Our menu for Wednesday, and stuff from Yesterday.

This morning I made a very nice Peanut Butter Smoothie for the kids' breakfast from a recipe I found online.  D thought it was too peanut-buttery, and I'm inclined to agree, but M didn't complain at all.  (I used the recipe from Keeper of the Home)  They had toast with it.  One reason I went the smoothie route this morning is because my milk is just starting to think about souring.  Just enough for the boys to say "This doesn't taste right."  Nothing harmful about it, I just have to add flavoring to cover the souring.

D came home complaining about his lunch.  Apparently I gave him M's sandwich - which had strawberry jelly.  He also didn't like the dressing I put on his carrots.  (It's no different from store-bought, but I guess his Autistic taste buds taste something I don't)  As a result, didn't eat any of his lunch.  I admit  I got upset.  After all, I spend good money and work hard for my boys to have good lunches, and when they don't get eaten, I tend to take it personally.  It's a bad habit I'm trying hard to break.

When I spoke to my husband about it (he was at work.  Mistake #2 is calling him at work to complain about something.)  Jonathan ended up bringing home other things for the boys to make their own lunches.  (wish I'd known about his trip to the store, I'd have asked for yeast & baking powder)  At least that way if they complain it's their own fault and not mine.  SO.  For lunch today they're eating Ham & cheese sandwiches on organic store-bought bread, cheese sticks, applesauce or bananas, carrots and a Fruitables juice box (it's the least evil out of all of the non-organic juices).  Healthy enough, but not perfect.

I let Jonathan take the last of the leftover stew to work for lunch today.

Tonight is Pasta Primavera - it's similar to pasta Alfredo but with more veggies and no meat.  Basically, after boiling pasta with choice of veggies (put the veggies in the last 5 mins of boiling pasta), drain the water out and add about 1/2 c of Parmesan cheese, (not the garbage in the shaker, it has to be the REAL cheese that melts) a couple tablespoons of butter and a little milk or cream to make it smooth.  Salt & pepper to taste.

Not much cooking today - I'm still out of baking powder and yeast.  I'm trying to catch up on my laundry anyway! 

First time Yogurt!

Today I am finally going to try to make yogurt!  I've never done it before, but after reading waaay too many tutorials about it I think I can do it.  I'm following the recipe in NT for Raw Milk Yogurt, though it's nice to know she has given me a pasteurized milk yogurt recipe too, since I sometimes buy pasteurized milk if I'm tight on cash.

The other day we were fascinated to discover a cup of milk my husband left out on the counter.  Instead of turning lumpy and stinking it was just....gelled!  It didn't even smell bad, just a bit sour.  Very cool!  Last week I was able to get 3 gallons of milk instead of just two - it's nice to know I don't have this 'bad-milk' date in the back of my mind.  If it sours I'll just use it for something else.  Nice!

Tuesday

Yesterday was a holiday, so I spent it doing a glorious amount of nothing much.  I did have to bake some bread from the dough in my fridge.  Dinner was chicken & rice, but Jonathan did the cooking for most of that.

Today I have homemade banana-zucchini muffins (from the freezer) and eggs for breakfast. 
For Lunch the kids are bringing PB&J sandwiches for lunch (on homemade bread), with baby carrots and homemade dip.  (M likes PB, D likes ranch - which I make). 
Dinner tonight is beef stew.  Mmmmmmm....I haven't made it in quite awhile.

Horror of Horrors - I ran out of YEAST and BAKING POWDER!  GAH!  Fortunately my co-op food store has them in the bulk-food section so I can get it for very little money.

I haven't had to make any desserts since Jonathan came home the other day with a bag of organic cookies and a box of (really gross) non-organic ice cream sandwiches.  Ugh.  It happens very rarely around here, but what can you do.

Why am I here?

My purpose for this blog is to show you how Nourishing Traditions and WAPF can be applied to daily life. 
After everything I've seen, everything I've read and learned I couldn't just go on with life pretending everything was okay.  Knowing how my children's health was effected by the food they had been eating I have been determined to buy the healthiest food I can.

But, I am a Stay-at-home-Mom on a budget.  My husband and I decided that our boys' nutrition is more important than anything else we can spend money on (save the mortgage of course), but we still have a budget to stick to.

There is a lot recommended in articles about saving money and 'living organically' that I just can't manage.  For some reason, we can't grow vegetables on our property to save our lives!  I've tried, and everything is iimmediately overgrown with Sumac, wild blackberry, wild grape and Morning Glory.  I think I got a carrot once, but it was about 3 inches long and bitter. 

