Two weeks in..

Today's day 15 of the farm challenge.
So far, so good. I still haven't bought any food, and we're still not starving.

I got a lot of goodies at Gleaner's Pantry this past weekend -- I need to write a post about how the GIleaner's Pantry works. Some of my friends think that I'm eating food from a dumpster. Others think that I'm stealing food from the mouths of hungry old ladies. The truth is somewhere in between. No old ladies are being starved. And the food is yummy.

So, this week, we got mushrooms, broccoli, cauliflower, apples, bananas, a couple of onions, a few tomatoes, a cabbage and some oranges and Cuties from Gleaners.
And we've been eating simple, quick meals at home, because we're busy with feeding baby goats four times a day, and milking twice a day, and real life and homeschooling in between.
So, oatmeal or eggs for breakfast.
Leftovers, fruit, tuna fish on greens for lunch. Dinner's been chilaquiles, a chicken enchilada casserole, bean soup. One night we had Bibimbap, which is just a stir-fry over rice with meat and a fried egg on top. That was pretty tasty.
Random thoughts so far:

• Trading is where it's going to be. I swear, I have all sorts of cool trades coming up that I couldn't even imagine. I'll save those stories for another post, though.
• More greens, less meat. More rice, less ingredients. That's the only way we're going to get through with my teenager.
• I need to bake more, even though I don't want to and don't have a lot of time. Bean soup is OK by itself, but it's great with a piece of fresh-baked GF bread. If I want everyone to eat well and enjoy this, I either need to bake bread, or I need to farm out the task to my kids --  and it's not a bad skill for them to have. My oldest will be 15 this summer and has celiac, so GF bread-making is something he can take to college with him.
• I'm tired of cooking, already. I'm tired of making three meals a day and never being able to order take-out or go out for dinner. And we're only two weeks into it.
• I miss cheese. A lot. And I miss gluten-free crackers. Those were my comfort foods. And we're out of both. I know I can make goat cheese. But I want something with no effort. That's the entire point of comfort food, right?
• I'm grateful for sugar and ice cream and eggs and milk. Having a goat makes a HUGE difference. It will be amazing to have milk and cheese and something to trade with all summer. (Not that I'd ever trade goat's milk, because that would be illegal. So I never would.)
• I'd love something fancy, like Thai food. Peasant food is where it's at if you're going to be cheap and filling. But I'd love a piece of grilled fish, or sushi, instead of blobby, casserole-y, soupy food. And I know that means that I need to make something like that. But I don't have the servants to do it.
• I amazed at how easy this is, truly. The hardest part is staying out of the grocery stores, purely from habit. Twice I've been out and almost stopped by the store to get "a couple of things" and had to stop myself.

This week I'm going to make some meals ahead. That way I might not have to cook so much, and I might get some more creativity going. We'll see.