Fostering a Love of Food

I think I've written about Food as Fuel here before. The concept that the quality of your fuel can help maintain the life of your machine, in this case the machine is your body. If not, I know I've had long conversations with some of you on the subject. Doing a basic Google search these days, you'll find multiple sources saying eating well is not only good for you, but it can help fight off cancer, maintain hormone levels, ensure longevity, and any other sort of positive attribute you can think of. In my opinion, all this awesome preventive medicine ingested by eating well starts with a healthy love of food. (I define food as "minimally processed edible matter that comes from plants and animals.") As a parent I strive to instill a love for healthy food in my kids.

 I recently read French Kids Eat Everything by Karen Le Billon (available here). I finished the book feeling reinforced in the methods and attitudes already in place regarding mealtime in our house. We eat 4 times a day, within a half hour start-time window depending on if we are/can wait for Pete to join us for dinner. Everyone has to take a bite of new foods, everyone has jobs to help prep and clean up, we eat at the table whenever possible, etc. This mindset had gotten slightly offtrack when we lost complete control of our schedules by adding preschool (and a new baby) to the mix. After reestablishing this mindset, we have decided to experiment with new foods. I checked out a couple children's books from our library

 

Eating the Alphabet by Lois Ehlert

 

I Can Eat a Rainbow by Annabel Karmel

Which included several items we couldn't pronounce, had never seen at the grocery or had not presented to Emagene that she could remember.

Naturally, we made a list of these items and stuck it on the fridge. 

We hope to try all of these at least once when they come in season at our local farmers market. 

We also have this look and find farmers market book that helps us remember which items to lookout for according to season. I bought it through a booksale on scholastic.com but now I can't find the link to it anywhere. Its called: At the Farmers Market and doesn't list an author. The illustrator is Staffane McClary.

We started our food journey at the beginning of summer by purchasing some rhubarb and a kohlrabi. We smelled some endive and held a few chocolate peppers (not on the list, and were sadly done for the season). Taking a lesson from Karen's book, I had Emagene help me prep the new veggies. We each held, smelled, and tasted them raw and cooked. We looked for how they changed when heated. And everyone tried a bite! We sliced the kohlrabi, tossed it with oil and salt and then baked it it like potato chips (preferred over raw). We only got through half our cabbage cousin that night and made plans to cook up a batch of roasted roots before the weather turned into full-blown Texas summer sauna. Apparently the kohlrabi goes great with potatoes and beets. Good thing, because there were beets!

The rhubarb was baked in a strawberry rhubarb crumble that everyone (even Pete) ate seconds of. Sometimes I wonder if its harder to get him to try new foods or Emagene. They both put up a meager fight with wrinkled noses as they toy with the first bite on their forks. They eventually eat it. I on the other hand take a lot of deep breathes to avoid snapping at them to "just eat your food!"

I had a bit of rhubarb left over so I tried this rhubarb syrup recipe I found linked at SouleMama.com. The soda was excellent. I must try the gin version soon!

Next we reintroduced the girls to artichokes. Just plain, steamed artichokes, dipped in butter and scrapped across the teeth.

Followed by homemade lemonade.

Anyway, that is what we are doing over here. At this point we have tried purple cauliflower, grapefruit (the Texas pink was a huge hit!), guava (fresh and raw, no thanks - but seeded and blended in a smoothie, yes please!), figs (all we had were dried and they were not hit) and jicama.  I think endive and pomegranates are next. I'll keep you posted. We are having the hardest time finding starfruit out here. I used to eat it all the time in Oregon, and Emagene is really intrigued by a star-shaped food!

What new foods have you tried? 

-------------------------------------------

Most of my recipes come from iPhone Google searches. When I find one I like, I email myself the link from my phone. If you ever want to know which ones I prefer, shoot me a note in the comments and I'll drop you the link.

This blog was drafted in June of 2014. Sadly, I became a bit behind in my editing when Aoife started walking. Now she is trying to run. *sigh* I may be able to knock out one decent post a week again soon. Here's to hoping!

Thanks for sticking around during my drier writing spells. I appreciate it.

What a day!...err weekend.

The day started late and slowly but it took off from there! Grocery shopping, laundry, and then kitchen playtime. My little has pulled the box for my kitchen plus 2000 out a few times lately saying she wants to play this game. Having no idea what game you can play with the ultimate kitchen miracle, we made one up.

It involved the non-sharp parts (this thing has lots of blade attachments), some orzo, popcorn kernels, and some colored water. I don't think there were any rules other than mix pour and stir. 

She did steal a few of my jam strawberries to add in and see what happened. After quite a stimulating hour, she declared that the pink water tasted the best, like strawberries. We then needed a brain relaxation and decided to watch sleeping beauty while I cross-stitched and made dinner plans.

The salmon is from this recipe and a tiny on the spicy side, which worked well with the caprese and watermelon! Such a yummy dinner! 

And by the time this posts we well have held a rabbit, pet a puppy, rescued our cat from the roof, gone to tap class and bought fabric for a new dress. I think it may be time to stop and watch the rain.