I also can't have any livestock.  We live in-town and our neighbors are just too close for us to feel comfortable having chickens or rabbits or anything like that.  Let me be clear I would love to! But it's something Jonathan has decided isn't in the best interests of our neighbors right now.  He'd rather wait until we have more land.

For now, this is as close to 'livestock' as we can get.  Our dog, Ellie.

Let me tell you what I CAN do, and chances are you can too. 

Grains:  I bake a lot.  I make all our grain-type products myself.  Thanks to my Kitchenaid mixer, it doesn't usually take very long, either.  Bread, tortillas, cookies, cakes, pancakes, waffles...you name it.  If it has a flour-ingredient, I make it myself.  I usually buy King Arthur Organic Flour because it is the same price as the non-organic flour in our store.  I have recently convinced Jonathan to buy me some Organic White Wheat so I can bump up the nutrition a bit by substituting half the white flour for wheat.  I use full-fat dairy products in my baking. 

Fats:  NT recommends Coconut oil whenever possible, but it can be outrageously expensive, though I do buy it for occasional use (like popcorn...mmmmmm)!  Peanut oil is also pricey.  I buy or make butter for most of my cooking.  I've found the best middle-of-the-road oil for general use is Sunflower.  Our co-op store has it organic and in bulk.  In addition, I save all the fat from meats - bacon, chicken, beef, sausage...  I pour it into little canning jars and stow it in the back of the fridge.  Bacon fat makes for fantastic tortillas, and chicken fat is really yummy on green beans!  I also use it for sauteeing veggies while making soups or basting a roast.

Veggies & Fruits:  We use the "Dirty Dozen" lists of produce.  These lists tell you which produce has fewer pesticides and chemicals in effort to decide which needs to be organic and which doesn't.  Bananas, for example, are cheaper and 'good enough' if bought non-organic.  Apples, however, are full of pesticides and chemicals and are purchased organically.  Click here to see the guide for yourself.  http://www.foodnews.org/walletguide.php

We do go through a lot of bananas.  We also buy apples, carrots and potatoes quite a lot.  Most other vegetables are purchased in the frozen foods section so I don't have to worry about it going bad too quickly.

Meat & Dairy:  The most expensive part of our grocery budget lies in animal products. After watching Food Inc we understood this catagory should be highest priority for our own health as well as the dignity of the animal.  Comprmise may come for produce or grains, but meat & dairy should be purchased as pasture-raised and healthy as we can.

Pasture-raised Pigs

Typical Pork-Factory pigs

Which would you rather eat?

We buy all our meat and dairy from local farms.  Some is at our local co-op and some is at the farm.  Yes, this is expensive compared to supermarket brands but the nutritional value cannot be beat!  I stretch our dollar a bit (and boost the nutrition) by mixing ground organ meats in our ground beef.  I also alternate meat-eating dinners with Pasta or soup meals to use up all our leftovers.  One night we have chicken, the next we'll have soup.  We have pizza once per week.  We also rarely go out-to-eat.

I have also begun making our dairy products such as ice cream, butter and yogurt with the Raw milk we buy from a nearby dairy. I'm not ready to make cheese yet (lack of storage space and patience for aging), but these things alone are helping us to save money.  If I need to I do buy organic pasteurized milk for cooking purposes.

Eggs.  We use lots of them.  I try to buy the pastured eggs from the same dairy for breakfast, but for baking and cooking I buy regular cage-free organic eggs to offset the cost.

Typical Egg-Factory Hens

Pasture-raised Egg-Laying Hens

I can attest to the fact - Pasture-raised eggs are unbelievable!

Can I call myself a follower of Christ if I don't take the treatment of His animals to heart?  Can I call myself a human being if I don't take all I've seen and heard and learned and do something about it?  Can I call myself a Mother if I don't feed my children the most nutrient-dense, healthiest food I can buy?

I watched Food Inc and saw how meat-chickens (yes, even 'cage free') are raised.  They grow so big so fast their poor legs cannot keep up with the weight.  They end up barely able to move, taking two steps at a time before collapsing.  I can never...as long as I live...get that picture out of my head.

That's it for my rambling this morning... :)

Saturday Morning

Some Saturdays I wake up ready to go.  I charge down to my kitchen and make coffee, bacon & waffles or some such.  Other Saturdays I wake up...barely.  I make coffee.  The kids know how to grab a muffin or waffles from the freezer and microwave them for a few seconds (like, 15-30 seconds) until warm.  Then they have whole-milk yogurt (from a local farm, sweetened with local maple syrup) or I may quickly scramble some eggs.

