Day 2 Down

Day two of paleo down, and here were our meals today:

Breakfast: Eggs and fried apples. These apples were delicious!

Lunch: Leftover pot roast with potatoes

Dinner: Skipped, but dd had some cheese with an apple. I made paleo friendly apple cinnamon muffins using a can of applesauce from a prior food pantry haul.


So far dd is good. I expect more issues to start in the coming days as she weans off sugar though. Right now she still has sugar in small amounts as I work to eliminate it.

Food Pantry Haul and Day 1 of Paleo for All

Because of my increasing joint pain & health issues from eating conventional food, we decided to move up the start date for going Paleo to Saturday 11-19. DD wasn't entirely willing, but agreed after seeing how badly I was hurting from eating wheat.

Our day started off early, as we had registered for a Thanksgiving box from Hope and had to go pick it up early. It was an smaller box than usual - I think they had people show up who weren't registered and were trying to stretch the items a bit farther. But overall it was an okay box - 1 12lb turkey, a bag of instant potatoes, 6 oranges, 2 cans of green beans, 2 cans of cream of chicken soup, a loaf of bread and 2 small bottles of soda. The soda, bread and soup will all be traded as we can't eat them now on paleo. But I'm very happy to get the turkey, as that makes 2-3 meals plus turkey bone broth. Also I have noticed that a lot of the items I've been getting lately from the food pantry are Deseret Industries brand AKA LDS Church. I like them as they seem to be better quality than some of the other brands.

Here was our meal plan for Saturday:

Breakfast: DD had an apple {tossed in the bag as we left} and we both shared hardboiled eggs

Snack: DD had another apple {she loves apples} and I had a few dates to tide me over until we got home from errands

Late Lunch: Leftover potato soup {I did put canned milk in this, but I am allowing milk for DD and occasionally for me}

Dinner: Beef roast done in the crockpot until fork tender, served with mashed potatoes and green beans {from the morning's box}

All good, all paleo, and all delicious!

Revamping and reviving this blog, Starting November 25

I haven't been posting here much, and with a decent reason - I haven't been doing as many pantry hauls lately! But, as usual our finances have taken a nose-dive so I'm back in line at the pantry. BUT now with an added bit that will make pantry visits even more interesting. Starting in August I went Paleo with tweaks. I've known for years that I had a problem with grains - eat too much of them and I felt like crud, my pain levels skyrocketed and I turn hangry constantly. My doctor has been suggesting for years that I try cutting out wheat, but I couldn't see doing it with our budget. In August I had a bit extra come in so I tried it - and WOW. Within 2 weeks 80% of my joint problems disappeared. The brain fog left. The constantly being hungry left. And my mood issues improved. I went off it for October, and bam issues back. So 99% sure paleo is the way to go for me. Now, I debated just me doing paleo, but decided for my daughter to do it as well because 1. She already is showing early signs of the same issues as I have, 2. She is a carb addict, and with our native ancestry that is a recipe for things like diabetes and 3. I hope to teach her a healthier more traditional way of eating.

So - Starting Black Friday 2016, this house is going paleo, which means this blog is as well. Now I do tweak a bit - I allow white potatoes {I'm allergic to sweet potatoes}, and the occasional white rice meal. We don't do as much meat as recommended either because gosh darn it meat is expensive! And I'll allow DD dairy as well since she is growing and I feel needs the calcium for bones {I would allow it for myself as well but I don't tolerate it well}.

Now - what will that mean for pantry visits? Quite a bit actually. In looking at what we get in any given pantry trip, anywhere from 50% to 90% of the items we get will no longer be allowed on this new diet. So - depending on what the items are, they will either turn into chicken feed {gotta love Chickens!} or be passed to other families that can use them. I have a list of some pantries that give out produce more often, and we will attempt to go there more. Also I will try to go to more client choice type pantries where I can best choose things we can eat.

Food Pantry Hauls for the week of 5/1

Two pantry hauls to post up! I've been having trouble with my internet access lately {need to take my modem to sprint to have them diagnose it}, so I'm combining these hauls into a single post.

Haul #1 was from Downtown. I can go there every 60 days {and yes they do make sure it is at least 60 days}. I had to go there for help with a utility bill, so picked up food while I was there. Mostly this bag sucked - a lot of things we were allergic to. But I did get:

16oz Bacon {kiddo will eat}
1 can of Chicken Soup
1 can of Green Beans
1 bag of crushed oreos


Haul #2 was from a place I don't know the name of. My neighbor came over and asked if I wanted to go with them as a church was giving out food. Of COURSE I said yes! It was a very disorganized mess, and I still am not sure that the lady giving out understood that we had two families in the same truck. But I got:

1 Banana box full of ripe Bananas - these went to the freezer to make banana bread, and the peels went to the compost
1 box of Roma Tomatoes - not sure what to do with these honestly
2 cases of Strawberry Fanta - SO thrilled to get strawberry as my daughter can drink it.
2 packages of cookies
4 packages of Bagels
6 Loaves of Bread
13 half gallons of Organic Fat Free Milk {all but one went to the freezer}

Update on the Make Do Mansion...

You may have noticed the lack of the food pantry haul this weekend - it's not late. I woke Saturday morning in pain, and quickly decided that while  I could have {in theory} made the food pantry, doing so wouldn't have been practical at all given my pain status and the weather report. Since we had enough to coast on from previous weeks, I decided to spend my limited energy doing other errands we needed to get done that day.

