Made up Meatloaf

As part of the headmistress job at Ingram School, I must ensure that all students and faculty members eat healthy meals and snacks.  Believe me, that's no easy job!  We eat three meals a day plus two snacks here at home.  Allen eats lunch at school, but it's usually leftovers from dinner the night before, so technically I am responsible for 35 breakfasts, 35 lunches, 35 dinners, and various snacks every single week.  We strive to be healthy and eat right and teach our kids about proper nutrition, but just like everything else, there are times where we fail.  February seems to be the time of year where we really get back on track.  We've made it through Thanksgiving, Ruby's birthday, Christmas, New Year's, and Rachel's birthday.  We're all pretty tired of junk food at this point!
One thing I've learned after having three kids is that even thought kids need to make choices, mealtimes are simply easier when there is no choice.  We've got a pretty standard rule that you get what you get, so don't pitch a fit!  The more I offer them choices, the more confused they get.  Rachel gets stressed out because she's afraid she'll make the wrong choice.  Ford gets offended that you would offer him something that he would never eat.  Ruby thinks you're giving her a list of everything she's going to get.  So.....I just stopped offering choices!  Yesterday on our shopping craziness I let each of them pick something they would like for a snack this week, so they know that at some point they'll get a choice they made.  That's good enough for me (and them).
Allen and I have decided to stick to the 4 hour body plan from now until Spring Break which means we are basically eating lean meat and vegetables with one day off a week.  The kids get a little tired of not having a pretzel here and there or a piece of fruit or some yogurt, so they don't always eat the same things we do except at dinnertime.  We pretty much eat eggs with some sort of vegetable and/or meat in the morning and I let the kids have a day or two each week where they can eat cereal or oatmeal instead even though I'm not crazy about the amount of sugar in that stuff.  At lunch, they eat a peanut butter sandwich (no jelly) or chicken nuggets and some fruit.  Snack time in the morning is usually a yogurt or a fruit and in the afternoon they get the good stuff they picked (rice cakes, pretzels, and chex mix were there choices this week).  They love reading the Bernstain Bear book about junk food and are quick to point out if they know something is not good for them.  They giggle a little bit like it's something wild and crazy they're doing to eat that stuff!!
I say all this to tell you that meal planning is hard and eating all of your meals at home is hard.  When you don't eat processed foods, there is a lot more prep work and a lot more clean up and those are hard things to do with three little kids around and a kitchen that is walled off from the play room and living room.  Don't forget our house is on the market, so I can't fix anything that will stink up the house (made that mistake already once with collard greens in the crock pot!).  When you put all of that together, I quite frankly just get tired of thinking about eating sometimes!
So, tonight, I'm making something up for dinner.  We can have meat, but we can't really have meatloaf (no bread crumbs or carbs or anything to stick it all together).  Here's a rough recipe of what I threw together if you're interested:
2 pounds of grass-fed ground beef
2 green peppers chopped up very small
1 onion diced very small
1 can of black beans, drained and rinsed
a few shakes of Worcestershire Sauce
some more shakes of Soy Sauce
I stirred all of that together and tried to smush the black beans up a little bit
Then I lined a casserole dish with a little a few squirts of ketchup so that the meat wouldn't stick
I smushed the whole thing down into the dish and put 5 slices of bacon on top
I'm going to cook it at 400 degrees for 30-40 minutes and take it out when it's done (pretty scientific!)

We'll have a little salad on the side and call it a meal!