October Unprocessed and this weeks menu.

Carrie over at Ginger Lemon Girl is joining in the October Unprocessed challenge and committing to at least one unprocessed meal a day. The challenge originates from Eating Rules who defined unprocessed as
"Unprocessed food is any food that could be made by a person with reasonable skill in a home kitchen with readily available, whole-food ingredients."

Which doesn't mean you have to make everything from scratch but that everything you do eat should be possible to make in a home kitchen so no weird chemistry lab ingredients. So I will still buy things like sausage and pasta which I can make but can't be bothered when others can do it better for me!

The original challenge is to eat unprocessed for the whole month, now we don't eat that many processed foods anyway but I'm still not sure I can do none at all for a month or at least I'm not sure my boys would want to however committing to one meal a day seems very possible so that's what I'm going to do as well as taking a good look at what we all eat and if we can cut back on the bad and increase the good.

The other thing I want to concentrate on is different, quick, easy and not to brain taxing things for breakfast. I'm trying to stay away from the pre-made bread I still have a stash of as much as possible and currently cereal isn't appealing but I need something I can make with little enough effort I get round to it before lunch time ! Any suggestions very welcome.

So onto the menu for the week.  This weeks Gluten free menu swap is hosted by Celiacs in the House who has chosen brussels sprouts. These veg get a very split reaction in our house, some of us love them, others hate them. I sit rather in the middle, I don't hate them but I don't go out of my way to get them either. My attempts at growing them failed due to me not getting round to planting the baby plants out.. oh well next year ! We haven't had any in the veg box as yet either so any dishes involving them will have to wait a bit I'm afraid.

Monday - by special request fish and chips ie battered fish and chips, chipshop style, very much made from scratch.

Tuesday - Butternut squash risotto.

Wednesday - Sausage and mash with onion gravy, a good old British classic. The sausages are bought in but made with basic ingredients.

Thursday - pasta bake

Friday  - Braised Lamb shoulder, served with green veg and oven roast root veg.

Baking - cheese biscuits, some muffins for breakfast and lunch boxes
Processing - lots of free apples !  Apple butter, apple jelly (using the few crab apples from our tree and some cookers), dried apple rings and apple beer.