The breakfast blues

For the past year, I have been fiddling around with pancake recipes. I used to be a die-hard Krusteaz Buttermilk mix user until I read the ingredients. The label begins innocently enough: enriched bleached flour, sugar and leavening, but it's the remaining ingredients that trouble me. Soy flour(not sure why this troubles me but I am sure with a little research I could pin it down.), dextrose, partially hydrogenated soybean and cottonseed oils, and mono-diglycerides (emulsifier). I decided that the "just add water" convenience of this product was just not worth consuming the questionable additives. In my journey to find the right recipe, I experimented with different flours, buttermilk and the ratios of the standard ingredients as well as an amount of batter that will make enough pancakes for my ravenous family. Feel free to use organic ingredients when available. Today I think I found a winner and here it is:

Semi-Whole Wheat Blueberry Pancakes

(Makes about 18 4-inch pancakes)

3 eggs

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup whole-wheat pastry flour

2 cups milk

2 tablespoons of organic cane sugar or regular sugar (organic cane has bigger crystals for a nice texture)

4 tablespoons vegetable oil

2 tablespoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 pint of blueberries

butter for cooking

Beat eggs with whisk in a large bowl until fluffy. Whisk in remaining ingredients except butter and blueberries until just combined. It is not necessary to be lump free! Set pan or griddle over medium heat and grease with butter(you will need to add more butter after each batch). You will know the pan is hot enough when the butter sizzles as soon as it is in contact with the surface. Ladle desired amount of batter into greased pan and top with 5-7 blueberries per pancake. Flip when the bubbles start to pop and cook for about one more minute. Serve with REAL maple syrup and enjoy!

Why real maple syrup? I know it is expensive compared to Mrs. Butterworth's but once you make the switch you won't want to go back. Just a comparison of the labels was enough for me. My bottle of the Whole Foods 365 Organic Grade A Maple Syrup requires refrigeration after opening and it has one ingredient: organic maple syrup. In contrast, Mrs. Butterworth's does not require refrigeration yet has an incredibly long shelf life. It's ingredients are: high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, water, salt, cellulose gum, molasses, potassium sorbate (preservative), sodium hexametaphosphate, citric acid, caramel color, natural and artificial flavors. I recommend ditching the brown corn syrup and eating pancakes and waffles less often to compensate for the increase in the price of the syrup. The food conglomerates have created a way to produce cheaper "food" at the cost of quality. Real food costs more, but it is cheaper than the medical care that will be required to treat the diseases brought about by an unhealthy diet and lifestyle. We'll pay now or we'll later!

Good fences make good gardens...

Wow, if I had waited just 18 more days, it would have been a full six months since my last blog post. I debated whether or not to fully retire but slowly but surely the words are coming back. The last six months found our household with a new member, my bed-ridden grandma. It was quite the journey and we have seemed to returned to our normal routine since her passing almost two months ago.

During my hiatus, I planted a spring garden complete with peas, green beans, carrots, tomatoes, watermelon, zucchini and cantaloupe. Gardening in the desert is not for wimps! Yes, we have a long growing season but if you don't hit everything just right, you may never see a harvest. I was overjoyed when my peas blossomed and produced the most delicious little green orbs. When my tomatoes were covered in delicate yellow flowers, I imagined them sliced and covered with basil and balsamic vinegar, but sadly our love story ended tragically. May was unseasonably cool and because of the evening temperatures being below 60 degrees, the plants never set fruit. The carrots and green beans tried to compensate and began to fill in nicely until the wind blew part of the garden fence down and the chickens wiped out the entire carrot crop in 15 minutes. Their scratching and digging severed the green bean and pea vines from their roots, thus ending their brief residence in my garden. I did not despair because there were tiny green buds finally coming out of the tomato blossoms. My little hens had also eaten the leaves off of the melon vines and all the cantaloupe blossoms but even these had overcome the tragedy and were returning to their growth cycle.

Yesterday we returned from a week-long visit to Virginia. I knew there was an intense heat wave while we were away so I fully expected to see a stressed-out garden when I returned. What I found instead was NO garden. The strong Vegas winds had once again blown the garden door down, but this time I wasn't there to prevent the merciless slaughter of that which I had poured my heart and soul into for the last few months. Honestly I can't blame the chickens for being chickens and I could have not been so lazy and secured the door better, but still...

