A new day

I figured that I would start out the new year with the hope of writing a bit more. Even as I write that sentence I am wondering how on earth I will have enough time to think about it, let alone actually sit down to do it...but we try.

Just a quick review of 2010:

• Everything this year is measured in time around "the accident". My sister, her husband and their three children were in a near fatal accident on May 26th. It took 90 minutes to extract the adults from the car that had gone full freeway speed into the back of a parked semi truck. For those who know of the "golden hour", they were not expected to make it. My BIL was airlifted to the hospital while my sister was taken by ambulance. My nieces and nephew all suffered broken bones and 4 out of the 5 of them had surgeries. I was first to the hospital and it was one of the hardest things I have ever been through. Still. Miraculously, they all did survive, though not without some lasting effects in each of them, some physical, and some not so physical.

• We replaced every appliance in our entire house this year, starting before the accident, continuing through that time and finally ending some time after. Dishwasher, stove, refrigerator, washer and dryer, mixer and blender. It was a killer year for appliances...

• My kids all turned odd numbers this year. 9, 7, 5 and 5. It is shocking to no longer have babies. If you are curious, we are physically done having children, but there is no telling what God has planned for our family. Ask me sometime about the conversation we all had in the car this week.

• My buyer's club of real foods from real farmers doubled in size when our local natural food store closed. Still not sure how I feel about the extra work, but am truly enjoying the growth of community.

• I started working on the beginnings of our city's first community garden with a member of the buyer's club. We are hopeful that it will be off the ground, (or in the ground rather), this year. I can't wait to see the community that develops from that!

Now today is a new day. We are now in a new year. I have made no resolutions and no plans or promises. I can hope that I will be back to compose again soon. And I can hope that you all will join me.

What are your plans/resolutions for this year?

Stinky Mac and Cheese

This post is part of Fight Back Fridays at Food Renegade.

Recently, my youngest sister discovered that her nursing daughter has a gluten intolerance. This immediately changed her entire diet.

Side note: Isn't it funny how we can do things for our children without thinking twice, but if it comes to doing the same thing for just ourselves it becomes an overwhelming and tedious process. Just an observation...

Anyway, because of her dietary changes, as well as those of another friend who has Hashimoto's- a hypothyroid issue which often includes gluten sensitivity- I have been experimenting with gluten free recipes, in order to pass on some yumminess to them.

This one is made with rice noodles, which I attempted to make today. I haven't tried the noodles yet, but I made them with rice flour, salt and water and used a dehydrator to dry them faster. I'll let you know later how they worked.


This dish is LOADED with the good kind of fats and is fast and easy too.

Stinky Mac and Cheese

1 bag rice noodles- or one batch of homemade (?)
1 cup "stinky" cheese, crumbled (I use raw blue cheese. Gorgonzola would be great too)
1 cup raw cheddar cheese, shredded
1 cup raw milk
1/2 lb pastured bacon, cooked and crumbled
Celtic sea salt and pepper to taste
veggie (optional), I've used peas, green beans and chopped spinach on different occasions

1. Cook noodles according to instructions, drain and then dump back into saucepan.
2. Add cheeses, milk, bacon and salt and pepper. Mix until sauce takes on a nice creamy consistency.
3. Add the veggie at the very end, stir enough to warm the peas (I use frozen), or wilt the spinach and then serve.

This has gotten a 4/4 kid rating each time I've made it and is also a bowl licker. (I try to only do that at home with no company though!)

Try it next time you need a quick meal that covers all the bases.

Ponderings about the Great Gardener

Today, as I was tenderly tending to my fresh garden, I had some interesting thoughts about the wonderful metaphor of gardening.

Everyday, I go out to look at my seedlings. I want to check their progress, see if they need water, see if they are going to survive the sudden drop in temperature, see how well they are growing. I talk to them, I touch them, I check the soil around them. Sometimes I go out many times during the day, even though I know what I see might be the same.

I am never disappointed in them if they are not thriving. I know that they are exactly where I placed them. I fix what I can and then let them do what they were made to do. If they wilt, I am not angry with them. I am sad, but not angry.

In my garden, I have some weeds. There are really two kinds of weeds that invade the planted areas. One is a Mexican Primrose that is prolific in the spring and likes to grow beautiful pink flowers. The roots are fairly straight down and they are easily removed from the areas they don't belong.

The other kind is not so nice. I have both mint and grass that think they can take over places they aren't welcome. Both of these weeds have a complex root system that sends out shoots to spread. If I see grass growing, I know that pulling it will be something that disrupts the soil for several inches, and sometimes even a few feet! The mint is easier to pull up, but the same thing happens. By the time I see those delicious smelling leaves, I know that the roots run under the soil for at least a couple feet and pulling them could potentially destroy those tender new plants that are just becoming established.