Oh! And got painted at the Jo-Ann's grand opening sale. Always awesome to be able to match your body art with the sticker your favorite teacher gave you at the end of tap.

And since this is NOT a food blog I won't finish by bragging about the salmon Caesar salad with homemade croutons we just made. But I will give a short injured chicken update: I think she will make a full recovery! Her limp is nearly gone, new feathers have sprouted, her feisty-ness is returning and she's moving back up the pecking order. 

And that's, well, the last two days now. Hope yours have been as fulfilling and wonderful as ours have been!

the inner workings of my mind, part3

A long time ago Pete and I decided that we didn't want to, and never were going to care about, dieting. We love to eat. We love to listen to our cravings and honor them. We believe in moderation and in the moderation of moderation itself. Sometimes overindulgence is a fabulous idea! Probably why Thanksgiving is our favorite holiday and we always insist on cooking even if we are eating at someone else's on the day. We may have some unknown strain of Italian in our blood for we live as though no one can be having a good time without food or drink in their hand. We eat dishes whose recipes originated all over the world. A few favorites are Pho Tai, Pho Ga, Greek Orzo Salad, Lasagna, Pad Thai, Ginger Green Beans, Bratwursts, BBQ chicken legs, Curried Lentil Soup, Dal, Lemingtons, Scones, Fish n Chips, Popcorn and Kale Chips.

We spend the majority of our money (after rent, utilities and Sallie Mae) on food. Entertainment is really at the bottom of our budget list. We get our rental books and videos from the library and maybe RedBox if we're desperate to catch up on something.

With this love of food comes our theory that Food is Fuel. The higher grade fuel you put into your body, the longer it will run.Why spend a fortune on medical bills when we can avoid them just by eating well? So our family plan of attack: Make as much of what we can from scratch, using organic ingredients whenever possible, avoiding GMOs and High Fructose Corn Syrup. We aim to consume edibles that are as close as is safe to when taken off the plant or away from the animal. We do buy packaged food. We live in a first world nation. Its incredibly hard to avoid all packaged food while living on a tiny budget. We pick and choose which condiments we are going to make, whether we have time this week to make granola or bread, do we feel confident in our hot sauce brewing abilities (the answer: not yet). When we do buy packaged, we aim for the products with the shortest ingredients list, involving words we can pronounce and/or identify their origins. If in doubt, throw it out! (or in this case, don't buy it in the first place). We go back and forth between being able to afford a co-op produce bag and being able to cope with a less then ideal food source. We aim to avoid companies we know have a partnership with Monsanto (which is most major brands, organic and not).

I know food sourcing and waste and all this hippie talk can be a touchy subject for some, so I would like to take a second a clarify that we are not perfect. We have been known to have a box of Oreos in the house, or indulge in some Ben and Jerry's or get take out that is most definitely loaded with MSG. But for 87.26% of the time, we spend a little extra money to get higher quality ingredients and hope to keep our doctor's visits limited to prenatal exams and well-child check ups. We are constantly learning how to combat early cold signals with teas and essential oils. We eat soup weekly and are extremely adamant about spending extra, for what Pete calls The Good Stuff, when it comes to our animal based consumption.

So there it is. My philosophy on food. Food is Fuel. Spend your money on healthy Body Fuel, stay out of the hospital, off meds and live a long, happy life eating!

Anybody want a beer? or tea? or this vegan galette I just made?

A Day for the Making

Today was definitely a day for making. It seems that leaving the sewing machine out on the kitchen table overnight begs little girls (and bigs one too for that matter) to wake up and make something. So with a little help from my cheering section and a lot reaching around a helper literally on my knee, we created this.

Munchkin wanted to use the machine. We had made this purse for her yesterday

 

(based off a pattern I saw in this book from Cosmo we got at the library) and she proved herself able to follow directions as a very helpful backstitch-button pusher and pin-put-away-er. She wanted another go. Instead of just making lines on scrap fabric we dug around in the fabric chest and found a project I had started years ago. It was all pinned and waiting. We accepted the challenge to finish the project!

It's slightly changeable, depending where I want the ties to land, which is nice. And all made of repurposed fabric. The green in a poorly fitted bedsheet, the purple left over from the aisle runner for my sister's wedding, and the print just kinda showed up in the fabric box one day. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. (that bottle cap table in the background is waiting for a warm, dry day before I can tell its complete story.)

After a brief snack (of homemade guacamole, of course) and some inspiration from The Barefoot Kitchen Witch, we commenced Family Ravioli night. (I'm still saving my pennies for a pasta press. Any recommendations?)

It's been a while since I was required to knead anything for 10 minutes. My shoulders ached a little and I was glad that everything needs an hour rest between steps. Following the recipe in the link above and applying some of her suggestions to mushrooms, Emagene and I found ourselves here:

 

Since this happened on a whim, I was sans any sort of white cheese for this project. I do believe it would have been heaps better with shaved Parmesan or fresh mozzarella. However, we only had a minor tea spill and some. flour on the nose so i consider this a win for us in the kitchen!

