Day 24 - Stage 2 of Intro - Getting it All Together

Yesterday I tried to get ahead by cooking 5 pounds of carrots and about 10-15 zucchini, as well as a whole two pounds of freshly snapped green beans.  This was after breakfast and lunch were over.  To my amazement, it was only enough to make the casserole for our dinner and the pureed vegetables for our 2 year old's dinner.  Most of the meat had been cooked on Saturday, but we still had to boil two more chickens to have enough for breakfast today.

We only had one quart size container of cooked carrots to serve for breakfast today, so we cooked a bag of frozen peas when the carrots were gone because the kids were still hungry.  There were no tantrums about not wanting to eat what was served.  In fact, there was much discussion about how yummy it is to have chicken, broth, and vegetables for breakfast.

This is quite remarkable, especially when you consider 2 things:  The first thing to consider is that I used to serve rice, a meat and a veggie (about 1 pound) for dinner almost every night to a family of 7 (6 and a baby) and we would always have veggies leftover, but rarely any rice or meat.  The second thing is that we used to have crying and tantrums almost every night from our 5 year old over the 1/8th of a cup of veggies that we required her to eat.  She is the one who threw screaming fits during the first weeks of GAPS.

My brain is having a hard time adjusting to this new reality.  Five of us consumed about 2 pounds of veggies at breakfast time.  We cooked another 25 pounds (???) of veggies for lunch, snack, dinner, and to have leftovers.  We put 3 quart size containers into the refridgerator for tomorrow.  I suspect that will get us through breakfast, lunch, and snacks.  Oh, and we have some leftover casserole, which is almost enough for dinner, but not quite.  So...2 pounds + 25 pounds + 3 pound (???) = 30 pounds for 2 days worth of meals = 15 pounds of veggies a day???  Are we really eating this much???

Oooo, I almost forgot!  Our two year old ate a few cooked green beans yesterday.  Today he ate about 25 green beans during dinner time.  Finger food!!!  Not pureed!!!  This is truly exciting!

So I am forming a plan:  There is no room in my gigantic refridgerator to thaw out frozen meat and store all of the fresh and cooked veggies (I am not joking!) so I can maybe thaw out the meat in a cooler with some ice (I don't care for this idea too much) or I can purchase, cook, cut and store the meat all in one day, or two days.  Actually, the beef, pork and lamb from the farmers are purchased frozen, but the ducks and chickens purchased from Whole Foods or Kroger are purchased fresh.  If I purchased all of the meat on Saturday morning, then I could cook the birds on Saturday, package and label for distribution throughout the week.  We could eat the duck meat on Sundays.  Mondays we could cook the other meats, as they should be sufficiently thawed, and package and label for distribution throughout the week.  Tuesdays and Thursdays we could cut and cook the fresh veggies, package and label for distribution throughout the week.  Wednesdays we could puree, package and label the veggies for the 2 year old, the baby (who is about ready to start solid food), and for sauces to pour over casseroles.  This could work...It might help us to rotate the foods we eat a little better, too, so we don't develop any additional sensitivities by having any particular food too often.  That is a concern.

Today went well.  Our 11 year old and 5 year old still seemed to be having some die-off reaction, but were better than yesterday.  The 8 year old and I had some ghee today, but we decided that the others should wait another day.  Hopefully they will be better tomorrow.  They will enjoy the new flavor.  It went lovely on the casserole.

WHAT WE ATE TODAY:

Fiji water with lemon

kraut juice

chicken broth

carrots

peas

chicken soup (broth, chicken, green beans, carrots, zucchini, sea salt)

blended squash with broth and chicken pate for the 2 year old

leftover hamburger soup

leftover beef casserole

hard boiled egg whites

pork casserole (pork, green beans, squash and carrots, rendered beef fat, sea salt, squash and carrot blend, more beef fat drizzled on top and sprinkled with sea salt)

I will have my usual fried egg whites and will nibble on the chicken as I pick the meat off of the bones for tomorrow.  It is a nice late night snack!  I am full, satisfied, and holding steady on my weight!  WooHoo!  AND I feel great!