Safe Meat?

I hate researching food.  I always leave upset and disappointed and shocked and a whole myriad of other negative feelings.  As a family, we feel we're pretty food conscious.  Then we find out we've been misguided about something, and changes have to be made - and sometimes I just wish I didn't know...

We thought we were being extremely careful about the meat we purchased for our kids.  Michael and I are pescetarians who eat fish about once a week.  Our kids ate a lot of turkey. 

And then we found out that turkey contains a crazy amount of artificial hormones.  For some of you, this is a no-brainer and you already knew and are appalled that we didn't.  For others, maybe this isn't something that matters much to you or something you've really considered.  For us, the idea of fake hormones influencing our kids' development is disgusting, especially when it comes from the meat we purchase at the grocery store and keep in our fridge. 

How wonderful to be in a place like Asheville at a time like this.

We had our pick of a multitude of organic, local, healthful co-ops.  And we took advantage.  Making some of our purchases at a mainstream store, we saved our fresh foods purchases for the more expensive store, and were rewarded with our choice of hormone and antibiotic free meat.  We bought some shrimp for a stir-fry, some hamburger for tacos (also organic and grass fed), and some hormone free lunch meat.  Maeryn grabbed a toothpick from a free sample area and pocketed it for later.  She then took advantage of the new lunch meat and her toothpick and made herself a snack.  Hormone free.

Easy, Tasty, Vegan Tacos

YUM!

So...Michael made incredible vegan tacos for lunch today.  I helped with the seasoning, but it was really his brainchild, so he gets the credit for this one.  If you're new to the vegan or veg scene or are just interested in trying something fun and meatless, check this recipe out!

You will need:

2 cups organic red kidney beans
1 medium onion (chopped)
1 cup organic stewed tomatoes (drained)
1 tsp minced garlic
3 tsp paprika
2 tsp chili powder
3 tsp ground cumin

Optional toppings:

guacamole
chopped tomatoes
artichoke hearts
chopped romaine lettuce

1.   Combine ingredients into your cast iron skillet (you can use something else, but cast iron adds iron and TASTE!) and simmer fifteen minutes, stirring occasionally.

2.  Serve in taco shells and top with your choice of veggie goodness!  We used guacamole for our major fat.  I usually spread the guac on the bottom of the shell before the "meat".  We also used organic romaine lettuce and some organic tomatoes from the farmer's market (chopped). 

Enjoy!  

Food and Such.

We've been cooking up a storm around here.

I'm ecstatic that the Farmer's Markets are open again and the season is humming along.

The air is breezy.  Flowers are blooming.  (I won't mention my incredible battle with allergies at the moment.)

On Monday, Michael left a gift of a loaf pan sitting on the stove.  I saw it when I woke up in the morning...so of course I had to bake a loaf of bread.

Exquisite.  I have no idea why we buy bread at the store.  And so...  I've decided to stop.

Maeryn has become quite the little baker herself - she asked for an apron and chef's hat for her birthday, which is coming all too soon. 

With our farmer's market spoils and organic produce from the grocery store + raw cheese from a farm in PA, we made THIS FABULOUS PIZZA.

Hungry yet?

There are vegan cupcakes in the oven.

Health and Bus-ness.

I am learning through this whole unschooling thing that there are a whole lot of things I have un-learned.  Things I used to do instinctively that I simply don't do anymore.

For the past few days, we've had the January Ick in our house.  You know the stuff - the nasty sniffles, the mild sore throat, the sinus head-ache, the achy tiredness, the general blah feeling of the January Ick...  It started with Jonah, moved on to Michael, and is now affecting the entire household. 

The thing is - those of us who are older seem less apt to take care of ourselves than the younger.  Maeryn, especially, is a great example to those of us who tend to deny that we are sick, over-do things in spite of our illness, eat junk, etc. 

For the past two days, she's been watching movies under a fleece blanket on the couch and slamming down OJ by the bucket.  She, of course, is mostly recovered.  The rest of us are in the grouchy stage. 

Today I tried.  I made myself tea and drank it while it was hot and took vitamin C and then... well...then I ran the vacuum to pick up the popcorn crumbs from yesterday and loaded the dishwasher and now I'm blogging... 

Point is, we can all take a lesson from Maeryn when we're sick.  If we want to recover quickly, we'd better give our bodies the things they need most: rest and good nutrition.  Stop trying to be super-human and take. a. break.

In other news, and speaking of probably over-doing things... Michael and I mapped out the bus route last night.

We're extending our trip over a year to try and get in all of the things we want to do and see.  We begin right here in Maryland and end in Michigan after touring most of the U.S.  It's so exciting I'm pretty sure it's just a dream, so I'm trying not to hope too hard that everything will go as planned.  Things like this NEVER go as planned. 

As for the rest of the bus... things are going slowly.  Illness and travels to visit friends and family have kept us out of the bus.  We're still at the same place we were a month ago as far as actual, physical labor.  Michael, however, has kept working with a steady hand at placement of electrics and other assorted facets that can be worked out mentally and on paper. 