Since chickens seems to be the one thing I am good at when it comes to producing our own food, we added three more to our flock. The new girls will lay white eggs which will nicely round out the colors in our egg basket. They should begin laying around October which will give us the possibility of up to 9 eggs per day. While in Virginia, I bought the first grocery store eggs I have had in about 8 months. I splurged on what seemed to be the best possible eggs the store offered. They were organic, free-range, Omega-3, etc. When I cracked open the first one I was greeted by a pale, yellow and runny yoke. It was quite different than the firm orange yokes that we have become accustomed to. My kids wouldn't eat them and when I tried one I found the flavor diluted and just plain wrong. I ended up hard boiling them so we couldn't tell the difference. The next day I was able to buy some at a Williamsburg farmer's market and they looked and tasted more like we were used to. (Confidentially, I still think mine taste better but don't tell Farmer Bill).

Even though it seems to be virtually impossible for me to have a garden, at least food is growing somewhere and I can buy it. Summer welcomes so many wonderful foods: berries, stone fruits, tomatoes, melons and artichokes to name a few. If you eat these when they are in season and not shipped from South America or artificially ripened, the flavor is incredible. I have found if I invest in a variety of the summer fruits and leave them ready-to-eat on the counter, my kids will snack on them all day. When you are feeling fancy you can turn them into light and refreshing desserts to enjoy on the hot summer nights.

Since we cannot live on fruit alone, I am working on ways to incorporate more vegetables in our diet. I would like to try at least one new veggie each week this summer to help break us out of our corn, peas and broccoli rut. Tonight we enjoyed grilled endive(pictured with grilled chicken) drizzled with balsamic vinegar. I got the idea from a magazine and it was enjoyed by all of us, even the kids. Our weather was not cooperating with my plan to grill outside so I cooked them indoors on my George Foreman grill. Simply slice Belgian endive in halve lengthwise. Brush halves with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Place face down on a hot grill for about 4 or 5 minutes and drizzle with balsamic vinegar before serving. Next week's assignment: celery root.

Everyone else has a "Best of 2009" list and I want one too!

I have to confess that it has been so long between posts that I almost forgot how to login but I refuse to let the blog die! Happy New Year and welcome to the first post of 2010.

At the end of the year there are many lists citing what was amazing about the past year so I decided to create my own list of our family's top 10 nutritional changes for 2009:

10. In an effort to cut back on processed foods and the chemicals and preservatives they are laden with, I have quit buying certain staples that used to always be found in a cupboard: Chunky Soup, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese and any Campbells "Cream of" soup to name a few.

9. When it won't make the item unpalatable, I have substituted whole-wheat flour for part or all of the all-purpose flour called for in baked goods. I have learned that some items just aren't as good with whole-wheat flour and I don't think we will ever get used to them that way.

8. I started this blog which makes me accountable to any of my friends that I see on a regular basis. If I am writing about how bad a food is, I shouldn't be seen stuffing it in my face!

7. We have an actual garden growing in our backyard with spinach, broccoli and beets. We have been able to eat some spinach but the beets and broccoli are growing very slowly and are not ready yet. I hope they are ready in time for me to start the warm season garden.

6. When possible I buy organic products. I have learned how to shop around and get decent prices on them and have gotten used to paying more for items such as butter and cereal but I truly feel it is worth it.

5. We discovered grass-fed beef and although I do not use it exclusively for all cuts, it has been the only ground beef I have purchased in months and every time a beef recall is in the news I don't need to check my lot numbers!

4. We started receiving Winder Farms dairy products on our doorstep and I love them! It is also good to know that when I go to sleep on Sunday I will wake up to a week's worth of milk on my doorstep the next morning.

3. I have become a better steward of my food because I am paying more for it. In order to cut back on waste I have to shop more frequently for produce and bakery items but I try to stretch them further. I have even made my own chicken stock from bones and veggie scraps and froze it for future meals.

2. I have discovered that I am not alone in this journey. Whether it be friends or online communities and newsletters, there is overwhelming support for these changes.

1. Chickens! I adore my little hens. Raising them has been such a wonderful experience and we have just started receiving the fruit of that labor: 2 nice little brown eggs each morning. We hope to have up to six a day but not all the girls are on board with that plan yet. They do cause us some frustration since it seems impossible to keep them in the part of the yard we want them and out of the parts we don't and we really hate when they visit the pool deck(soon to renamed the poop deck)! In spite of that, they have brought us many hours of joy and, as of today, 12 eggs!

If you have been inspired to make changes in this new year, don't try to do it all at once. Take it a step at a time such as cutting back on processed foods or avoiding anything with high fructose corn syrup in the ingredients. It is also important to read the labels on what you are buying. Know what is in it and where it is from and don't be fooled by the claims on the front of the boxes. Who knows, maybe this time next year you will be getting fresh eggs from your backyard chickens too!