This is that latter morning.  After tossing and turning much of the night I just couldn't wake up enough to think about breakfast.  I know other Moms out there feel my pain.

Beverages?

Obviously I do not buy soda.  I used to, even though I knew it wasn't good for us.  We haven't bought soda now for several months, unless on a trip where we can't find bottled water.  Last time I had soda was when my husband was craving some and let me have a sip - it had been so long that the soda seemed horribly sweet to me!  I cringed and thought how I wasn't missing much.

We allow the kids to have soda on a few occasions - if we're visiting family or friends that offer soda or if we're eating out.  Even then, though they're starting to order soda and not finish it or prefer ordering fruit juice or milk instead.

With 2 meals (usually breakfast and dinner) they are given Full-Fat Raw milk.  If you want the ins-and-outs of 'Why Raw Milk' then see http://www.realmilk.com/.

At home I make lemonade regularly.  There is usually a couple quarts of it in our fridge.  I understand organic lemons and lemon juice are pricey compared to others, but I think it's worth it.  3/4 c lemon juice and 3/4 c Evaporated Cane Juice type sugar in 2 quarts of water.  I still put a limit on how much they drink, and lemonade is something they are usually given with their afternoon snack.

Between meals they drink water.  We are fortunate to have an in-the-door water/ice dispenser on our fridge and the boys are welcome to use it whenever they need it.

My husband and I drink iced tea regularly, all year round.  Mixed half with lemonade it's particularly good!  We also enjoy drinking good beer - not your everyday coors or what-have-you, but good, locally crafted beer.  Long Trail and Harpoon are some favorite brands. A nice beer at the end of a long day after the kids are in bed... that's good stuff!

What are your favorite All-natural beverages?

Today's Menu, Friday 9/3/2010

For breakfast I made a lovely Baked Soaked Oatmeal, the recipe courtesy of Stephanie at Keeper of the Home: http://www.keeperofthehome.org/.  My son D ate half of his with Organic Maple Syrup and whole cream, my younger son M ate all of his with just Maple Syrup.  We also served scrambled eggs and Full-fat Raw Milk.  If they're still hungry after all that, they are allowed a banana in addition, but often they're full enough not to need it.  I've been trying to get my boys to eat oatmeal for a long time, but they just can't seem to like Hot Cereals.  (Their Daddy doesn't like them much either)

Breakfast has been a difficult transition.  Like most American Mom's, I had fallen prey to the "Cold Cereal Habit" with my boys.  When we began eating a more natural, organic diet (even before reading the WAPF) we simply switched to the organic cold cereals.  After reading the dangers of eating such overprocessed cold cereal we decided to stop buying it altogether.  In short, there is little nutritional value in cold cereal, and it does little to keep a child's belly full for very long. 

If you send your child to school (s)he has 4 hours between meals.  My kids are allowed a snack at school, but many aren't.  If they are hungry, can they really learn effectively?  It is our duty as parents to do our best in feeding our children so they have the optimum ability to learn.  In this way, a meal that will 'stick to the ribs' and provide their bodies with the best nutrition is our goal.  You just can't get that with a bowl of cold cereal.

So, for breakfast in our house, there is usually a nice grain product like Toast, homemade pancakes or waffles, homemade muffins, or now Baked Oatmeal, served with a full-fat protein like eggs, uncured bacon (nitrate/nitrite free) or sausage/ham if we can afford it.  Whole Raw milk is always served, and they can have fruit afterward if they're still hungry.

For lunch they are allowed to eat 'School Lunch' once per week.  They usually choose to eat it on Fridays since Friday is Pizza Day.  D likes pizza, and M orders the Fruit & Yogurt Parfait since I usually make pizza for dinner anyway.

For dinner tonight I'm making Pizza with homemade dough, of course.  I keep a 'No-knead bread dough' in my fridge, and use that to make pizza with homemade sauce.  I buy cans of organic Tomato Puree and use it for pizza sauce, pasta sauce and sometimes tomato soup.  I can NOT afford to buy organic mozzarella cheese, though, so we look at the packages and choose the best we can, always full-fat whole milk cheese.

To see the recipe I use for my 'No Knead Bread Dough' click here:  http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/no-knead-crusty-white-bread-recipe