Cooking Day

Today was a cooking day in spite of being busy. It rained, which kept us inside, but even still there were things to cook for dinner and snacks. It is time again to make granola bars but that will be on the list for tomorrow. Maybe in the morning while the kids are eating breakfast.

I made 2 qt of yogurt, 7 cups of garbanzo beans and a pot of soup (with some of the beans). All of these items required minimal input, time-wise, from me. Having the right tools helps but you can make them all with basic kitchen supplies. I have been fortunate enough to receive kitchen gadgets as gifts.

The first item, yogurt, is very simple to make. You can do it without a specific device to incubate the yogurt but having one takes the babysitting and guesswork out of the recipe. To make yogurt you bring the milk up to 180 degrees to sterilize it. Then cool it to 108-111 degrees, add yogurt culture (this can be powder or just plain yogurt from the grocery store that has live active cultures) and then keep the mixture at 108-111 for 4-8 hours. That's it! You can add sugar, vanilla, honey or other flavorings but I prefer to do that after the yogurt is made. That way I can feed it to the kids without making separate batches. This is the maker that I have Yogourmet Multi 2 qt but there are others out there. Some that make individual cups and others that have a 1-2 qt container. You can even make it in your oven or a thermos if you watch the temperature yourself. I also purchase the powdered starter to have on hand (Yogourmet Freeze Dried Yogurt Starter, 1 Ounce Boxes (Pack of 3)) Or, you could just use 8 oz of yogurt from the grocery store (or save your own!) Be prepared, homemade yogurt tastes totally different from the store kind. It is yummy and I can make organic whole milk yogurt for half the price of the store bought kind even with using local grass-fed milk.

We'll talk beans and soups another day. For now, I'll let you get your yogurt started.

Just Grow It

I would love to garden. I do love to garden. My attempts often fail but it doesn't stop me from dreaming every spring that this year will be the year I have a fabulously beautiful, or fabuluscious as I like to call it, garden and enough vegetables to maybe put one meal on the table from my own garden. This year I decided to leave the growing part to the farmers who seem to do it so much better than I can. But you know what? There are tomatoes sprouting in my dining room window sill, peppers, too. And just today I planted onion seeds in a used food try that I ate canolis out of last night.

I blame most of my inability to grow food on the lack of sunshine in my yard. Even my sunniest spots seem to be no better than partial sun. It is a challenge. But then I found the book Grow Great Grub in my library. The author, Gayla Trial, inspires you to use the space you've got, however minimal, and just make a go of it. So, I will try again, as I do every year in the hopeful spring. Ms. Trail also has a wonderfully informative website You Grow Girl if you are looking for an online community to support your gardening addiction.

I am already being drawn in: basil planted among the marigolds at the mailbox, tomatoes alongside the sedum in the backyard. Maybe this year I'll have enough produce for a pot of soup. One can dream, anyway.

Food Revolution

The tv show WAS very interesting. The interactions were obviously dramatized as they are on all of the reality shows. But, I love that someone is getting out there and trying to put a face on these food issues. It is sad when a classroom full of children does not know a fresh vegetable from a bottle of ketchup but that is our fault.

How did we get so distracted? When did we lose site of teaching our children the most basic lessons? This is food, this is how you gather it, prepare it and eat it. It goes along with all the other life lessons you teach your children: how to behave in society, care for your body, count, walk, love, etc. I see so many families that are so busy trying to earn a living that no one is teaching the life lessons. Food is just one more thing to take care of in a day and there is little connection if any to family, health, the environment, etc.