Again though, I am never angry that my lovely planted seeds are in the path of these annoying and destructive weeds. In fact, when contemplating what to get rid of, I always take them into consideration. If pulling a weed is going to cause my plants to be uprooted or greatly disturbed, I will leave the roots in place and just clip the symptoms of the "disease". When my plants are established and can handle a little upheaval I will revisit the problem and attack it with careful alacrity.

My job as gardener is to tend the garden. To do everything in my power to empower my plants to do what they are designed to do: to grow, to produce fruit, to feed my family. I take great joy in the successes of my plants. I know that if they are given the opportunity to grow to their potential they will be beautiful and full of fruit. If they struggle, I am there to help them along, tenderly. If they die, or are choked off before I can get rid of the weeds, I am angry...at those darn weeds! And sad that they never got the chance to shine, to be what they were "born" to be...

Hmmm....I think that the Great Gardener does an even better job than me...

If you give a mom a messy kitchen...

Warning: what you are about to read contains some not so secret information about my particular dysfunctions. If you would prefer to continue to see me as the perfect mom and wife, I suggest that you stop reading now and come back when I have a good recipe to share...ahem...
photo credit

If you give a mom a messy kitchen, she will ask you for a sponge to go with it.

Once she starts cleaning she will ask for a computer to distract her from the task she doesn't like.

When the show that she watches is over, (probably back episodes of LOST), she will have to do a search to find blogs about some LOST theories.

Once she has read all the blogs she will want to look at some other blogs about food.
When she is reading about food she will think about the yogurt that needs to be made and will remember that her kids need to eat lunch and will have to stop everything to make something.

While she is cooking she will realize that her kitchen is very messy...
and she might just go hide in her room...

Another breakfast idea

Image by sodahead

Isn't it funny that I can go weeks without writing, and then the next best yummy something comes along and it draws my fingers to the computer.
This week, I created a yummy smoothie for a friend who went off wheat. I was looking for more creative ideas for her to have for snacks, or just a pick-me-up when she came home from work. This morning, I made myself one for breakfast and I am LOVING it! How can you go wrong with fruit, protein and coconut!

So here we go:

Chocolate Banana Smoothie
1 banana (yes, I know, not exactly in season or local...)
1 scoop, (about 1 Tbsp), raw cocao powder
1 tsp maple syrup or honey
2 Tbsp coconut cream
1 raw pastured egg, (I wouldn't risk supermarket eggs here)
1 cup raw milk

Blend in the blender until smooth and enjoy!

This serves one person. This morning I doubled it and also fed my four kids...

I imagine you could substitute something like coconut milk if you really can't do dairy, but I haven't tried it. I also encourage you to try the raw before you write off milk altogether. As long as you know your farmer and your sources, raw milk is one of the healthiest way to get loads of proteins and nutrients.

So there you go, more of what happens in my house...

Real Cereal

I know I haven't been on in a long time, and that may happen again after this, (so much for blogging twice a week!), but after the breakfast we just had, I had to throw it out there.

A little over a year ago I stopped feeding my kids cereal. Really, we stopped buying anything that had any measure of processing and cereal was at the top of the list. Well, this instantly complicated life just a bit since now I would have to get up with my little early birds and make breakfast. I found a pretty good soaked homemade granola recipe a few months ago and made it a couple times. I just didn't love it like I loved my old tried and true unsoaked granola! So, we were back to square one.

Don't get me wrong. The breakfasts we have been having since then have been fun and so yummy! How fun to be able to have breakfast cookies or sprouted scones or just fried eggs with bacon every day! But once in a while, a little cereal would be nice...

Over Christmas I soaked and then dried some oats in my wonderful dehydrator. They were soaked in water and a little buttermilk (about 2 tsp per cup) for about 24-48 hours and kept at about 85 degrees. After drying them I had these nice crispy oats. I stuck them in a bag and left them alone until today, not quite sure what I was going to do with them...

(I imagine if you don't have a dehydrator you could dry the oats in the oven at low low temps, under 150 degrees. In case you don't know, the soaking is to break down and minimize the harmful effects of the phytic acids that prohibit absorption of certain vital nutrients.)

This morning, I decided it was high time for some easy granola. So here is what I did:

4 cups of soaked and dried oats
1/2 cup dried apples
1/2 cup dried pears
1/2 cup raisins
2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
1/2 cup soaked, dried and finely chopped walnuts
2-4 tbsp maple syrup

Mixed all together in a big bowl and served with cold raw milk.

