Pancakes for Lunch!

I have always had such a hard time with changing my eating habits. I normally do breakfast really well, but lunch always trips me up. Pretty much it revolved around my need for a soda. If I would eat something healthy, a soda wouldn't "taste right" with it. So, I would go back to normal junk because with it, soda tasted oh, so good. Well, I have not had a soda in over 4 days! I can hardly believe it! The best thing for me is when I came down for lunch today, having a soda didn't even cross my mind. Wow! That's a huge change in just 3 weeks.

Today I decided to try out a recipe I saw on Pinterest for pancakes. If you want to see other meals I plan on having throughout the week, check out my Meals for This Week board. I also try to review them after I make them and repin them to here. This has made my life so much easier in planning meals. I don't know how many times I've bought groceries and then forgot what they were for. So, now they're conveniently located in one spot. And let's be honest, who really plans meals outside of Pinterest now anyway. Well, at least I don't!

Ok, back to the oatmeal. The original recipe is here, but I'll copy it so you don't have to link all over the place. I was a little, ok, very hesitant over this recipe at first because it has cottage cheese in it. I do not like cottage cheese, at all! But, this whole journey of eating better is being willing to try new things, and besides, the lady from the original post didn't like cottage cheese either and she liked the pancakes, so I thought it was worth a try.

Protein Pancakes

Ingredients

• 1 egg
• 2 egg whites
• 1 cup low-fat cottage cheese
• 2/3 cup rolled oats
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• pinch of salt

Instructions

1. Preheat griddle to medium-high heat
2. In a small bowl, lightly beat together the egg and egg whites and then add to a blender
3. Add the remaining ingredients to the blender and blend until smooth
4. Spray griddle with non-stick spray
5. Pour pancakes from blender onto griddle, about 1/4 cup per pancake
6. When bubbles start to come through, flip over and continue cooking until both sides are golden brown
7. Serve with pure maple syrup and fresh fruit

Notes

This made eight 3 – 4″ pancakes.

I used 100% whole wheat oats I had on hand. I'll have to research and see how much better steel cut and/or organic ones are before I decide to switch over. As stated before, I did not buy organic cottage cheese and so used the Fiber One brand. I am ashamed to admit that I did not read the label. That's one thing I'll have to get better at!

Well, the pancakes were really good! Austin, my oh so picky almost 16 year old even liked them. Well, he said they were good but tasted funny. I don't understand how something can be good and taste funny, but at least he said they were good. The batter was very thick, so next time I might try to add a little water. Not too much, but it would help it pour a little better. I had mine with my cheap organic milk. I topped them off with real maple syrup, blueberries and bananas. All in all, it was a fantastic lunch and they are packed with protein, so I think my husband is going to love them as well! It looks like they are going to end up costing about $1.65 for 8 pancakes. I was paying $1.45 for 10 frozen waffles, so not too big of a difference for a huge health impact!

Newbie tips:
1. Don't be afraid to try new things, especially if they're used in a recipe. You may not even end up knowing it's in there!
2. Look for ways to add berries to your diet. They are so good for you! I reluctantly added blueberries to this, since they're not my favorite. However, mixed with the bananas, they tasted amazing with the pancakes!
3. Watch your children with the real maple syrup! It is expensive and you don't want to have to rinse a bunch down the drain because they're so used to their pancakes floating in syrup (again, not that I know from experience :) A little bit will go a long way!

Organic Milk on a Budget

My kids drink a ton of milk. Well, two of them do, so we go through about 3-4 gallons of milk a week. My oldest will come into the kitchen and just want a drink, pour himself a tall glass of milk and just chug it down. Ugh! I could not imagine doing that. Don't get me wrong, I like milk...with a big piece of chocolate cake or a handful of chocolate chip cookies. Uh, Oh! I'm not sure how much milk I will be drinking in the future :)

So, in trying to move to clean eating, I checked into organic milk. I could not believe it was over $6 a gallon at Meijer, my local grocery store. That would be an extra $40-$50 a month for milk. Yeah, there's no way we can afford that. So, after doing some research about how bad the hormones and things that are in milk are for girls, my husband and I decided to buy organic milk only for Jazlyn, our daugher.

