Top 30 THM Dinners

For my Mom!

Staying on plan with THM can be tricky for me. Typically my family will eat THM meals that I make but often they prefer our normal foods. The hardest part though is not wanting to try a new recipe and have it come out awful. Fortunately I've found a good stash of keepers. But due to costs and difficulty level I don't always share these meals (cauliflower pizza anyone?!)

Even worse than finding yummy foods to eat is that often when dinner time rolls around my mind is blank. "Hmmm. I know I've made yummy THM foods but what were they??" 

I've found it helpful to make a list of my favorite meals and tape it to the inside of a cabinet. Without further ado here's my list. I'll be adding links and hopefully some pictures and recipes as I go.

S - Cheeseburger Pie
S - Joseph's Lavash Pizza
S - Cauliflower crust Pizza
Unstuffed Pepper Casserole
E - Arroz Con Pollo - I'll be adding my own version which has cheese
S - Mongolian Chicken with Dreamfields
E - Baked chicken with cheese, turkey bacon, bbq sauce and quinoa
E - Lentil Soup
S -Tomato Soup
S - Zuppa Toscana w/ cauliflower
E - Morey's marinated Salmon with a sweet potato
S - Beef and Broccoli
S - Pulled pork BBQ in a Joseph's pita
E - Black Bean Burger
S - Grilled Steak with Asparagus
E - Zucchini Fettucine - a family recipe!
S - Zucchini Boats
S - Fettucine Alfredo
S - Spaghetti Squash Carbonara
S - Squashagna
S - Cauliflower Au Gratin
E - Blackened Chicken with Avocado Yogurt Sauce and Quinoa
E - Butter Chicken with Rice or Quinoa
S - Spaghetti with Turkey Meatballs
S - Dreamfields mac and cheese
S - Egg Roll in a Bowl
S - Mexican Chicken Lime Soup
S or E - Chili
S - Chicken Pot Pie
S - Chicken Fried "Rice"

To keep things simple your base carbs are:
1 cup of Nature's Intent Organic Andrean Gold Quinoa (Costco has it cheaper) 33 carbs
1 cup of Trader Joe's Wild Rice 36 carbs
1/3 cup cooked Dreamfields pasta. Back in the day they said you could use this as an S. The company has changed their policy on this but I can get away with a tiny portion and still lose weight. For me that was about 2.5 cooked ounces. Enough to bulk up my meals and provide a little noodle.  YMMV.
Josephs Pitas 5 carbs
Joseph's Lavash 4 carbs in 1/2 a lavash

Trim Healthy Mama THM Cookie Dough Cheesecake Shake - FUEL PULL

There are no chocolate chips in this shake but with under 220 calories and packing a full 35 grams of protein you won't miss it! Best of all coming it at 4 net carbs and 6 grams of fat this qualifies as a fuel pull (8 or less grams of fat, 10 or less carbs).


Cookie Dough Cheesecake Shake

4 oz cottage cheese
scoop of Jay Robb chocolate whey protein powder
1/2 tsp Glucomannan
2 tsp low fat cream cheese
scant 1/4 tsp salt
scant 1/4 tsp vanilla
1 tbsp Naturemate (or other sugar substitute)
2 cups of ice

Add all ingredients except to blender as listed and blend! Add ice once to the blender once the other ingredients are well mixed. My Vitamix powers through the ice easily but with a less powerful blender you may need to add the ice slowly.

$400 Costco monthly menu

Keeping a food budget under $30 per person/per week is a challenge for some, a typical day for others, and a dream budget for the rest. After hearing how challenging it was for Gwyneth Paltrow to live off of $30 a week I set my own challenge to feed my family of 8 for $500 or less a month. 

Right now we spend about $900 a month. Which, coincidentally, is below the average Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program allotment given per person in this country. What that means is that when the amount of funds distributed for SNAP benefits is divided by the number of recipients the average amount given per person, per week is around $30 in the entire US.

In Virginia the average SNAP benefit per person, per month, was $127.75, or about $29.48 a week. That's per person. That's also an average. There are highs, with the highest benefit amount being $194 per person per month. And that is still a *supplemental* amount. Using that example if my family qualified for the highest amount available we would receive $1,169 a month as a *supplement* to our food budget. We only spend $900 of our own money as it is! Of course SNAP benefits decrease as income increases. So while the average benefit is $30/week/PP there are some receiving much less and some receiving much more.

