Showing posts with label low-income. Show all posts
Showing posts with label low-income. Show all posts

Christmas is Coming!

A friend pointed out today that there are 107 more days til Christmas. One of my daughter's friends has had "put up the Christmas tree" fever for a couple of weeks already.

Our family is having a consumerism-free Christmas this year. The initial conversation with my daughters was that we wouldn't exchange gifts, but rather just focus on spending the day together playing games and visiting and eating.

My son and I, however, have decided that we're going to make/repurpose gifts. We've been poking through items/supplies at the thrift shop and figuring out what to make with them. So far, we've come up with - well, I suppose I can't tell you in case family members read this post!

What I can tell you, however, is that we have spent a total of $1.20 on items that we are repurposing into 3 adorable gifts for my grandbabies, $4.00 on an item that will just require sandpaper and paint to make a beautiful gift for my granddaughter's first birthday, and less than $2.00 on items that will be repurposed into 3 other gifts.

It's such a feel-good to do creative things together! Then there's the added feel-good of doing less harm to our planet. And it's fun!

Low-Income Nutrition

Some of the most common meals in our home this summer have been:

-a big bowl of hummus with cucumbers, carrots, and rice crackers/corn tortilla chips
-potato patties with salmon or basa filets and vegetables
-fishcakes (Chef loves making these, and usually does up 9 for each of us!) with salad and fresh fruit slices
-chicken/cucumber mix on lettuce wraps with fried potatoes
-salmon or basa filets with mashed potatoes and vegetables
-salad rolls with soup
-rice fusilli with tomato/carrot sauce and herbs
-vegetarian chili
-homemade soup with rice crackers
-various "everything in 'em" salads

Breakfasts
-fresh fruit, boiled egg, rice cake with jelly
-cornmeal on its own or with spice toppings and/or fruit
-cold cereal with homemade almond milk
-breakfast smoothie
-rice cracker mini pancakes

Our most common snacks are leftovers, air-popped popcorn, fresh fruit, and sometimes tortilla chips. Occasionally we make gfcf brownies, gfcf cookies, or potato candy.

I usually purchase blueberry juice and tomato juice as well.

We enjoy cooking, and almost everything we eat is homemade. We employ a gluten-free, casein-free diet, but we rarely buy any packaged gfcf products.

For some of our recipes, feel free to visit: http://www.findthesimplefoods.blogspot.com