It's our prayer to leave our current residence in June 2012.  We have the "best laid plans", but we are totally dependent on God, who has the ultimate control.

In the meantime, if you know anyone who might want to buy a nice townhouse in Southern Maryland, let me know!

A Little of Today.

This morning was spent at the library - Jonah at a weather event where he made tornadoes in a bottle and played with prisms - Maeryn with me playing computer games, checking out books, playing with other kids, and experimenting with the whisper tube (our library is COOL).

We made a pit stop for fast food (it's true...sometimes the call of the cheese fries is just too much for me and my organic, whole foods self) and ate in the car.

At home we played with sidewalk chalk and...

A little of this, with some lollypops and coloring thrown in for good measure.

Jonah rode his scooter around the block about fifty times while Maeryn and I read books from the library.  Jonah joined us when the rains came, and we all enjoyed this.

During the sidewalk chalk, I was fortunate to mosey outside and discover, to my wonderment, our very first, ripe, heirloom tomato - dangling and heavy and ready for harvest.

In the Garden.

I love gardening.  I love being in the garden, watering, weeding, pruning, harvesting - it is all satisfying and special for me.  I love getting my hands in the dirt and sporting the mud under my fingernails.  I even get a bit of a masochistic thrill from mulching.

I wanted to share some of my garden love with you:

unopened squash blooms

Jonah's sunflowers, now much taller than he.

variety of tomato and basil plants

Jonah's oregano

Jonah's basil

Our first zucchini of the season

First Harvest

This year I tried my hand at growing potatoes for the first time.

I was inspired a bit by the book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle..., by Barbara Kingsolver, I admit.

I grabbed a bag of organic potatoes straight from the grocery store and planted a few of them.

Honestly, I never thought they'd come up.

I had several consultations with my dad (gardening expert) and a few with my mom (grew up on a farm), and while I found that I didn't have to plant the entire potato (oops), my crop actually started to grow.

I don't know why, but planting something and then watching it spring from the ground is one of the most excited things in life for me.  Second to a few things, perhaps, including actually harvesting the produce from the seed I planted with my own hands.

I know this doesn't hold the same fascination for everyone.

Yesterday, when I saw a few potatoes peeking in small mounds from below the ground I squealed and called Jonah out to share my excitement:

"Look, Jonah!  The potatoes are coming up!"

"That's it?  That's why you called me out here?"

"Well...yeah, isn't it cool?!"

"BOR-ING."

Okay - Jonah probably won't be a gardener...

Either way, I called my dad on the phone to ask him if I should dig them up, and he wavered a little, so I asked my mom this morning, telling her the stalks were yellow and the leaves curling and browning.  She said they were probably ready.

I dug up fifteen or so potatoes!!!  It was magical and wonderful - like opening a surprise gift someone left on your doorstep and finding wondrous treasure!  My heart pounded faster at each new discovery.

I called Maeryn out to see them this time.  A little more into it than her brother, but still not all that stoked, so I called my dad.

He wanted to know all about them and asked how many and how big and even made some cooking suggestions.  Best. Dad. Ever.

I love that guy.

Oh, and here's a look at our first harvest!:

 

SQUEE!!!!

Foods, Voltron, etc.

Today I made blueberry banana muffins.  They're sort of a staple around here.

I had a splash of guilt.  Bananas are bad.  This is because, according to the book I've been reading, they are unreasonably cheap.

Think about it this way - bananas have to come from far away to get into our supermarkets.  It must cost an awful lot of fuel and preservative conditions to get them here intact...  so why are they the cheapest fruit around?  Well, the money loss has to be from somewhere, and according to my latest reading, it's lost on the workers.  I'm not so surprised.  This is so often the case.

Bananas will probably not be leaving our menu any time soon.  They are the best egg replacement I've managed to find, and since most of my baking has to be vegan (my son has egg and dairy allergies), it's tough to say we won't be using bananas.

It does have me thinking about my foods.  Their sources.

Blueberries are NOT in season.  They must travel far and wide to arrive here in my grocer's produce section as well.  So what to do?

The jury is still out as far as what our family will decide.  All I know is that I'm looking forward to the farmer's market openings come April around these parts.  I can't wait to have fresh produce in the house that I can feel great about.

Jonah is still rebelling.  He had a fit this morning because we got the organic rice milk rather than the vanilla kind he's used to.  He told me in the past he prefers to have the original when up against the vanilla flavored, but today that was not the case.  He still used it on his cereal, but not without protest.

I had this thought that I'd like to move into a big old farmhouse and go ahead and do the homesteading thing.  Whole hog.  Just go for it.  Grow all our own produce, raise chickens, make friends with the neighbors and share things, knit like crazy...  It seems great in a dreamy sort of way - but when I think about it I'm not sure I have that kind of self-discipline.

I'm getting there.

Today I spent a good amount of time thinking about the spring garden I'm hoping to plant.

We don't have a lot of space, but I'm hoping to plant tomatoes, peppers, and squash - some of our family favorites when it comes to what we use in our cooking.  Jonah will have his own little plot where he can plant the veggies or flowers of his choice.  I'm going to get some seeds for native flowers to attract butterflies and bees and a handy bird feeder because I love to watch the birds and the bees and butterflies will be great for the garden as they pollinate the flowers on all kinds of blooms.