So for the past several days, I've been working on the chicken coop and garden. So far this week I have accomplished:

• Planting seed potatoes in our tire potato planters. They are a bit late, but we'll see how they do. Our other potatoes planted earlier in the year from compost are doing wonderfully with all the rain we've had. 
• Weedeating{in lieu of mowing since we don't own a mower} the back yard, in prep for gardening and for snake prevention
• Sprayed roundup that I found in the shed along the fence into the alley, in hopes of killing the tall weeds growing there {it hasn't worked yet}
• Drawing up plans for the eventual backyard garden to homestead conversion. I now have a clear outline of what goes where and what we need to get. 
• Decided to rip out the overgrown hedge in front of our home, to be replaced with either a medicinal plant area or possibly a berry hedge.
• Researched other crops to add to our urban homestead, including aquaponics {turned out to be too warm here for that}, rabbits {I want & great meat option, but dd refuses to eat}, and pygmy goats {still thinking on this one}. 
• Created a budget for the coop project, as well as a list of materials needed.
• Worked out how to cover most of the cost of Hardware cloth for the coop thanks to trading in a few things on Amazon, and how to cover most of the cost of Chicken wire for the run thanks to a Lowes gift card from Shopkick. 
• Sold a ton of excess fabric from my fabric stash {that honestly I was never going to use}, which will go to fund the replacement windows due to the recent hail storm. 
• Worked out a budget that will {hopefully} get us fully caught up on the property taxes by September or so. 

Food Pantry End of Week Report 4/22

Here is what we did with the items we received from the food pantry this week. 

Sunday: Ate one of the Torta rolls. Meals have been off today due to me being sick thanks to the milk

Monday: Yogurt for breakfast. Discovered the Torta rolls molded over night. We are getting to that part of summer where I can't leave bread items out on the counter or they mold very quickly. Daughter had a can of Steak and potato soup last night for dinner. 

Tuesday: Discovered the remainder of the banana bread pieces had molded as well. Daughter had yogurt for breakfast.

Wednesday: Used some of the milk I traded for to make Mac & Cheese. I drank one grape fanta to try to settle my stomach. Daughter drank 4 or 5 of the small orange juices. 

Thursday: Daughter had a yogurt for breakfast. She is tiring of them so I need to figure out how to use them up. Had one package out of the case of Nestle Delightfuls - they make excellent rewards for math problems. I ate the can of green beans for lunch with leftover chicken {from the chicken thighs from a previous trip}. Daughter ate two more of the burritos {previous trip}.

Friday: Fries from the bags, served along with hamburgers {non-pantry item}. 


Traded the items marked with * to another family for a gallon of milk. I also added 2 heads of the cabbage to that bag. 

The rest of the cabbage got chopped up and put into the compost. When I began to look at it, there was quite a bit of decay on the leaves so I deemed it not edible. 

All of the chocolate milks ended up being sour. They were 3 days past their date, and they just don't keep well. I am assuming the white milk will be sour as well as well since it was the same dates. I ended up drinking part of a chocolate one before I realized it was sour {I don't drink milk often} and it ended up making me sick. So I am instituting a new rule when it comes to milk / milk products from the food pantry. IF it's milk, and it is out of date, unless it obviously has been frozen {one pantry I go to does this}, it goes straight to the trash. It is not worth risking my health over. 

Unfortunately I see spoilage being a big problem the further we go into summer. Temperatures here often are 100+ in summer, and things like milk, bread and produce simply won't keep at those temps. Plus I have up to an hour on the bus to get items home as well. Add in that often the Food bank items get warmed in transport, and it's a recipe for spoilage. I probably will ease back on the weekend pantry trips in summer and focus more on pantries that give out shelf stable items. 

Food Pantry Haul 4/16

It's Saturday, so that means Pantry haul day. Today was Hope's turn again. Hope does a pre-made box so there is no refusing items unfortunately. Sorry for this post being a bit rushed but I'm exhausted and a storm is coming in so I need to sleep now so I can be up in the night to watch for leaks.

Here is what I got today. As usual items with a * will be passed on to another family as we can't use them due to allergies. Items with a # are headed to my compost bin as they were unusable produce.

6 heads of cabbage - I have NO idea what we will do with that much honestly. We don't even like cabbage, but I'm going to try cooking it and see if maybe I can find a way we like it. Otherwise it will go into the compost.
*3 boxes of Raisin Bran Crunch - Daughter is allergic to both raisins and oats, so 3 boxes is way more than we can use. 2 boxes will go into the trade bag
*4 bags of Cheez-it's Crunched Spicy flavor
12 ct  Torta Sandwich Rolls - super excited about these!
*2 boxes 5ct Plum Organics Baby multi-grain cereal
1 case of Skinny Cow Chocolate Bars
1 case of Nestle Delightfuls Cherry filled chocolate chips
1 can of green beans
* 1 can of cream style corn
* 1 can of Meatless spaghetti sauce
7 slices of individually wrapped cake - I think this is either Banana, Zucchini or Cinnamon
1 case {24 bottles} of Grape Fanta soda
# 4 heads of broccoli - all had flowered and showed signs of mold.
6 quarts of half and half - again, no idea what I'll do with it. Maybe try making homemade butter again, or get rennet and make homemade cheese
8 apples
# 1 bag of kale - this was usuable, but we really really really don't care for kale.
24 Yoplait whips yogurts in Vanilla Cupcake flavor
16 4oz Orange Juices in school type cartons
5 8oz white milks in school cartons
7 8oz chocolate milks in school cartons
3 4lb pags of french fries, frozen. - SUPER excited about these. Fries are something I make a lot, as they are quick and easy. I was running out and going to have to buy more, but now I don't!