Slow Cooker Green Beans, Sausage, & Potatoes (Meal Plan)

When planning our Abundant Harvest haul for this week, I noticed some really great deals in their add-ons! The one I was most excited about was 6 heads of lettuce for just $10! Then and there, I decided that we would challenge ourselves to a full week of salads. Every night I wanted to eat a salad, prepared a different way. It sounded like great fun, and would help me achieve my goal blood sugar numbers. (As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, I've been diagnosed with gestational diabetes.) I then chose all the rest of my add-ons around what would go great with salad. 

Unfortunately, just before pick-up day, it was brought to my attention that the lettuce was being refunded, as it was too late in the harvest season to accommodate the orders. WAH! That certainly threw my entire planning off course, but here is what I received:

Fruit -

1 small Cantalope
12 Figs
8 white peaches

Vegetables -
1 Celery bunch
1 Lettuce head
1 radish bunch
2 pattypan (1 small yellow, 1 large white)
4 sweet corn cobs
2 large orange tomatoes
3 large green tomatoes
6 small red tomatoes
5 small yukon potatoes
1 bunch chives
1 bunch shallots
2 green bell peppers
3 red onions (1 is bigger than a softball!)
1 large bunch Sorrel

Herbs -
1 bunch Catnip
1 bunch mint

Meat/Dairy -
2 lb hamhocks
12 oz precooked/nitrate free Italian sausage
2-3 boneless skinless chicken breasts
12 oz pork breakfast sausage links
1/2 gallon raw whole milk
2qt raw milk Kefir
1 dozen eggs

There are many of these things that we still have to use, but we went through a good bit for our meals this week. 

I am sad to say that more things than I’d like to admit from LAST week, ended up getting thrown out. We just didn’t come up with uses quick enough, and we were dealing with a very cluttered fridge where things were overlooked! Live and learn!

Here is what I DID make happen this week:

Tuesday

Tuna Salad 

made with with lettuce, sorrel, celery, carrot, tomato, chives, radish, cranberry, walnut, parmesan cheese and balsamic vinegarette, tuna, sliced mozzarella stick

Wednesday 

Lemon pepper tilapia, mashed potatoes, frozen mixed vegetable medley

Thursday

Tomato Basil Chicken, quinoa 

My friend Taylor's homemade blueberry pie

Friday

cheat day 

(fast food burger…let’s not talk about it)

Saturday

For breakfast we made an amazing medley of farm fresh goods that was better than anything I’d eaten. Fresh eggs (look at the color of those yolks!), sausage, and Yukon gold potatoes.

Saturday Dinner

Slow Cooker Green Beans, Sausage & Potatoes 

(see recipe below!)

Sunday

Taco Salad

with lettuce, sorrel, onion, tomatoes, radish, seasoned ground beef, 

black olives, taco sauce, sour cream, shredded Cheddar cheese and tortilla chips.

 (this one messed up my numbers because it was SO good, I couldn't resist a second serving!)

Monday

leftover taco salad

Tuesday 

Bacon Bratwurst Bites, sautéed squash with garlic, macaroni and cheese

Overall my eating habits have changed a lot since being diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes. I don’t snack all day (the way anyone normal at 8 month preggers wants to!) and I actually read nutrition labels! 

Almost everyday my lunch was a tuna sandwich or salad of some sort. I never grabbed for any frozen convenience food. I didn’t have any soda, and only one sugar-free Starbucks coffee. 

Best of all, I am practicing something I have always struggled with - portion control! My biggest problem aera now is the after dinner desserts! I’m not beating myself up too hard, but it certainly is cheating. It’s hard when my husband has such a sweet tooth though, and is always baking something.

Now on to a new recipe for you all!!

This was actually the second time we made this. The first time was about a week ago. I was out with a friend when a crazy craving struck me over the head and I HAD to have it! 

I immediately texted my husband and asked him to throw a bunch of random ingredients into the crock pot. I just started listing off stuff I knew we had, and crossed my fingers they actually went together. My friend and I were a few hours out, and it was ready with perfect timing once we came back.  Needless to say, it was so good, we did it again this week!

Slow Cooked Sausage, Green Beans & Potatoes

Ingredients:

2 large fistfuls fresh Green beans

2 large red potatoes

half white onion (chopped)

2 tablespoons dried sage (chopped)

1 ½ teaspoons dried thyme

1 teaspoon dried Rosemary

3 Italian sausage links (also great with Kielbasa!) 

2 small cans mushrooms

1 can Cream of Chicken and Mushroom

1 ½ cups water

1.Rinse green beans and potatoes. Cut off the ends of green beans, and then chop to desired size. Dice potatoes. Add to crock pot with can of cream of chicken and mushroom and water.

2. Add seasoning and mushrooms

3. Slice sausage and add to crock pot.

4. Turn crackpot on high, and let simmer for about 3-4 hours or until beans and potatoes are tender.

Full Plate Thursday

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Tomato Basil Chicken (Meal Plan)

So while I’m sure you all are waiting with bated breath for Lynda’s weekly meal plan, I’m almost sorry to say I’m taking it over this week! At first I thought it would be fun, give me an excuse to try new things, but after I committed to doing so, its meaning took a bit of a turn.

