Monday
- leftover chocolate banana cake; peaches; milk
- tuna salad; cucumbers
- “spaghetti” and meat sauce w/garden squash, peppers, & tomatoes; green beans
Tuesday
- leftover bacon, egg, and cheese muffins; oranges
- burgers; green beans; potatoes**
- sticky chicken & veggies in slow cooker
Wednesday
- crock pot peach crisp using windfalls? and milk
- leftover chicken & veggies
- burgers, kimchi, green beans from garden; pumpkin muffins
Thursday
- leftover peach crisp; milk
- hot dogs; kimchi; apples
- turkey hash with butternut squash, japanese turnips, & sweet onions
Friday
- bacon & eggs; fruit; milk
- pb & j sandwiches
- liver and…?? green beans? pumpkin muffins?
Saturday & Sunday
- leftover something – just me
We made these Chocolate Chip Cookie Brownies today. The bottom cookie part was okay although I would definitely reduce the honey if I make it again. I added salt and used homemade chocolate chips for the bottom part. I added salt and vanilla to the top part, but since I was out of chocolate chips I added an extra 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder and 2 tablespoons melted butter. The result was…weird. And way too dry. I added an egg, even though it didn’t call for one. Still too dry but I wasn’t sure what to expect, so I just quit there. I spread the bottom layer in a 9″x13″ pan as specified in the recipe but the resulting layer was so thin that I scooped it all out and put it in an 8″x8″ pan. Then I patted the too-dry brownie part into a thin disc and laid it over the bottom cookie part. I cooked it in the Sun Oven, thinking that the moistness would be retained better that way and maybe the brownie part would magically turn into actual brownies. Nope. I think it needed an extra egg or maybe some yogurt or something. Not sure if she left out some ingredients or if it really makes that much of a difference to melt chocolate chips into the batter – but without eggs, I can’t imagine how it would hold together. *shrug* I don’t really care, though. I won’t use that brownie recipe again. Maybe the cookie part. Maybe.
It will be pumpkin season soon so I’m trying to use up all the pumpkin I have left in the freezer. New pumpkin muffin recipe is on the agenda for this week. I’d like to start using more coconut flour recipes to take the place of some almond flour recipes. Almond flour is making up way too much of my budget!
Last week was crazy. This week will be crazy. Next week will be crazy. I haven’t been doing a good job of checking my menu the night before to do any necessary prepwork and it really hurt me last week. I’ve got to do better this week.
Garden news: Volunteer squash growing out of our compost pile are actually starting to set fruit! We are so excited!! We’ve had 3 spaghetti squash that grew from another volunteer plant earlier in the summer so hopefully we’ll get something big enough to harvest from these new plants before a killing frost. It looks like we’ve got a butternut, something round and pumpkin-like, and possibly a banana squash in the works. Yay! And our second planting of cucumbers has survived and is producing now. Our first set of plants was decimated but cutworms so this is also very exciting. :) Green beans and peppers are doing ok, tomatoes need to hurry up and RIPEN ALREADY, and we harvest a very small volunteer melon. It is about the size of a softball and about that heavy, too. We’ll see if it’s any good later this week! Our blackberry plant is sending up new shoots close to the mother plants, peaches are dropping, and apples are done for the year. Not a bad year for as little time as we’ve put into gardening. I would like to plant some lettuce, arugula, and radishes soon but other than that I think we’ll just focus on watering and harvesting.
We were only able to get a 1/4 beef this year. As I packed it into the freezer, I thought about how quickly we’ll go through it. :/ I definitely need to source bones and organ meats because we got barely any this time. Luckily I had gotten all the trimmings last time to I was able to render about 1 gallon of beef tallow and that should get us through this year with no problem.
I’ve got lots of topics I’d love to write about soon but I’ve also got four new choral pieces to learn this week so I’d better wait until I’ve got that finished. I would really love to address the blogs & comments I’ve seen on the web in the past year dissing GAPS because it didn’t work for some people. Too many people who have only a passing knowledge of the diet are talking about it like they are experts. Bugs the crap out of me. Really.
**Potatoes are not GAPS-legal. Check this link for a list of acceptable foods.
gapsdiary 