In the episode last night, I felt Jamie's pain and shock at the realization that the food served in that elementary school was prepared in such a way only spoons and fingers were necessary. I reminds me of two movies: WALL-E and Idiocracy. The second I don't recommend watching with children, parents or anyone else that might be offended by sheer vulgarity. But, in both movies food has been 'simplified' down to a meal in a cup. They even serve a cupcake in a cup in WALL-E. "That's silly," you say. "We aren't going to go down that road." But we are already there! Look at the commercials for Campbell's Soup at Hand, you microwave and drink. Food has become on the go and complete nutrition in neat packages. Businesses are even marketing it to our children with supplemental drinks like pediasure and super fortified juices. How about instead we just plain take a break to eat and teach our children to do the same. You know what, we might enjoy it :-)

media

I was tipped off to 'Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution' on ABC by my sister and I am watching it now. Has anyone else seen it? I'll let you know my thoughts when I am through watching it.

Until then, a little food for thought. Two cookbooks to recommend that help you eat seasonally. The first I used last summer to figure out what to do with all the fresh veggies I was getting. It is organized by season. The second I found at the library last week and has indicators for which seasons the recipe's ingredients are available. Stock your shelves now or find your favorite cooking website to have at the ready for the fresh veggies ahead!

Where to buy meat

In January we placed an order for a quarter of a cow with Sunny Hill Farm. I have gotten some strange looks and comments for this. It is easier for people to pick up meat at a grocery store where the meat comes in neat little cellophane packages and no resemblance to an actual animal. Don't get me wrong, I am not likely to be out hunting anytime soon but it is reassuring to know where my meat comes from. I have actually seen the cattle at Sunny Hill and they look good. They wonder the pasture and are relatively clean. They are healthy looking animals that have had a good life and been cared for. Obviously animals are harmed in the making of my dinner but oddly enough, they did not suffer. I don't take lightly that an animal had to die for me to eat but I also know that they same animal would have never lived nor lived such a good and healthy life if I didn't eat meat.

My most recent order, as of yesterday, was half a pig from Rumbleway Farm in Cecil County. It will be ready in May. The cost will be $250 for just under ~75 lb of meat in various cuts. Pigs are animals that are highly intelligent and so the suffering that they withstand in traditional factory farms seems so much worse to me. It is interesting that you must treat animals humanely, unless you plan to eat them in which case you can perform a whole range of painful and awful things without anyone batting an eye. But, Rumbleway is a grass farm committed to raising animals in a healthy, sustainable way. It is nice to know where my food comes from even if it does mean looking it right in the face.

Just a note, Rumbleway also raises pastured poultry that is available starting April 23 and every other Friday after 3pm through the summer. We'll talk chickens another day.

Breakfast Time

This morning was a typical morning for breakfast. Oatmeal. I don't know why I have become cold cereal averse in my old age. I just don't find it filling enough. On industrious days I will make pancakes, eggs or muffins but most mornings are just oatmeal. It is tasty though and I have come up with lots of concoctions to keep it interesting. Here is my basic recipe with a few adaptions listed below.

Quick Microwave Oatmeal

1/2 c. quick oats
1 c. milk (I use dry milk and 1 c. water)
a sprinkle of cinnamon

Mix and cook in the microwave for 2.5 min in a shallow bowl. Use a deep bowl and the whole mess will boil over.

Post cooking additions that are very tasty:
1/4 c. dried fruit (cherries, cranberries, raisins, etc)
1/4 c. chopped nuts (pecans, walnuts, almonds)
1 T butter
1 t-T sugar, brown sugar, maple syrup or honey

For a fall treat I use pumpkin pie spice instead of cinnamon, 1/8 c. pureed pumpkin and 1/4 c. cranberries

For summer 1/2 c. halved, pitted sour cherries, 1 T brown sugar and 2 T fresh cream. You can also throw in fresh peaches to this mix.

Now doesn't that sound like a great why to start the day :-)

The wonder and joy of eggs

It's Easter season and eggs are everywhere but are all eggs created equal? You know the answer to this or I wouldn't be asking the question. No, they are not. Try this little experiment. Buy three dozen eggs: 1 doz regular, grocery store eggs; 1 doz eggs marked free range; 1 doz local, farm fresh eggs. Crack one of each egg in a bowl and notice the differences. I am no egg expert but in the last year I have noted these differences. The eggs I get from Sunny Hill and other local farms are larger, the shells are harder, and the yolks are firmer and deeper orange. In fact the yolks recently have been so much deeper in color that my cookies, quiches and other items have been a brighter yellow color.