I've learned a lot about gardening in the last year through reading and experience.  Perhaps this year's harvest will yield a bit more than last year's.

In the meantime, I'm hoping to impose on Jonah's Voltron marathon long enough to head out to the library tomorrow, get some healthy food into his belly, and spark some interest in Valentine baking and garden planning.

We'll see how that goes.

On another note - with our tax return we will be just $13 away from paying off our car and one step closer to living debt free!

Whole Foods Update.

Two nights ago I started reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver.  It's the story of a family who moved from Arizona to Appalachia in order to become independent from the food "system".  For one year, they vowed to only eat foods grown locally.  They planted a garden, scoured farmers' markets, and tapped water from a nearby spring.  I'm only on chapter three or so, but already it's been a great motivator and enforcer of things I'd already decided.

Since going as organic as possible, we've found our grocery bill has grown significantly.  We'll be splitting our grocery shopping between Wal*mart (shudder) and Giant for the time being.  Wally World for non-produce and Giant for produce.  We're hoping to still buy groceries in an affordable way and buy foods that are healthy for our family.

I'm looking forward to the opening of the farmer's markets this spring and thinking about planting the garden in the back yard.  I had a small one last year, and this year I'd like to plant again.  We didn't have a huge yield last growing season, but I've learned a lot since then, and I'm hoping to do better this year.  It's no easy task to balance affordability with quality. 

I'm thinking that this season I'm going to try and learn to can as well.  I'm not really looking forward to it, because it just doesn't seem like much fun, but I'm going to try my hand.

We've been working hard to eat as seasonally as possible as well, even though we're still frequenting the big-boxes. 

Roasted root veggies are a tasty way to spend the seasonal abundance.  They're easy in the crock-pot.  I chop carrots, rutabaga, parsnips, onion, butternut squash, and potatoes into the crock, add a few dashes of cinnamon, some oil (not too much!), pepper, a teeny bit of salt, and some minced garlic and cook on low for about six hours.  It's tasty.

We have been having trouble with the kids buying into the new way of eating.  They aren't so keen on whole foods and homemade pizza sauce.  Maeryn finally ate a little of the pizza (this is the second time we've made it homemade from top to bottom) but Jonah complained when he found chunks of onion in the sauce and refused to eat more than a few nibbles.  His rebellion has been to make his own grocery list including potato chips, marshmallows, graham crackers, pretzels, and Cocoa Puffs.  We went ahead and let him get those things on our last grocery trip and he and his sister have been splitting the prize for the last two days.  They haven't eaten much healthy food since.  I'm trying to trust the unschooling process and just keep offering tasty whole foods while setting a good example with what I choose to eat, but I can't help worrying. 

Jonah and I have talked about how he feels when he eats certain foods vs. other certain foods, and he admits that he feels better when he eats healthier, but the junk foods are easier - at least easier than the health foods he enjoys - he's not much for raw veggies, though last week I saw him with a raw broccoli stalk, eating it like a turkey leg while playing checkers with his dad. 

Perhaps all is not lost.

In other news - you MUST, if nothing else, begin buying organic sour cream.

It ROCKS.

No GMO.

So this week we've decided to stop eating anything that might be GMO, buy organics when available, and make the financial sacrifices necessary to do that.

I get that this isn't possible for everyone.  Two years ago this would not have been possible for us - but now that we CAN do it, we are. 

This week we actually spent just $89 on groceries.  It helps that we're visiting relatives two of the seven days out of the week and we'll be eating on their grocery budget, but it made me feel MUCH better knowing that it wasn't breaking the bank completely to change this thing about our diets.

It's been a little tough on the kids - they are chicken nugget types, so whole foods and organics isn't sitting all that well.  If anyone has a recipe for homemade chicken nuggets that has been a winner with your little ones, PLEASE share it in the comments section for me!

Michael picked up Irish style oatmeal.  It reminds me a little of tapioca - smells good, but the texture is creepy - I'm thinking we'll try the traditional style slow cook organic next time.  No amount of cinnamon or brown sugar can save me from that fish eye feeling - ick...

I made Vegan Shepherd's Pie last night.  Total wash with the kids.  Maeryn ate ONLY the mashed potatoes, so I guess that wasn't a total loss.  Jonah refused to try anything.  He's been having a hard time with life in general this week - I'm not really sure why.  Michael and I both really liked the shepherd's pie.  I wanted to take a picture to share, but totally forgot about it because by the time it came out of the oven, everyone was "starving" and couldn't wait to dig in.  I think they were a little turned off by the brussel sprouts. 

Sigh.  A mom can try!

If you're interested in ditching GMO's at your house, but aren't sure how to know or where to start, check out this site.

Things about which I need to write:

1)  Michael's debate with co-workers about unschooling vs. the public school system and traditional homeschooling...

2)  Our switch to whole, organics, no GMO...

3)  The date on which I am about to embark with my husband complete with babysitter and gift cards.

Just a preview for you and a reminder for me.

:-)