The great thing about this recipe is that not only is it fabulous, (and I am pretty picky when it comes to flavor!), but it can be infinitely modified to add whatever dried fruit and soaked nuts are in the house. I almost added flax seeds but didn't want to take the time to grind them. Next time maybe.

This post is part of Real Food Wednesday.

Why Food?

Photo: Microsoft clipart

It has come to my attention lately that I am a bit of a food fanatic. Some people would call me a "foodie", others call me crazy. I do a few things that might cause the average food enjoyer to shiver.

The normal things I do:
Make my own bread, make 3 meals a day from scratch, get an organic CSA (Community Sustained Agriculture) box, mill my own flour

The slightly "excessive":
buy no processed foods (whenever possible), feed my family only RAW dairy, sprout and dry my own grains, make organic jams, buy locally whenever possible...

The "downright crazy":
make my own buttermilk and yogurt, buy only meat and eggs from pastured animals, soak my oats or unsprouted grains before use, refuse to use my microwave and encourage the intake of good animal fats.

I had some serious discussion with my husband after unwittingly offending some people who are very dear to my heart. Here is his analogy:
"This food journey you've been on is kind of like a religious experience or conversion. Once you have studied it and learned all about it and then converted, it is like you are a new believer, totally excited about it and just wanting everyone else to join you in it."

Did I mention that he is brilliant and insightful?

So yeah, apparently in my zeal I have caused others to feel judged. Dang it! This is the LAST thing I want! What I want is for everyone to learn as I have learned! What I want is for people to be able to enjoy food the way it was created to be enjoyed-bringing health instead of sickness.

So why Food? A few reasons actually:
For one, food is the core of our physical existence. Without it, we would literally die. Food can be, and often is, pleasurable in the making AND in the eating. And yet, food can either sustain us, or slowly kill us. Astounding in its complexity...

The more I learn about how real food, (natural food, food that is in its original form), reacts with our bodies to create health and to not just sustain us but also protect us, the more amazed I am at the detail and love the Creator put into it. Before we had refrigerators and freezers people had to come up with other methods of food preservation. Amazingly, most of these methods actually make the nutrients in the food MORE accessible to our bodies and in many cases also make it more easily digestible. How can that be unless food was created FOR us and with our lives in mind?! I love to think about that!

It is also interesting to consider what the industrialized food revolution has wrought, in our country at the very least. Before "food" was accessible to everyone in the supermarket down the street, not only did folks eat seasonally, (in cold areas preserving the heck out of everything to make it through the winter!), but they also ate locally. It is unlikely that they would be buying beef from New Zealand when Farmer John up the hill butchers a cow once a month to sell at the market. The greatest thing about that life, tough as it could sometimes be, was that not only did you KNOW where your food came from (and what it ate or was grown in), but you also developed RELATIONSHIPS with the folks you got the food from. In fact, often you could be trading for goods and services instead of spending cold hard impersonal cash.

Now, not only do most people have no idea where their meat is coming from, it is likely that the ground beef someone just bought at the supermarket, (which was probably fed gut destroying genetically modified grains), came from more than one animal from more than one feedlot! The boxed cereal that many ate for breakfast was processed to the point that all the natural nutrients in the food have been stripped and the artificially added minerals only add to the toxicity of it as a whole. The milk that is now so readily available has been so processed that the good pathogens that are naturally occuring have actually been destroyed allowing all kinds of bad bacteria to grow, making milk generally worthless for the body's systems. And forget about knowing the farmers! The meat in CA could have come from Idaho or Colorado. How does anyone know what the feedlot looks like or how it treats its animals?

Okay, and there I went on my tirade. The point of it all is that there exists a way of eating and buying foods that is not just sustainable-Eating foods that work WITH the body instead of against it, and buying food that BUILDS relationships instead of tearing them down...or just not having them at all.
And I am all about relationships. Some of the most important relationships in my life are the ones with my children. How could I do anything less than feed them the best possible options for food? To build their bodies and their health and let them know that I want only good for them and will not feed them what I know is not beneficial. To teach them that there is a way that is different from the world, that is better for the world...How I wish everyone I love could know and understand real food...

This post is part of Fight Back Fridays hosted by the Food Renegade!

Stealing Ideas

I've decided to take my cousin Anna's idea to daily blog and, just like every recipe I find, modify it just a bit. (Check her out, she has some awesome blogs!) Practically, blogging daily is an impossibility because 1. I take way too much time on each blog, 2. I'm not nearly cool enough to have an iPhone from which I could blog anywhere, and 3. with the munchkins starting "school" next week, time will suddenly be at a minimum...

Sooo! I've decided to attempt to blog a couple times a week, with no restrictions on which days I put one in.