Eggs now make up one meal in our home every week. They are an inexpensive protein and the kids love them. But, chickens are very mistreated in the factory farming industry. So, these days, if I can't buy them locally, I don't eat them. Here, it really isn't good enough to be vegetarian because animals are still suffering greatly even if you are not eating them (just their bi-products). But, local eggs? They are in a whole different ball park.

Here is our quiche recipe. It is easy to adapt for whatever veggies you might want to add. If you don't like quiche, try frittata, scrambled eggs, stratta or whatever floats your little egg filled boat. In fact, if you have a great egg recipe, share it here.

Crust: buy a 9" pie crust or make your own
Mix 1 1/4 c. flour, 1/2 t salt, 1/2 t sugar in a food processor
Add 1 c. butter 1 T at a time until the mixture is like course meal (butter should be cold)
Add 2-4 T cold water until the mixture just comes together.
Roll into a large circle, lay in your pie plate and finish off the edges as you would a pie.

Filling:

1. preheat oven to 425
2. drain 10 oz of frozen, chopped spinach (or 10 you cooked down yourself)
3. Beat 4 eggs, 1 c. yogurt or sour cream, 1 T flour, 1/4 t. black pepper. Stir in spinach
4. Place 1/2 c. slice mushrooms or tomatoes, 1/2 shredded cheese, 1/4 c. green onion chopped in the bottom of the crust.
5. Pour egg mixture over the top.
6. Bake 15 min. Decrease temp to 350. Bake 30 min more.

You can add whatever veggies or filling you want in the bottom of the crust. We recently have used: sun dried tomatoes, fire roasted jarred red peppers, cooked white/yellow onion to name a few. The cheese can also be whatever you would like: cheddar, swiss, jalapeno jack, etc.

Eating Out

I had the experience last week of eating out a lot more than I have in the recent past. It was fun, as it usually is, to go out (especially to have someone else cook AND clean up!) But, I found myself scouring the menu for the right thing to eat. We lucked out with the one Italian restaurant that I posted a few days back in that it served local and free range foods. However, that is not the norm. So, as I perused the menu my first thought was CHICKEN. It is healthier, right? But, really chickens and pigs are so ill treated that I just couldn't bring myself to either. There was not always a vegetarian option nor did I necessarily want a meat free meal. I figured, beef, might be ok health-wise as long as I was not picking a processed beef (like fast food burger) but that did not remove all the other beef factors that are scary and sad. I figured for one meal I would destroy our oceans I got a tuna salad sandwich, it was tasty and have my seafood watch list printed an in my purse for the next time I am dining out.

I know that Vegetarians have had similar difficulties in the past. Their diet is not one that is accepted everywhere and I am sure vegans and those with celiac's disease have an even harder time. Locavores, as a dietary lifestyle group, are sort of new to the mix so 'Locavore Friendly Foods' are not necessarily marked on the menu. Neither are free-range, organic or humanely grown. I imagine that in the not-too distant future we will see these markings popping up in more and more places. I hope so! It will make eating easier and more fun.

On a related but side note, shopping the grocery store is equally difficult. My list is half as long but I spend at least as much time at the store. It is hard to find the items that I am looking to buy, they are not necessarily in the easiest place to see and I tend to read labels to be sure that I am getting what I am expecting. But, just like the menu, more food are being marked for what they are. I try not to get lured into the pretty farm picture - caveat emptor. I saw a jar of pears, packaged so that you would think that they were a small production item, the farm on the packaging had a date that would lead you to believe that it had been around for at least a hundred years, but the location on the back? Made in China. You get the picture.

