In the spirit of Category #1, I'm trying to clean out our freezer and pantry and see what items we have in excess. I knew from the beginning one thing was pasta. We eat a lot of spaghetti because it is so easy to cook (and Taylor LOVES it), but we usually buy the ingredients all together, yet don't use all of the noodles. This left us with several partially used boxes of noodles.
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| I think half of these haven't even been opened. |
It wasn't very sauce-y, so I'm not sure what to do for that. Some recipes mentioned corn starch or tomato paste to thicken it up, but neither of those are 7 approved for me.
Overall, I thought it tasted pretty awesome, even though I am NOT a cook!
Monday:
We had a Lunch and Learn at work where lunch was provided (thus the need for Category #2). I did drink tea (which was provided) without thinking about it. I really only intended to drink water through this month. I know there's a lesson about not thinking about the little things that I'm still working through. Hopefully it'll hit me before this month is over!
For dinner Adam cooked some fish we had in our freezer from back in December when I was on a diet. It wasn't very good, so we didn't ever eat the rest of it. But, that's the point of me having category #1, eating the stuff I've bought even if I don't like it. So, Adam cooked the fish and fresh veggies from the farmers' market on Monday night and it was pretty good.
Tuesday:
I fixed spaghetti with the sauce I made on Sunday. I did buy some spaghetti sauce from the store for Adam and Taylor because 1) it didn't make very much and 2) I wasn't sure how good it was going to be. I did add in some left over veggies from Monday night to both sauces. Taylor ate the store bought kind and, of course, loved it. She even ate the veggies! Next time, I plan to get a lot more tomatoes, so I make enough for all 3 of us. I did make enough this time that I ate it for lunch and dinner on Wednesday too. Um, no spaghetti next week.
Wednesday:
While talking with one of my friends about her 7 foods, she asked if I thought she had to eat plain oatmeal (I told her NO!), but realized I have some plain oatmeal (from the December diet) in my pantry that I ate one packet from and hated it, so I didn't eat anymore. Oh, Holy Spirit, why must you convict me? I didn't plan on eating oatmeal for breakfast this month, but after that realization, I will be. When I checked my pantry, I also had a "lower sugar" box of oatmeal that I didn't like either (and says "best before JANUARY 2011" Geez!). I mixed a packet from each together and added a little bit of brown sugar and cinnamon to it. It wasn't bad, but if I run out of brown sugar, I'm not so sure! But, I will be eating it...
Thursday:
We had a staff meeting and breakfast was provided. I did remember to drink water this time and stayed away from the juice I usually let myself splurge on during these monthly meetings.
There was a little bit of spaghetti left over that I planned to eat for lunch, but Adam grabbed it out of the fridge that morning for his lunch. I hadn't made myself anything the night before, so I was left with eating an apple and Greek yogurt for lunch. Thankfully, God provided lunch for me through leftovers from another meetings' catered lunch. Thank you Jesus!
Friday:
More oatmeal for breakfast. Again, it wasn't that bad. I realized this morning that I could buy the plain oatmeal and brown sugar, which is probably cheaper and better for me, than the packets. Another reason why I decided I needed Category #1, even though it wasn't exactly like Jen did.
I finally got some more bread from the farmers' market on Thursday (it is sooo good!), so I'm having a sandwich today for lunch with chicken with had left from Thursday's dinner.
Weekend:
We're heading to Adam's parents for Easter, so all my food will be provided. I'm still going to try to stick to my foods of chicken, fresh veggies, and water as much as possible though.
Random:
1) I've learned Taylor likes raw spinich as long as she can dip it in a little bit of dressing!
2) Have I mentioned how awesome my job is!? Our fridge is stocked with soft drinks and there's always a bowl of chocolate sitting out, along with a snack drawer filled with cookies and crackers. I asked my Council, since all of that is technically "provided", should it fall under category #2? One of the ladies emailed back and had the courage to tell me, since you're asking the question, I think the Spirit has convicted you that no, you shouldn't eat that. She's right. The intention of #2 was for things like meals provided at work and weekends like this, where we're with family providing meals. I didn't want to answer questions about why I wasn't eating or need to request a certain menu at family events.
3) One more thing I must admit, we do have some ice cream in our freezer, which I felt the need to eat and get rid of. Oh, Holy Spirit, thank you for convicting me! :) In all seriousness, that was an impulse purchase, that would have only had a couple of servings eaten out of, but for a lunch with friends where we pulled out the ice cream for dessert. This, to me, is excess. Impulse purchases will happen, but I need to learn to be aware of them. If I have food budget to blow, I can think of a lot better ways to spend left over food money, like feeding the hungry. I have a LONG way to go in this area. (We do have one more container of ice cream that I won't be eating, but I will let Taylor eat this month as dessert.)
While this is definitely not as difficult as only eating 7 foods as my Council is doing, I am learning a lot about myself and my eating habits. I'm also learning how to meal plan, which I hope can save us a lot of money in our food budget!
Happy Easter!
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