Menu Planning Monday

Time for another Menu Planning Monday! I am really enjoying doing this and it really keeps me on track during the week.

So, I am going to be working at changing our diets a little. For those of you who do not know Bennett had eczema when he was just a little thing (4-5 months old). He was still solely nursing so we decided to keep him nursing for a few more months and try to take things in & out of my diet to see what might be causing it. After a few weeks of trying 1-2 things and having his eczema get worse & worse I decided to just go cold turkey on everything that might be affecting him. So...instead of telling you what I couldn't eat...how bought what I could. Rice, Fruits (except citrus), Vegi's, Turkey & Chicken. Yeah...it was a fun 2-3 months let me tell you.

Now...the plus side of this was I did lose ALL (plus some) of the weight gained during my pregnancy.

Long story short, the eczema cleared up, I added everything back and nothing seems to be bothering Bennett now. Weird! But since adding everything back I have also added back about 10 lbs! My naturopath also mentioned that if I wanted to stay on that diet permanently (adding back Eggs) that would be fine with her. While I do not plan to go back on the diet completely I do thing we would all be much healthier if we tried to cut out as much diary & wheat products as we can.

With that said for snacks I am going to make sure to have lots of fresh fruits and vegi's on hand. I also plan to start picking up rice crackers again (excellent with a little sunflower butter). We will stop getting pretzels and try to cut out loaves of bread (we've been going through at least 2 loaves a week plus all the bagels & english muffins, etc...it is crazy how much bread we eat). We have also been drinking WAY too much juice instead of water. No more juice for us!

I pulled out two cookbooks this morning that I plan on trying to pull our recipes from.

I've also been scanning the blogs of others that have already posted their menu's looking for more healthy recipes. Wish us luck!

Tuesday - Pasta & Meatballs

Wednesday - Pioneer Women's Pot Roast (hat tip to Sarah at Sarah's Musings for this recipe...LOVE IT!!)

Thursday - Pizza night (WW Pizza crust with lots of vegi's)

Friday - Flank Steak Sandwichs and Tomato Soup (Thanks to Simple Mom for the Soup idea!)

Saturday - Breakfast for Dinner (I'm thinking a Quiche - This one from Broad Horizons sounds yummy, and it's crustless!!)

Sunday - Baked Potato Soup (Thanks to Margaret's Musings for the recipe idea)

Monday - Shepard's Pie (Thanks to Passionate Homemaking for the recipe)

And I definitely want to try this Baked Oatmeal dish (hat tip to A Day in The Life for the recipe)for breakfast one of the mornings this week. It sounds fab!

I am also going to try out these crackers posted at The Nourishing Gourmet. They sound great and I have to agree...store bought crackers are so expensive but my kids love them! She also recommends a book, Nourishing Traditions that I think I will try to get a copy from at the library to check out. Might be worth getting.

For all of our recipes I do lots of substitutions. I usually substitute any milk called for with Rice Milk. I also substitute vegi broth for a meat broth. I also substitute sweetners and use honey or maple syrup for sugar and I usually 1/2 the sweetner called for. A friend of mine also suggested substituting tofu for cheese in baked recipes like Quiche. I think I might try it.

I WON, I WON (I forgot to post)!

It was just brought to my attention that I totally forgot to post the blog I wrote about the giveaways that I won during the carnival that Rocks in My Dryer put on back during the last week of January/1st week of February.

Wow!!! What a great carnival! I can't wait for the next one. I had over 100 entries myself and I didn't put up my giveaway until midweek! Pretty good. I will definitely partake in that again.

I entered at least 100 of the giveaways offered and I won two of them!

The first was a $100 gift card from Amazon.com at PediaScribe! OMG...can you just see me dancing around the room. I plan to get some stainless steel sippy's for the boys and maybe a few books for me. Thanks to Karen over at PediaScribe for picking me! Check out her blog. It is pretty cool!

Update: I already did order my items from Amazon and got the following:

2 Klean Kanteen Stainless Steel Sippy's.

I also ordered The Keeper. This will hopefully cut back on our grocery bills slightly and will also save on trash. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle is my motto!! I have a few friends who use the Keeper or the Diva Cup and really like them, so I decided to give them a go! Check both The Keeper and The Diva Cup out.

And lastly I was able to order two titles I have been wanting to pick up.

Both excellent titles that I cannot wait to sit down and read.

I also won a cool t-shirt from bkindwear.com. This giveaway was from Elaine at Blog in My Eye.

This is the t-shirt that I picked for Aiden. It is just too cute!! I'll be sure to post a picture of him in it as soon as it arrives!

Thank you to everyone who posted a giveaway. I had so much fun browsing all the sites and even subscribed to a few (10-12) dozen blogs. As if my inbox is not already full enough! Make sure if you didn't check out the Carnival this time you check it out next time...I think in March or April.

I WON, I WON!!

My blogging career has been pretty short lived so far. I've only been hanging out with all the other momma's on the blogosphere for a few months now but I have to say there are some AMAZING give a ways. I've got a few subscriptions to some excellent blogs (like 5 Minutes for Mom...one of my favorites!!) that keep you posted on the give a ways going on.

I entered one of the give a ways on a blog called Little Piddles last week and I WON!! Her give a way was for one of her necklaces. I picked out the Classical Mommy Necklace.

Isn't it LOVELY! I am so excited! I can't to get it. Jennifer is also offering a special right now. 15% off all orders until March 31 if you use the coupon code MOMMYNECKLACE during checkout. I get a one disc necklace for winning so I needed a second dish for my second son so I will definitely be taking advantage of the coupon!

Thanks Jennifer for a great give a way!!