How Cows Can Save the Planet (Time Article)

Everyone is talking about it... How Cows (Grass-Fed Only) Could Save the Planet

Sun Chips

How cool is this? A 100% compostable chip bag SunChips.com

Little Meals for Little People

When my little J was just starting to eat solid foods I felt like I didn't have the time or energy to make my own baby food. I bought Beech Nut Pureed Veggies (Gerber had too many additives) and rice cereal and we mashed bananas. Then M arrived and I had learned to puree veggies and it was so much simpler than I expected. Now, E is here and in spite of the fact that there are two others to tend to she gets home pureed veggies and oatmeal. The cost is substantially less, I know what is in the food I am giving her, it is fresh and environmentally we are making less of an impact. The thing that kept me from making baby foods with little J - time and energy seem like less of an issue because it really isn't hard at all. I love the website WholesomeBabyFood.com for the how-to's on preparing every fruit or vegetable you can imagine with guides to when the child can eat each item.

As I type, E is enjoying fresh cooked and pureed sweet potatoes. I cooked the potato in the microwave (after pricking it) and sometimes I cook these things while I am making dinner so there is in additional time input. Threw it in the food processor and added pear juice. I'll save the rest of what she doesn't eat in the fridge for the week. If it is too much, I can freeze in small portions and take it out as she needs it.

Ice Cream, Ice Cream

Need a great place to stop for ice cream, play and hang out with animals: Kilby Creamery. One of two places in Maryland that starts and completes the entire ice cream making process on site. They have a nice play set for the kids and animals for petting. Today, was a glorious day to be outside and just enjoy all that spring is trying to bring us!

Menu for local dinner: This afternoon's meal was local sage pork sausage from Broom's Bloom, butter from Rumbleway Farm, peas shelled and frozen from the summer purchased at Brad's Produce, potatoes from Wilson's Farm Market. For desert? Apple Crisp with apples from Wilson's Farm.

Resturant Review

We hit the Inner Harbor tonight for dinner with the kids and parents. It was late and we wondered into Pizzazz Tuscan Grille. By a stroke of luck we found that they support local, free range and other sustainable cooking practices. Wahoo! The food was yummy and the staff was attentive especially to our three-ring circus of screaming kiddos.

Closing the Gap

Reduce, reuse and recycle. For a long time I was only focusing on the 'recycle' part but this earth love triangle doesn't work without the first two. It isn't enough to just recycle if you are not purchasing recycled products, first reducing your trash output and then reusing as much as possible before sending your trash to finally be put back into the system by recycling. My family has been able to reduce our waste to about 1 white trash bag a week. I wish we could do more but there is packaging that is not recyclable, diapers and food products that we are not able to compost, yet. But we have substantially reduced our waste in the past 2 years.

So much of the waste that we create is centered around food. We are an on the go society. My family is no exception. With three kids, a husband that works outside of the home and my own business we have the need for quick, convenience foods just like anyone else. But, we have made changes to our eating to help reduce our earth impact.

1 - We rarely (1-2 a year) buy prepackaged snack foods. They are a huge packaging waste. We have lots of little plastic containers that I decant into for on the go snacking.

2 - Most of the food we eat, I make. Making food takes time but so does buying and preparing packaged foods. Making food gives me time to express my love for my family in a very physical way. And, there is time for lots of family lessons during the food making process. Not the least of which is patience.

3 - We try to reuse many of the containers that come into the house and the ones that we can't, we recycle. We send our recycling to friends and family that can handle the plastic numbers that our county doesn't recycle.

4 - No bottled water, soda bottles or other small drinks. I was buying mostly concentrated juice if any at all but that need has recently increased for us.

5 - COMPOST!!! Throwing food in the trash is just plain silly. Even if you don't use your compost you can take the time to process it. Doing compost takes a minimal amount of time and space. I also know that cities provide community composting if you happen to live in an apartment. I like this The Green Cone composter (we don't have it, it is on our wish list) http://www.greencone.com/

6 - Say no to plastic and paper disposable products. We use fabric rags instead of paper towels, fabric napkins instead of paper and have on hand recycled/recyclable plasticware for gatherings. Check our this site for great plasticware http://www.preserveproducts.com/

7 - Take reusable bags to the grocery store. No need to recycle silly plastic bags if you don't get them in the first place! If items are little, I refuse the bag and put them in my purse. Otherwise, I try and keep my reusable bags in the store for all shopping needs.