I have compiled two meal plans. The first is a month worth of meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner + snacks) assuming the family is only shopping at Costco. Costco does accept SNAP. Yes, there is a yearly fee to Costco however Costco provides a higher quality option for foods an often items are organic (the corn or carrots, for example). No pink slime in the ground beef, thank you!

This menu repeats items but hopefully there should be enough variety. For anyone that has access to an Aldi or Wal-Mart (who doesn't!) then you can further your cost savings by switching out a few items for smaller quantities (BBQ sauce, yeast, olive oil...). Tax is not included in my price since not all states have a food tax. Virginia does, so sorry Virginians, your amount will be higher.

These meals are pretty basic, easy to prepare, kid friendly. These are not gourmet meals but will certainly feed a family well enough for a month. I have only provided 26 meals. Our family always needs a "leftovers" dinner once a week. If you are coming up short there is certainly enough pizza ingredients for another two meals, or quesadillas, or chili w/o meat.

We cannot drink milk here. Water is our mainstay. 

Costco:

Spaghetti * 4 (1# Turkey Meatballs per meal)
Pizza * 4
Chicken Fried Rice * 4 (1# Chicken per meal) (3 eggs per meal)
Soft Tacos/Avocado/Corn/Rice * 2 (1.5# Ground Beef per meal)
Salmon Burgers/Sweet Potato Fries * 2 (12 buns)
Pulled Chicken Sandwiches * 2 (12 buns) (2# Chicken per meal)
Spaghetti Mac & Cheese * 2, frozen mixed veggies
Quesadillas (Bean, Cheese, Chicken) * 2 (0.5# Chicken per meal, from Rotisserie chicken)
Black Beans & Rice * 2 (.5 sweet potato each)
Chili (Ground Beef, Kidney Beans) *2  (1.5# Ground Beef per meal)

Breakfast:
Apple Carrot Muffins * 4 (1 egg per meal)

http://groceryshrink.com/2014/03/apple-carrot-muffins.html

Oatmeal * 4 (add sugar/PB/jelly)

Banana Bread * 4 (needs 8 eggs)
http://www.hillbillyhousewife.com/easy-homemade-banana-bread.htm
Oatmeal Muffins *4 (2 eggs per meal)http://groceryshrink.com/2013/02/always-ready-oatmeal-muffins.html

Scrambed Eggs with Spinach * 4 (18 eggs per meal)

Baked Oatmeal * 4 (2 eggs per meal)http://allrecipes.com/recipe/baked-oatmeal-ii/

Sausage Biscuits *3(Using hamburger buns OR make your own from scratch) + Jones Sausage Patties

 Hard Boiled Eggs/Sausage * 2 (12 eggs per meal)

Lunches:
PB&J * 3, chips,
Grilled Cheese * 3, carrots, apple
Nuggets/Rotisserie Chicken/corn

Snacks/desserts:
Carrots, Apples, strawberry smoothie, rice, cheese/chips (w/ tortillas), any baked goods (oatmeal cookies, sugar cookies)

$7.50   10# Bag Apples
$6.50   10# Bag Carrots
$1.50   3# bananas
$10      6# frozen strawberries
$7        Organic Frozen Mixed Veggies
$6        Organic Frozen Corn
$11      10# Sweet Potatoes
$6        5 Avocados
$4        1# Spinach

$5        10# Parboiled Rice
$30      14 Loaves Bread
$8        10# Oats
$9        9# Spaghetti Pasta
$11      Chips (56 servings)
$4.60   (2) 24 pack hamburger buns
$6.6     Tortillas

$11      4# Turkey Meatballs
$15      3# Salmon Burgers
$22      6# Ground Beef
$10.70 3.5# Jones All Natural Sausage
$19.70 10# frozen chicken breasts
$10      2 Rotisserie Chicken
$20      15 dozen eggs
$12      5# American Cheese
$14      5# mozzarella
$12      5# nuggets
$16      5# Cheddar Cheese

6.60     Jelly
$10.40 Peanut Butter
$8        4# Butter
$9        Prego Pasta Sauce
$5        10# Sugar
$8        25# Flour
$8        12 cans tomato sauce (15 oz.)
$4.3     Taco Seasoning
$14      Olive Oil
$8        3 Gallons Almond Milk
$6.80   Kidney Beans
$6.80   Black Beans
$6        BBQ Sauce
$4        Yeast

$401.00