bit custardy- millet porridge the same way, essentially. The GF toast is much more rare- we just don’t often buy bread- but of course well loved :) I swear it helps them to sleep! Just a little bit of something warm and starchy and sweet at the end of the day, and we are all ready to tuck into our snuggly beds. It’s a good time to use up leftover rice (there’s always some hanging out in the fridge) or other grains (quinoa works here too) or try new ones- millet, amaranth, etc. It’s hard to resist an unfamiliar grain if it’s cloaked in its comforting porridge guise!

Okay, people! Lay it on me! I want to hear ideas from you. Are there some family favorites out there I am missing out on? 

Be sure to go back and read the comments on my last post, there is some great stuff there. 

And be sure to let me know if anyone wants recipes/techniques explained here, I’d be happy to oblige!

Next up- what we actually set the table with, and things we like to drink.