8 - Buy pasture raised meats. I think that if we made this switch alone we would substantially reduce the middle east's hold on our oil needs. This topic alone one could write a book on (some have!) Consider it your patriotic duty :-)

9 - Eat less cereal. Cereal has lots of packaging and processing. I try and eat eggs, oatmeal, pancakes, muffins, etc for breakfast. All are yummy, filling and earth friendly especially if you add local maple syrup :-)

Look at that! 9 easy steps you can take to reduce your environmental impact in just the kitchen alone. Do you have any other ideas?

March is the hungry month

Barbara Kingsolver in her book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life (P.S.), mentions that March is the hungry month. I had never thought that much about food before. It is really a recent thing that we don't worry about having enough of a harvest to last through the winter. Goodness, many people these days hardly know that food comes from the earth. It isn't their fault, it is hard to imagine a tasty snack cake was ever anything simpler. But that is a topic for another day. It is March and the food of the summer is mostly a memory. Daffodils and crocuses are breaking through, even blooming, but fresh vegetables are still a dream.

Right now, we are getting through the food that we stored up from the summer. We didn't do much to store food over since this local food journey for us started after the spoils of the harvest. Tonight's meal has been a staple for us through the winter. Today, I had to use store canned tomatoes (since I didn't have any left) and the carrots were from an organic 5lb bag I bought a couple of weeks ago. There isn't much left (if anything) at the farmer's markets and our freezer and cupboards have more empty glass jars than full ones. Dinner was a vegetarian minestrone soup recipe that I found back in October when we had cabbage coming out our ears. I shredded the cabbage and froze it and we have been using it 2 c. at a time through the winter. This recipe comes from the following website: http://www.cheriestihler.com/recipes/soups.html

Minute Minestrone

1 Tbsp. olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 small onion, chopped
1 carrot, grated - I chop
2 small zucchini, diced - I use summer squash I froze and chopped
2 cups cabbage, shredded
2 cups chicken broth
1 15-oz. can diced tomatoes
1 15-oz. can cannelloni beans, drained - I cook bags of beans then freeze them in 2 c. portions instead of buying canned. Much less salt and 1/4 the price.
1 tsp. dried rosemary
1/2 tsp. dried basil
1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper
Salt and pepper to taste

Heat olive oil in a large saucepan.
Saute garlic, onion, carrot and zucchini until tender.
Add cabbage and continue cooking until cabbage is tender.
Add remaining ingredients and cook over medium heat for 15 - 20 minutes.

Along with the soup I served corn bread from the Fannie Farmer Cookbook. A staple cookbook in our house. At least the edition that we have includes cooking temperatures. I bought organic whole wheat flour at Millers Market last time I was there. Then I used all purpose flour by King Arthur from Weis. It is hard, if not impossible, to find local flour. I have not given up my search but so far it has turn up nothing.

Lastly for more calories and protein I included local cheese from Broom's Bloom. They make a yummy horseradish cheddar and I don't even like horseradish.

What are you looking to hear about? Let me know and I'll write about it.

Shopping Day

Today was a shopping day. Buying local means that you do not get all your food in one place. I have this dream of opening a store, well maybe not a store, just a four walled space where farmers could bring their produce year round here locally. Really all my dreams are self serving, I just don't want to have to drive all over the county. But on the other hand, there are benefits to going directly to the farm.

Our first stop was to Sunny Hill for eggs. I thoroughly enjoyed watching the chickens wonder around the yard, pecking at the ground. I am sure all this rain has brought out quite a few tasty morsels for them. The cows had apparently chewed through part of their coop and it needed repairs. I talked to Mel about the challenges of serving new higher demand for locally produced goods.

