Survival Mode – Low Waste Meals

I’m back from leg surgery and it went well! I’ve never had surgery (other than wisdom teeth removal), and it was more difficult/exhausting than I expected. However, my nurse was AMAZING and very sweetly held my hand for the more uncomfortable/painful parts of the procedure (the numbing meds didn’t work on part of my leg- whew!) and I am so grateful for her.

All that to say, we are definitely in survival mode this week and I want to share how we’re keeping it low waste and low budget. I’ll share a meal plan, grocery costs, and a couple meal prepping things I did to prepare.

The biggest difference in the flow of our week is that I’ll be on the couch for most of it, taking 15 minutes to walk around every couple hours. I’m normally baking bread, making yogurt, bone broth, oat milk, a couple baked goods and dinners that require 30 mins of standing time. That sounds like a lot, but I break it into 15 minutes here and there and get my 3 and 4 year old involved. They knead dough, measure ingredients, stir, etc and that makes it easier/ part of our weekly rhythm. We love creating in the kitchen together and having a connection to our food. And the kids learn so much in the process (measuring math, gross and fine motor skills, team work, sensory connection, nutrition).

All of this allows us to get raw ingredients for a fraction of the cost and much less packaging. So how do we do it when that’s not possible? A little more packaging, a little more money, and a low waste veg box delivered to our door. I spent $161 this week (our norm is around $135). I’ve put the USDA food plans below – it allows you to see the average cost of groceries for US individuals and families and which spending category you fall into. We’re in the lowest category “thrifty” which is $588/month. Sometimes it’s less than that because it needs to be and shopping low waste helps us get there!

Ok, here’s the meal plan!

Breakfasts: Eggs and oranges. Oatmeal with bananas, peanut butter, chia seeds and honey. Yogurt (made in the instant pot), fruit, chia seeds.

Snacks: Apples or bananas and peanut butter (glass jar 50% off via Misfits Market), pumpkin seeds (bulk store), zucchini muffins (weekend prep), popcorn (bulk store)

Lunches: Leftovers. Raw veggies to round out if need be.

Dinners:

1. Roasted whole chicken + roasted potatoes, beets, green beans + salad (made on Sunday before surgery/ while husband watched kids).
2. Box mac n cheese with leftover chicken stirred in + broccoli (probably raw, unless I have energy to roast it).
3. Pasta with meat sauce + simple salad (box pasta, glass jar sauce, beef).
4. Tuna salad over lettuce with carrot sticks (tuna in aluminum can, mayo in glass jar 60% off via Misfits Market)
5. South Western “Quiche” (dump 1 C salsa into skillet, pour scrambled eggs on top, bake) and veggies.
6. Crockpot butternut squash and red lentil curry (cubed squash, 1.5 C lentils, mirepoix cube (see below), 2 garlics, 5 t garam masala, 5 C bone broth. cook low 8hrs).
7. Pancake Night.

Let’s talk prep! If you have a larger budget, you could definitely bypass some of this (buy yogurt in glass, shop a local bakery for bread and muffins and bring your own bag, etc). I took 1.5 hours this weekend to do some low waste meal prep. These are the things that I’d normally do throughout the week in 15 minutes segments, but had to be delegated to the weekend. I popped the whole chicken into the oven to roast for an hour and a half, put on some music, and got cooking. I prefer my more peacefully paced cooking during the week, but it was also fun to have some time to myself and prep nutritious food!

1. Roast Chicken – some for Sunday, leftovers for another day.
2. Bone Broth – chicken carcass into the crockpot with veggie scraps, cooked overnight on low.
3. Mirepoix – onion, carrots, and TONS of celery from our veggie box. I knew we couldn’t eat it all this week, so i sautéd it up and froze it in these 1 C cubes.
4. Instant Pot Yogurt – milk from a glass bottle and some yogurt I froze from last time.
5. Zuchinni Muffins – zuchinni from veg box, oat flour from bulk store, eggs in paper cartons, sugar in a paper bag, oil in glass jar, spices from bulk store.
6. Roasted Pumpkin Seeds – my kids would eat them raw too, but the oven was going already so I roasted and salted them.

I think that’s everything! Feel free to ask questions in the comments below or share some of your favorite, easy low waste meals. And now, I’m going to take a nap!