Our menu for the last two weeks

My daughter Makena is holding 1 month old Starlette so I can type while the sour dough bread is baking in the oven.

I have just a few minutes, and I thought it might be fun to give you our menu for the last two weeks.

We do not have refrigeration and the only canned goods we buy are tuna, mushrooms, and sweet corn. Living without refrigeration, baking with fire, and cooking every meal from scratch is time consuming, but it is healthy and worth the effort. Here are some ideas of meals we make here on The Shire.

Breakfast usually is home made sour dough so my day starts with one question, 'Am I baking tomorrow?' If so I must prepare my sour dough for the next day and ask Johnny to make sure we have enough firewood available.

With that in mind, I will skip our breakfast details since it usually consists of one of these things, sour dough, raisin bread, Sweet potatoes, bananas and peanut butter, home made oatmeal, boiled eggs, or buttermilk biscuits (scones). Toppings for those items are usually real butter, home made jam from local ladies, honey, or natural peanut butter (no sugar). We drink weak chai or decaf coffee using fresh milk from our cow.

Snacks are fresh fruits, raw veggies, or peanuts. My kids LOVE raw cabbage, raw carrots, broccoli, bananas, passion fruits, pineapple, avocados, tree tomatoes, papaya, watermelons, honeydew, kiwi, pomegranate, mangoes, apples, and grapes.

Meals we have cooked in the last two weeks:

1. Chicken pot pie (no cans, no store bought pastries, no frozen veggies. Every thing is fresh!)
2. Tuna Sandwiches (using fresh home made bread and natural yogurt instead of mayonnaise, as well as farm fresh boiled eggs)
3. Chili dogs (Johnny makes awesome chili starting with boiling and peeling 40 fresh tomatoes and using my own chili powder mix- no packets!)
4. Leftover chili-cheese-noodle casserole (home made mozzarella cheese from our cow's milk)
5. Hamburgers (again, home made buns, home made mayonnaise, home made pickles, etc... Plus a trip to town to grab the meat because we don't have a fridge. The good news is cows in Kenya are all grass fed and graze around even in town!)
6. Burritos (home made tortillas [I had help with these!], and boiled pinto beans blended with spices, plus guacamole and salsa) We use natural yogurt instead of sour cream, plus we have amazing avocados in Kenya!
7. Veggie soup and biscuits (this was made of all the odd veggies we had around: aborigine, bell pepper, carrots, etc...)
8. Kale and ugali
9. Grilled local Lamb and veggies
10. Rabbit stew (our own rabbits stewed with peas, carrots, green bananas (plantains), onions, in a creamy sauce
11. Leftover rabbit stew. It was fine sitting overnight. (You'd be surprised how things keep with no fridge.)
12. Grilled chicken and veggies (3 whole chickens to feed our family!)
13. Pan cooked fish filets with potatoes au gratin
14. pancakes and home made syrup
15. Baked potato wedges and roasted garlic (let me add our potatoes come filthy! It takes a lot of work to get the skins clean, but I like leaving them on since they are good for everyone.)
16. Pizza. (Home Made sauce takes 60 tomatoes, and the crusts I put fresh herbs in from the garden!)
17. Ramen noodles and sour dough bread (that was my, 'I'm tired of cooking' day.)
18. Spaghetti and fresh garlic bread
19. Mashed potatoes and gravy
20. Pork ribs, potatoes, and sweet corn on the cob
21. Omlettes with potatoes and salsa
22. Chicken pot pie (thanks goes to those who donated my stone casserole pans!)
23. Spinach and mushroom quiche
24. chili on fresh home made buns (our version of sloppy joes)
25. Tuna sandwiches on sour dough with bean sprouts and boiled eggs
26. Roasted piglet from our farm
27. Sausage and home made sauerkraut

So these were our yummy, healthy meals here at a Future and a Hope. I hope they give you some ideas of what you can cook for your family, too!