Next stop was Wilson's Farm Market on Rt 1. One of the few places that is still open over the winter with vegetables. They had potatoes, apples and squash along with canned goods, meats, eggs, cheese, ice cream, pies, soap, etc. I picked up apples, potatoes, squash, ice cream and jerky.

The last stop was to David's Natural food. I don't often shop there but they do carry bison from Gundpowder Bison and just about everything in the store is labeled organic. They also carry some local produce and bulk food. I picked up the onions, bison burgers, dried fruit, frozen chopped spinach and a small can of organic tomatoes. Oddly enough, Weis does not carry small cans of organic tomatoes, just larger ones. AND another interesting aside is that Eden brand foods are the only ones that do not have bpa in their can liners. But today I didn't see any Eden tomatoes. Weis, Shop Rite, Food Lion and Trader Joe's also carry organic food and it is usually less expensive than David's Natural Food. But they do not carry much in the way of local goods.

I did have to stop at Weis for a handful of items: burger buns, shrimp, and one or two other items that are not coming to mind right now. Shrimp probably should not have been on my list at all since it is on the Seafood Watch Avoid list but little J has been begging for it and I found some, Bubba brand, that talks about sustainable seafood practices. Here's hoping!

Today was not a big cooking day for me but I did make a batch of granola bars. They are a staple in our house for on the go snacking and one batch lasts us a week or two. Here's the recipe:

Heat oven to 350

1 can sweetened condensed milk (you can find recipes without or even make your own)
3 c. oats
3 c. other stuff (whatever you've got works: raisins, choc chips, coconut, pecans, peanuts, etc)

Mix well in a large bowl. Line a baking pan (9x13) with parchment paper. Pour in mixture and use another flat bottomed pan to press the mixture down firmly. Bake for 20 min (or until there is a lightly browned edge all the way around the pan). Let cool for 10 min then lift the sheet of granola bar out of the pan onto a cutting board. Let cool another 10 min and cut into whatever size and shape of bars you would like. Enjoy!

I assure you that at $2.50-$5 a box for 8 little store bought granola bars this recipe will dramatically reduce your snacking costs AND your environmental impact. Yahoo!

Eye Opening

This fall, I just happened to catch the show Ellen on tv and she just happened to have the author Jonathan Safran Foer of the book Eating Animals there as her guest. First of all, the fact that I had the tv on AT ALL in the afternoon was a 'pigs fly' kind of moment and then to have this author on, too, so unlikely. Sometimes I just know that information is being placed in front of me at the right time. God works in mysterious ways!

So, Jonathan Safran Foer talks about factory farms and the conditions of food animals and why we should all be vegan. I was appalled by what he was saying. Truly, I had no idea. I reserved the book at the library and then another miracle moment happened. My sister's good friend was over and I mentioned the book to her. She said, 'Well, you really ought to read The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals if you are interested in this stuff" So I went to the library and reserved that book, too. Omnivore's Dilemma came in first and I just dove right in.

I had mostly finished that book when we went to visit friends and family over Christmas. I was discussing the book and our food choices with my sister's Godmother when she said, "Read the book by Barbara Kingsolver [Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life (P.S.)]" Jeanne, my sister's Godmother, is a librarian and her advice was to read as much and as wide a variety as possible. Immerse yourself in information. So I am trying.

The effect of all that reading, I never did get around to reading 'Eating Animals' was a New Year's Resolution. Really, I don't often make New Year's Resolutions. I just try to live daily the way that I feel best but this life change seemed to need a marker. So, beginning this year, I have pledged to feed my family as locally as possible. When I think how easy it would be to just grab a package of chicken at the grocery store or pick up a cheeseburger at McDonalds, I need only remind myself of this one thought that has been pervasive since watching... Food, Inc. and that is, 'It is not a treat to feed my family poison.' And truly, to me, that what this factory farmed, high processed, sometimes washed in amnomia food feels like.

We are now eating locally and as much as possible, in season. I can't wait for the growing season this year because I intend to preserve a lot more food for the winter. But you know, even doing what we did last year: buying a hind quarter and being part of a CSA; we haven't done too badly with having enough food to get us through the winter.