I am currently 30 weeks pregnant and discovered last week that I have developed Gestational Diabetes.

What this means, along with pricking my own finger four times a day to check blood sugar, is a pretty strict diet. I will likely post more entries discussing it further, but for now we will just stick to what I ate this week as most was planned out before knowing I had extreme guidelines I need to follow.

I live in the middle of the Mojave Desert, forty miles from the closest town. We have one grocery store (the Commissary) available with slim pickins’ for produce and meat. I recently discovered an organic food co-op in the nearest town from us that is a collection of different farms in the area. You can get produce, meat, dairy, and other goodies for less than what we would pay in store and much better quality! The decision to make the switch was obvious!

This past week we received our first big haul!  This is what we got:

Lettuce
Onion (1 lb Red sping, 1 lb white spring)
Oregano
Basil (Italian - 1 bunch)
4 Pickling Cucumbers
Mediterranean Cucumbers (1 lb)
Red Potatoes
Seasonal Fruit (red plums/nectarines)
Summer Squash (over 3lb variety mix, zucchini, yellow)
5 Ears of Sweet Corn
3 large Tomatoes
Watermelon (2 little stripy ones)
Leeks (1 bunch)
Nopales- cactus leaf (1 lb - 8 paddles)
Jalapeños (1 lb)

Hot Dogs (6 Organic Beef/Pork. no casing)
Ground Beef (2 lb 85% Lean & 15% Fat-100% grass fed and finished-frozen)
Chicken Breast (2 boneless, skinless)

Raw Whole Milk (1 gallon)
Cream Cheese (7 oz Made from organic pasteurized, cultured milk & cream,sea salt. No gums, fillers,or stabilizers)

We have not used all of this, or probably even half, but the wonderful thing that we haven’t been used to with store-bought  produce is that it's still good!  Typically, our commissary produces starts to go bad even before we've gotten it home, making it very hard to choose to eat fresh foods over processed - the co-op produce is so much fresher!

We pick up our co-op groceries on Tuesdays, so I'm going Wednesday to Wednesday on planning. Here is how my first week looked:

Wednesday -
Chicken Salad - chicken, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, Parmesan cheese, balsamic vinaigrette.
Watermelon slides
(We did not use the farm fresh chicken as we already had store-bought thawed. It was great, easy, and summery!

Thursday -  

Pasta with Parmesan, Chicken and Zucchini
This was an amazing dish prepared by good friends (and fellow RCH writers!) Jessica and Matthew at one of our game nights. (Recipe will be added soon!)

Friday -
Hamburgers
(farm fresh grass-fed beef!, lettuce, tomato, red onion)
Corn on the Cob

Saturday -
Chicken Burritos
(shredded chicken, taco seasoning, tomato, onion, black olives, sour cream, tortilla)
Refried Beans

Delicious blueberry pie for dessert made by my good friend, Taylor!

Sunday -  
Pan-seared Tilapia (with lemon and pepper)
Sautéed zucchini and Nopales  
Peanut butter cookies for dessert because my husband is an evil tempting man (my next morning sugar levels weren't too great, thanks to those…)

The Nopales cactus leaves (prickly pear) were odd. We only used two, so still many more to use. They had a sour taste I didn't care for too much.

Monday -
Cheat day (flat crispy crust pizza, veggie only)

Tuesday -
Tomato Basil Chicken
Egg Noodles
Broiled summer squash (patty pan, green, yellow, onion with olive oil and parmesan cheese)

For this we used the farm fresh chicken and it was an entirely different experience than store bought!  Here's the recipe for this one:

Tomato Basil Chicken

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (thawed)

Salt and Pepper to taste

2 tbsp Olive Oil

1 large Tomato diced (about 2 cups)

1 handful (about ½ cup) chopped fresh basil

2 cloves minced fresh garlic

4 tbsp butter

Season the chicken with salt and pepper on both sides.

Heat the olive oil in a pan (while waiting, I prepped all other sides like heating the water for noodles or chopping vegetables)

Once heated, add chicken. Cook for about 5 minutes on either side.

When almost done with second side, add tomato. After about 30 seconds, add fresh basil, butter, garlic and more salt and pepper.

Stir sauce to mix around and turn down heat once chicken is thoroughly cooked.

If you plan on slicing chicken as opposed to serving whole, remove from pan and let sit for a minute to not lose all the juice. This also gives sauce a chance to thicken a bit.

This is amazing served over egg noodles with the sauce poured over top! Enjoy!

We also served ours with a medley of summer squashes (patty pan, green, yellow) and red onion, roasted in the oven, drizzled with olive oil and a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese.

Is there any vegetable that doesn't taste great when roasted??

If you have any ideas on how to use some of the produce I mentioned, I’d appreciate the suggestions!  This is a very new way of food preparation and eating for me, and I am happy for any advice I can get.

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