The quest for "snacks"

One of the hardest things about making this switch has been the sudden disappearance of things we used to snack on.  Fruit snacks, gone.  Ritz crackers, gone.  Chips, no way (although those were a specialty already in this house).  We are a "snacky" bunch, and considering my kids are nearly off the growth chart in weight (that is off...on the under side) I let them snack almost whenever they want.  Finding things we can snack on (without eating all of tomorrows breakfast!) has been tough.

We have replaced some of the snacks with fruit.  Mainly apples, oranges, and bananas.  We used to eat grapes like crazy, but since they are some of the worst for pesticides, we have done away with conventional grapes.  I hope to find reasonable organic ones soon.  Also, we have been snacking on nuts.  My kids are crazy about pistachios right now, which I am all for considering they both look malnourished (note: they are not).  Walnuts and cashews have also made some regular appearances in the snack cabinet.

But sometimes there needs to be a special snack.  Something out of the ordinary that cues a "mmm whats that smell?" when stumbling out from nap time.  I think I found our new go to...In search of something good for us and REAL, I found this recipe for Homemade Graham Crackers.  100% whole wheat and they are SOOO good!  I used white whole wheat flour (I will never go back to red!).  I'm hoping they last until tomorrow!

And as promised the Pop Tart recipe .  These turned out well.  I ended up not putting enough filling in them so next time I will be more aware of that.  They were easy to make other than the (I can never get it right) rolling out part.  I filled most with strawberry jelly and a couple with peanut butter and a few chocolate chips.  I would love to make some cinnamon ones next time because those are my favorite!

Yum!

REAL Good: recipe

I made these muffins yesterday and all but 2 are gone.  My family loves the Pumpkin muffins  I make, but there are times when I don't have a can of pumpkin laying around and can't make them (you can sub cooked sweet potatoes if you have them!), so I needed a different recipe.  These have gone over well!  During nap time today I made homemade "pop tarts"!  I will let you know how they turn out!!

I am loving www.100daysofrealfood.com for her knowledge and her recipes!  Go have a look!

REAL Good: Week 2

I was out of town at the Gospel Coalition Women's Conference this past weekend, so I'm a little behind in the rest of life (although I did come home to a sparking clean house!).

I mentioned last week that because of our CSA, I will have $59 dollars to spend weekly on groceries.  This proved to be tough last week.  So I'm hoping for more success this go around.  A lot of this has been trial and error.  I had no idea how much processed food we ate until I became aware of what "processed" entails.  Breakfast has been the toughest.  Nearly all cereal, granola and baked goods are highly processed.  So, I've been making a lot of breakfasts from scratch.  More time, but less $$.  And sandwich bread...have you ever looked at your favorite sandwich bread label?  Yikes.  Unless of course, you buy yours from Great Harvest Bread Co.

I will be posting some recipes later on how I've made this work.


Here is last weeks totals:

CSA: $41.00


kohlrabi (kinda like a turnip..made these with it)
beets (trying to figure out a way to get them down!)
green beans
greens (added to frittata, chicken and dumplings)
garlic
whole chicken
mozzarella
basil

Trader Joes: $64.64


Pineapple
Salad mix
organic ketchup
cashews
organic yogurt
walnuts
pistachios
bananas
organic milk
1 lb organic grass fed ground beef (which made the best burger I've had in a WHILE!)
peanut butter
organic apple sauce
tortillas
honey
artisan lettuce
vanilla
pepper

Although I did go slightly over budget (which I freaked out about and my husband was thrilled I bought organic food for only $5 more than conventional...so telling of our personalities!), this was my first week of learning how to do this.

Because of going out of town the weekend wasn't necessarily the best experience and warranted a trip out for more milk, but over all we feel good about this week!  My hope is to be able to keep my same $100/week budget and make this thing work, but we are willing to make some adjustments if we have to.

Now I'm off to check on my sandwich bread baking and whole wheat muffin making!

Musical Monday

Go check this guy out.  If you haven't heard of him, it is likely you will very soon.  Some of the best music I have heard in a LONG time.   Enjoy!


William Howard

REAL Good: Week one

After watching Food Inc. we decided to join a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture).   I researched a ton and decided to go with a particular local CSA because of their supply of produce, eggs, cheese and meat as well as their reasonable price!  We are super excited about this, and we will hopefully receive our first box next week!

photo credit: Harland's Creek Farm (our CSA yay!)

Budgeting was my main barrier in this transition to REAL, LOCAL, ORGANIC food.  I have $100 a week to spend at the grocery store, and sometime that is tough to maintain buying conventional food.   It is going to take some work, but I believe I can maintain the budget even with this change.  The CSA we joined will deliver 5-10 fruits and vegetables, eggs or artisan cheese, and somewhere between 2-4 pounds of organic meat every week for $41/week.  This leaves me $59 a week to buy everything else we need.  I had a trial run week before we joined this week.  I went to the huge Farmers Market downtown and bought blueberries, strawberries, potatoes, beets, peaches and eggs for $25.   Not bad. The next day I went to the HT and bought organic milk, a whole "smart chicken", organic lemonade, organic apple juice, white whole wheat flour, chocolate chips (not giving those up!), canned pumpkin, pistachios, pull ups, and Triscuits and spent $54.41 (and the pull ups were $10)!  Thank you HT for your sales and specials on organic products!  After this week, I'm beginning to believe this thing is possible.   Hooray!   I have had a pretty well stocked pantry, but its wearing away, so I will have to restock some things soon.  I will be doing some research on what pantry staples to buy organic (oats, rice, couscous, etc).

Here is a very helpful site that I am taking notes from: http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/

Here is a list of the "Dirty Dozen" and "Clean 15" if you cant buy all organic: http://www.ewg.org/foodnews/

If you are interested in joining a local CSA go to : Local Harvest to find a participating farm in your area!  

Its All New: REAL Good

We are getting adjusted to our new life in our city.  Other than navigating how to get everywhere in the (MUCH more than the 'boro) traffic, we are loving it!  The church is amazing, our apartment is nearly perfect (except let us pause for a moment of silence for my old kitchen...sniffle), there is much to explore, and we have certainly loved having so many things to do within 5 miles of our house.  The Lord has been so faithful to us and we certainly feel that we are resting in His presence.

In all our transition we have had a hundred little things to take care of.  One of those was cancelling our Dish (sigh: goodbye Food Network).  Because of that we finally dove into the wonderful world of Netflix.  I had been really wanting to watch "Food Inc" and thankfully, unlike Redbox, Netflix carries documentaries.  I knew it may shed a little light on some things about what we eat that might be eye-opening, but I had NO idea the impact it would have on us.

 Previously, I have been a healthy eater.  I'm pretty particular about how many vegetables my family gets and have worked hard to make healthy, tasty food that everyone loves.  But I haven't done the organic thing (except milk), and I shop sales almost exclusively.  I haven't, until now, really believed the health difference was worth the financial difference for us.  I won't go into all the details, but would highly recommend watching Food Inc. and making judgements for yourself.

We have a pretty strict (read: rather meager) grocery budget, so I knew taking on this new lifestyle would be interesting, if not impossible. Which, I think is across the board the view of such a lifestyle.  So, I'm going to blog through this thing and hopefully prove to all of us that it can be done. We aren't going "cold turkey" (my man and sweet girl went on a date to "their place" Dunkin just this morning) but we are striving to eat as much REAL, LOCAL, ORGANIC food (including meat) as we can.  My hope is to change the stereotype that it is impossible to eat this way unless you are really financially well off.  So, over the next few weeks I will track our spending and eating habits in hopes of bringing the lofty idea down to reality.