Blogs coming soon, not necessarily in this order:

Vacation 1- So Cal to Shasta
Vacation 2-Crater Lake to Salem, OR
Vacation 3 (what?! It was a three week long trip!)-Portland, Abundant Life Farm and Tahoe
Why Food?
Cream Cheese Ice Cream
Surgery
Scheduling unschooling
Seed Storage
The co-op

Whew! I guess I have a lot to say soon...hope you'll hang out with me as I blab..er blog.

The accidental meal success

Sometimes it is good not having a menu plan! Well, okay, maybe I won't go that far, but this made up dinner marks a true highlight in my culinary adventures, and it was all because I thawed some meat without a plan!

That morning, I pulled out 1 1/2 pounds of beef (from Organic Pastures) from the freezer, thinking that surely I would be able to make something yummy, (if I could just sit down for a second to figure out what!). Then, for breakfast we had scrambled eggs (pastured, of course), with raw cheese and 1/2 package of bacon. Bacon is just so good!

All day, I just kept thinking about that other 1/2 package of bacon...(it could be because my whole house still smelled like it...), and how I could work it into dinner. OOOOOOOH! Bacon cheeseburgers...yum...

However, 4pm rolled around pretty quickly and we have an old charcoal grill...I just didn't want to go through all the trouble of getting it going! Plus, I was out of bread, completely. So...how can I make something with bacon and beef, that won't take that long, and that the kids will devour...?

Behold, the bacon cheeseburger meatloaf!
(Sorry, I didn't think to take a picture until we had almost finished the whole thing! Even then I had to keep pushing my DS's hand out of the picture cuz he wanted more!)
Can I copywrite a recipe? Cuz this one is somethin special!

Bacon Cheeseburger Meatloaf
1 1/2 lb. pastured ground beef
1/2 lb. uncooked bacon, sliced small
1 onion minced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 c. lacto-fermented ketchup (I haven't made this yet but when the tomatoes are ripe...)
1 1/2 c. shredded raw cheddar cheese (reserve the 1/2 c.)
1 pastured egg
1 c. *soaked oats (soaked with 1/4 c. buttermilk for 12-24 hours), optional: sub. 1 c. sprouted breadcrumbs (remember, I said I was out of bread?)
salt and pepper to taste

Mix everything together in a bowl really well, then throw it into a glass baking dish, (9x13 maybe). Sprinkle the reserved 1/2 c. cheese on the top and bake at 350 degrees for about 30-35 minutes. Then enjoy!!!

We had these with another made up recipe, Skillet Au Gratin Potatoes made with organic potatoes, raw cream and raw cheese(See picture at the top). I'll have to blog on that one next. Yum yum!
*Disclaimer: Okay, my oats weren't soaked this time since I was on such a time crunch and hadn't planned ahead. However, next time I make this, (and I will!), I will either use leftover bread (sprouted) or soaked oats. I have no doubt that it will still be just as good...

This blog is part of Real Food Wednesday, hosted by Cheeseslave.

The Best Chocolate Ice cream I Have ever made

Yesterday, since my folks were coming to visit, I needed to make ice cream. My dad and hubby are both ice cream addicts, so normally, they would go out on a special ice cream foraging trip and bring home lots of natural stuff like B&J's and Breyers. Of course, my dairy sensitive son can't have any so with the recent start of the Organic Pastures co-op here, I was able to get fresh raw milk and cream specifically for making the good stuff.

The foundation of the recipe is the same for every type of ice cream that we make, utilizing all raw materials to make it healthy enough for the kids to fill up on it without any qualms on my part.

Basic Ice Cream
(variations in amounts depend on ice cream maker size. Ours takes about 1 1/2 cups of each and 4 eggs.)
1-2 c. raw cream
1-2 c. raw milk
4-6 pastured egg yolks
1/2 c. raw honey
1 tsp. vanilla

Whisk all together (I use the food processor or blender) and put into the ice cream maker according to manufacturers instructions.

Chocolate Variation (when using this, omit the honey above)
In a medium saucepan, melt together over the lowest heat, (do NOT boil!):
1/2 c. honey
1/2 c. cocoa (raw if you have it)
5 tbsp. raw or pastured butter

Mix until smooth then cool completely.
Once cool, blend together with milk mixture and cool in the fridge for a couple hours.
Freeze in ice cream maker.
Option: At the last possible minute, add 1 c. choc chips (try homemade!)
Option: Even better, to make it with mint, add 1 tsp of mint extract when you add the vanilla.

I made the chocolate mint ice cream. When it was finished I had a friend try it. She said she thought about it all the way home! It is that flavor that you just want to leave in your mouth for a long long time! Yum.