Yesterday, we made this soup, which E lovingly calls "peanut butter poop." Someday her toddler speech will correct itself and I'll be sad when the cuteness goes with it! Unfortunately, I didn't know I would be posting a creative blog today so I didn't take any pictures. We had to substitute spaghetti noodles since that's all we had in the house and we added a handful of halved grape tomatoes with the cilantro and scallions. It's definitely a recipe I'll try again!! It's from The Complete Book of 400 Soups by Anne Sheasby. We have the 2008 edition.


So there ya go. Hope enjoy this ramble about my busy couple of days. I probably should spend tomorrow cleaning the house since I've done nothing except sweep up flour and thread this week. Thankfully, my husband is a rock star and vacuumed while I wrote this!

Here are a few more photos of our Day (well Days) of Making.

The day we managed to do it all

I'm never sure if I should love these days because we got it all done, or hate them because they reinforce my belief that I can do it all. 

 

Not pictured: Mickey's Clubhouse viewings (current favorite), laundry, dishes, cleaning the inside of the coop, Play-Doh fun, frying and eating of the Black-Eyed Pea cakes (recipe in Southern Living's Farmers Market cookbook available here),  bathtime, grilling of chicken for the freezer, and many other things.

Putting' Up

It has been a busy morning at our place!

Day of experimenting

Some days emagene and i can get really bored sitting around waiting for it to cool down enough to go outside. Recently, we passed the time playing I the kitchen. Here's some of what we did:

Popcorn flavors

http://tipnut.com/quick-tip-10-popcorn-seasoning-ideas/

We tried roasting fennel and celery seeds, then added some Garlic salt. Yummy! Another great one: equal amounts of chili powder and brown sugar. You must add butter to get the flavorings to stick.
Note to self: Must find a place to get nutritional yeast.

She loves Earths Best cheddar crunching crackers, which I hadn't been able to find in denton yet. Saw this linked to another blog and thought we'd try making our own crackers.

http://homecookinginmontana.blogspot.com/2010/02/cheddar-crackersreminiscent-of-goldfish.html

Totally awesome! They lasted about ten minutes! We made some extra to take camping. The flavor was good but they got chewy pretty quick. I blame the humidity and the non-airtight container in which they traveled.

We usually end days in the kitchen by making a half batch of chocolate chip cookies. We only make half because we eat them all in two days no matter how many we make.

Feeling reassured

After my rant the other day about food, I honestly reevaluated what we ate and do and am feeling peace again. It's all about finding the balance. We need more exercise in our lives and probably less ice cream sandwiches, but we are a healthy family who eat way more beans than meat. Plus I reminded myself of the old saying "everything in moderation, including moderation itself." life without vices is boring!

Besides, I can't feel helpless for long when I have something healthy growing in every corner of my house and life.

So, I leave you with a glimpse of dinner last night and a virtual glass of cheer to your continued health!

Some Food for Thought

After watching King Corn, Food Inc., and Forks over Knives, I'm usually left feeling that i can't eat.

Well, that's a bit extreme.

I am immediately left feeling concerned that unless I grow all my foods, I will I eventually eat food grown from genetically modified seeds, covered in pesticides, loaded with processed sugars, or malnourished animals fed antibiotics and/or growth hormones so the grower could make a quicker buck leaving me hopeless to the coming world of cancer, while funding big agriculture, big pharm, and big government.

In truth, growing my own food reconnects me with the earth and my Self. It keeps me focused on the seasons, freely educates my daughter on the cycle of life, and it tastes amazing! It frees me from a level of dependency and helps me stay aware of what I'm actually fuelling my body with. "food is fuel."

I am encouraged to re-evaluate my general diet whenever I watch these kinds of documentaries. I swore off high fructose corn syrup ages ago and instantly lost 20 pounds. We eat a fair amount of whole fat dairy products so they can be fully digested, not treated like sugar, and we feel full. We consume animal meats on average once a week or less and it's as humanely grown, fed, packaged, and as locally done as possible. I think I've bought a total of 10 pounds of sugar in the last 18 months. Unfortunately, we love our chocolate chip cookies, eggs and cheeses so vegan may never be an option for us!

My current state of fear (since I just watched Forks Over Knives watch here official site here) is how much cow milk Emagene drinks. I am nervous. Am I starting her in on early liver cancer? Probably not, but I'm not helping her chances. Then comes the feeling of helplessness: what are my other, affordable options? Soy? Hell no! 95% of America's soy is genetically modified and the beans from abroad are the cause of the rainforest demise and shipping concerns. This, mixed with the recent TIME article (the one about breastfeeding and attachment parenting. you know which one I mean.) has me second guessing my choice to wean.

We've always been a "let's see what happens and go from there" kind of family. There has never been a set Weaning Age, food schedule, sleep schedule... Really any schedule except work times and those are NEVER constant. It works for us. The house stays comfortably picked up, we get enough sleep and food, the chickens and dog are properly cared for, we generally speak positively to each other, and we tend to laugh and cry as much as any other family. But trying to wean has brought out the hitter and bitter in baby, the negative stress in momma, and a disconnected daddy. I think I'm gonna take all these physical, mental, and a randomly chosen Netflix choice as signs and interpret them as saying that now is not a good time to wean.

Perhaps next month?