Imagining Better Homemaking

I'm trying to ease into no plastic/more Nourishing Traditions habits of homemaking.  It is a sea change for me pretty much.  I live in a convenience oriented, carry out world when it comes to cooking.  It amazes me how much plastic I take for granted every single day.  Try being conscious of the plastic in your life from the moment you wake up until the moment you go to sleep.  You can't even do it, it is so ubiquitous.

The only way I'm going to improve things is by perseverance and baby steps.  This is gonna take time!

I've come up with a 3 week menu plan to help me.  My biggest changes are to make bread instead of buying it.   I am asking for this bread machine for Christmas.  The other thing is instead of buying canned soup, I'm going to get in the habit of making some once a week.  I need to get non plastic containers to store my stock in, though.  That's the first thing.  I figure I'm in the experimental phase right now.  Trying to figure out how to accomplish this.  I'm trying different bread recipes and exploring different recipes for soups.  When the new year comes in I'll implement fully, God willing.

3 Week Dinner Plan:
Sunday:  Rick gets to pick dinner - he's pretty predictable though - he likes hamburgers, hot dogs, steak, roasts and seafood.
Monday (Chicken)  Week 1:  Roast Chicken, Week 2:  Chicken Parmesan, Week 3:  Breaded Chicken breasts (from NT cookbook)
Tuesday (ground beef)  Week 1:  spaghetti; Week 2: meatloaf; Week 3:  chili
Wednesday (soup) Week 1: potato cheese soup;  Week 2:  some variation of chicken soup; Week 3:  Chowder of some sort
Thursday - pizza night - sometimes carryout; sometimes homemade
Friday (meatless) Week 1:  fish;  Week 2:  Mac and Cheese;  Week 3:  omelets
Saturdays - this is kind of a free for all:  leftovers or carry out or some recipe I feel like trying out.

I know I have to plan at least two easy dinner nights - Thursday pizza night and Saturday's free for all, just because I know I'll burn out if I try to cook every single night.  I just don't have that much Suzie Homemaker in me!

The big changes will be:
making bread
making my own stock and making soup weekly

For breakfasts:
Sunday -bacon or sausage, eggs, pancakes, waffles or french toast
Monday - oatmeal (gotta soak it per NT - another habit to get into!)
Tuesday - smoothies (made with homemade yogurt per NT - this intimidates me!)
Wednesday - eggs and toast
Thursday - oatmeal again
Friday - smoothies again
Saturday - bagels

Lunches:
Sunday - we usually have a big breakfast and an earlier dinner so lunch is kind of dig around the fridge and eat leftovers or make yourself a sandwich.  We usually still have some bagels left so some one usually has that for lunch.
Monday - Dunkin' Donuts - they only use paper for the most part in their carry out.
Tuesday - left overs/sandwiches
Wednesday - leftovers/sandwiches
Thursday - quesadillas (I want Rick to make me a tortilla press and learn how to make them from scratch.  I understand this isn't that hard if you have a press.)
Friday - leftovers/sandwiches
Saturday - leftovers/sandwiches

The lunch menu seems pretty uninspired, doesn't it?

Because of these changes I have this long Christmas list of things I want!

1.  New really nice bread maker
2.  French Press coffee maker (I hate my plastic one)
3.  An enamel dutch oven
4.  A hand blender (our old one broke about a year ago)
5.  A Tortilla press (I hope Rick makes me one!)

Sean and I are going to get into cheese making.   Sean's into this whole anti-plastic Nourishing Traditions things right along with me.  He's been going grocery shopping with me a lot.  And he loves cheese.  He's very dismayed at the fact that all cheese is covered in shrink wrap, so we've decided to learn how to make our own via the New England Cheese Making Co.  We plan to get the starter kit.  Again, this will happen after the Holidays.  Too overwhelming to start it now.