The next posts I am going to make are going to be yummy. I thought, I would entertain you all with the things that are cooking in my kitchen, where I find my food treasures and a daily reason to know your food.

Changing the world one bite at a time

Changing the world one bite at a time. I was going to use that as my catch phrase. But, I googled it and lo and behold a gazillion other people already thought of it. But, thankfully, they were all thinking what I was thinking. You'll see.

I love food. I love to eat food. I love to cook food. I love that food can be a political statement, a religious statement and a fashion statement. It is a basic requirement for life and therefore is pervasive in touching all that we do. We have memories in food and our special moments are centered around, food. You may think, given my obsession with food, that I am on the hefty side. But no, a strong wind could blow me away. I was blessed with the ability to consume large quantities of food with little effect. Maybe that is so I can experience more food and share those experiences with others.

I don't know when this food quest that I am on started. Was it the eggs I scrambled when I was eight? The 4-course Irish meal I served to my girl scout troop when I was twelve? The rosemary beef tips with herb buttered potatoes, fresh green beans and a finish of mango sorbet in wine glasses that hooked my husband? Or did the path change when my food choices affected not only me but also my children? They may have been it. With that great responsibility all other interests and concerns came together in the feeding of my children.

I have had the realization that just by putting bison vegetable soup on the table I am not only nourishing my family with good wholesome food I am also: reducing green house gasses and our reliance on foreign oil, saving the environment, saving endangered species, preserving my families health and reducing their risks for a multitude of illnesses, supporting families in my community, saving money and reducing the chance that my children will participate in risky activities. All with Bison Vegetable soup. That's some powerful soup. I am sure I didn't list every effect but you get the picture.

Our family started making changes slowly with regard to how we ate. First, I started cooking more of the meals that we ate and limiting our eating out in order to save money. In doing so, I started incorporating more fresh foods into our diets. Next, we cut out high fructose corn syrup. That was a big one. Doing so meant limited sodas and reading lots of box labels for snack foods, breads, etc. It is in so many foods that I started making other things at home: granola bars, bread and yogurt. Then I read the book, "Go Green, Live Rich" and remembered that my family used to buy a quarter of a cow for meat and freeze it. We purchased our first quarter cow - a local pasture fed steer and began limiting our beef consumption to once a week planned around the meat in our freezer. I joined a CSA to get vegetables local, fresh and in season for a great price. I had to learn how to cook what was in my basket and preserve the abundance. I had another food memory of applesauce: piping hot as my mother squeezed it through her squeezo straino. The same machine has now processed 2.5 bushels of apples for my family. Along the way we started incorporating organic foods as we were able. I read about the dirty dozen and tried to at least get those vegetables organic for my children.

Organic foods do tend to be more expensive so I did not make the change to organic or free range chicken, dairy, pork, or grapes citing cost. But, throughout this process I had a thought and I think it was an important perspective. That was, even if I only make one change, that one change will be that fraction of the whole better for us. So, even if I only bought 5% of our foods organic that was 5% less chemicals, pesticides, etc that we were avoiding as a family.

The real life changing moments came this past fall. Stay tuned to find out what happened next.

Nothing New Under the Sun

Ecclesiastes 1:9 (New International Version)

9 What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.

There are many blogs out there that talk about food, slow food, local eating, eating with enviromental responsibility, saving money through food choices and the list goes on. This blog is about my choices regarding those above topics and more.

As far as the Bible passage goes, it is a reference to my attempt to do the same thing that has already been done but also it is a comment on where we are with regard to food. In this area, I actually believe there is something new under the sun. We have so royally screwed up our food systems in America that everyone should be looking at what is going on. There are books, blogs, movies and other media on just this topic. How amazing! The Bible says we can't do anything that hasn't been done before and yet here we've gone and done it!

I look forward to sharing my thoughts, recipes, food findings and the like with you. The more you know and the more people that join in the better we will all be.