Then I read more about milk here. Towards the end of her post, she talks a bit about 2% & skim milk and how they may not be great choices, even worse than I thought! Then I remembered a conversation I had with a close friend, Brooke. She's frugal like me :) You can check out her Frugal Friday blog posts here. Anyway, she read a book where a mom bought whole milk, poured half in a separate jug and added half water to both to make skim milk. Ah, you probably see where I'm going with this! So, I thought, why not buy organic whole milk, add a little water and make it 2%. It should taste like their normal 2% they like without having the processing done to it to get it that way.

When I went to Earth Fare yesterday, I decided to check out their organic milk. Imagine my surprise when it was only $5.48 a gallon! That was cheaper than Meijer & Walmart! So I bought one gallon, poured half of it (2 quarts) into another gallon I had on hand. I then added about 1 1/2 quarts of water to each gallon and presto! 2% milk. My husband and I both tasted it and felt it tasted extremely close to what we were buying in the past.

So, I buy 2 gallons of organic whole milk to get almost 3 gallons of 2%. That's only $3.65 a gallon which is less than a dollar more than what we were paying for our old milk! So, an extra $12-$15 a month for my kids to be so much healthier. Totally worth it!

Newbie tips:
1. Be sure to save your old milk gallons so you have something to pour the new gallons into. Just rinse with very hot water when they're empty!
2. Invest in an inexpensive funnel to keep in your kitchen. This will help the entire process go so much easier and keep milk from getting all over the counter (not that I know from experience or anything).
3. You can freeze milk! So, if you're like me and are not going to be making weekly trips to the Health Food store, then buy enough milk for several weeks and freeze the extra!

Earth Fare!

Today, I went to my very first Health Food store. My husband and I braved Earth Fare. Since it's a Saturday and they had something special going on, it was pretty crowded. I wish I would have made my first experience at a little less crazy time, but that's ok. We just braved the crowd :)

The good news is that I found a lot of great stuff that really wasn't that expensive. The bad news is that I found a lot of great stuff that was terribly expensive! So, I really am going to see what all stores are available in my area and see what are the best deals at each store. Then I'll have to rotate where I shop each week and stock up on what the best deals are at each store.

So, the big question, what did I get? Well, I really wanted to take a picture, but got home and washed all my fruit and vegetables and put everything away before I remembered. So, you'll just have to be happy with a list.

Unsweetened Almond Milk, Organic Applesauce, Organic crakers, citrus soda (ok, this was a Bob Marley brand that my husband just HAD to try), Organic peanut butter, Gallon of Organic Whole Milk, Frozen Berries, Organic Strawberry Jam, 2 Jars of Organic Salsa, Organic cookies, 3 Lemon Yogurts, Whole Organic Chicken, Bunch of Organic Bananas, 2 containers of Organic Blueberries & a Container of Grapes.

Wow, that's a lot of stuff! And guess how much I paid for everything? Drum roll please....$31.64! Can you believe it? Ok, so I have to confess that this is probably a once in a lifetime thing. You see, when you sign up for their Tomato Bank program, they give you 1,000 points which is $10 off. They also send you a coupon for a free whole chicken and to get five of their organic products for $1. That was the peanut butter, strawberry jam, applesauce, cookies and crackers. I honestly would not buy the cookies and crackers again. I wasn't that impressed with their ingredients, while certainly better that what I used to buy!

All in all, it was a great stop and I got some great things. It's always easier once the first shopping trip is behind you! There were a couple of things that I felt were pretty pricey and so didn't buy while I was there. First was organic apples. They were a little over $7 a bag and I knew Walmart had organic apples. So I decided to check out the price on them there since we had to return something anyway. I was glad I waited when I found out they were only $5 a bag there. I also waited on cottage cheese, big mistake! No organic cottage cheese at Walmart, so I had to buy normal and it was only about $1 cheaper than the organic at Earth Fare.

So, for you newbies, like me, here are some tips:
1. Grab the small book of coupons that are in a basket by the front door. I saved 75 cents on my frozen berries.
2. Bring you own bag! You get Tomato Bank points if you do!
3. Still read labels! There were some yogurts that had a ton of sugar in them!