Falling for fall

Even though the sun is shining and it is a balmy 60 degrees here, it still feels like autumn. The changing of the season signals a change in our appetites and I crave root vegetables, pumpkin dishes and apple-ladened desserts. These foods taste better because they are in season. The spotlight shines on them because this is exactly when we are supposed to be eating them. With the new food technologies we have today, we can eat just about any fruit or vegetable we want any time of year. Just because we can, doesn't mean we should. Out-of-season foods can be genetically modified, full of chemicals and artificially ripened so that they can make the long journey from places such as New Zealand and Chile to our local supermarkets. Local fall harvests produce the sweetest and crispest apples, richly colored root vegetables, pomegranates (my favorite!) and cool season squashes and pumpkins(Click here for a wonderful pumpkin waffle recipe). Look for them this month and you will find that they are economical as well as tasty. The photo above was an organic mixture of red and gold beets, orange and yellow baby carrots, rutabagas, turnips, onions, garlic and celery roasted with olive oil and salt. The juice from the red beets tinted everything with a rosy blush and the mixture was delicious. Is it weird to find vegetables so beautiful that you want to take their picture? Probably, but I am past the age of worrying if people think I am weird.

The chickens are getting very close to egg-laying age and I was delighted that our local feed store ordered organic chicken feed for me. As much as a desired to be able to label my eggs "organic," I now realize that their truly is no such thing. Chickens eat bugs. For some of you that may be disgusting but it actually makes for better quality eggs in flavor and nutrition. I cannot guarantee that these bugs are only consuming organic food and not all fruit and vegetable scraps I throw out to the girls are organic. They also require ground-up oyster shells for calcium and I have yet to see organically-certified oysters. I will do my best but unless I lock them in a hermetically sealed container, they will continue eating any insects that come in their path and that is just another perk of having pet chickens.

This Veteran's Day we took a day-trip to a working date farm. I have never cooked with dates and hardly even tasted them but it did inspire me to make some date-nut bread and to learn more about their nutritional benefits. There are so many good things about dates that I don't want to bore you by listing them all here. If you are curious to see what is so good about them, click here. I will say that they are a good source of fiber, loaded with vitamins and minerals, used as medicines in some cultures and are in season right now. The date-nut bread was well-received by my family and friends and I have added the recipe for you below.

Since I began this journey, I have noticed that organic products are more prominently featured in regular supermarkets and the prices are dropping. The more we buy, the more the stores will respond with variety and sales. When I was watching a bonus feature with Michael Pollan on the "Future of Food" DVD, he was asked why organic food costs so much. He responded, "What you should be asking is why the other food is so cheap." Americans spend less of their income on food then they ever have but have no problem with spending hundreds of dollars a month on cell phone and cable bills. We have become complacent with food quality standards and rely too much on the government to protect our food supply. I highly recommend watching "The Future of Food" and "Food, Inc." which is also on DVD. It's time America knew what we are really eating and the long-term consequences that will result from it.

LIKE THEY SERVE IN SOHO DATE NUT BREAD (As featured on gourmet.com)

3/4 cup boiling water
1 1/2 cups chopped dates
1 tablespoon butter
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup molasses
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 large eggs
1 cup all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup chopped walnuts

Heat oven to 350°F.

In a medium bowl, pour hot water over dates and butter. Stir and let the mix sit until lukewarm. In a food processor, puree 1/3 of the mix to make a paste. Stir it back into the bowl full of date mix. Add the brown sugar, molasses, vanilla, and eggs. Stir until combined.

In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Make a well in the center and pour in the date mixture. Mix together and and fold in walnuts. Pour the batter into a butter-greased loaf pan.

Bake for 60 minutes or so; loaf is done when the top has risen. Remove the bread from the oven and cool it on a rack for at least 30 minutes before serving.

Soup's On!

Sometimes I will allow my mind to wander and imagine would it would have been like to live during a much simpler time. A time where you stayed closer to home, spent more time together as a family, grew your own food and didn't worry if you had granite countertops and stainless steel appliances...then my phone alerts me to an upcoming appointment or the microwave beeps because my lunch is ready. It would have been so much easier to eat the way I want us to eat if it was all that was available to us. Unfortunately, we are living in a much more "convenient" time. Honestly I would prefer not to trade my washing machine and SUV for some rocks in a creek and a horse-drawn wagon, but I wish I had never developed a taste for processed convenience foods. No matter which organic, all-natural macaroni and cheese mix I buy, it never tastes as good as Kraft's. Even though I have no trouble baking from scratch, sometimes you just need to throw a package of Oreos in the cooler when you are packing a picnic. I actually did get the Oreos today, not caring what they were made out of but instead focusing on the creamy yet granular mystery filling sandwiched between two dark chocolate disks that stuck to my teeth when I chewed them. Good for me? Definitely not. After I ate a few I decided to read the ingredients so that I could feel sufficiently guilty. I discovered that Nabisco has replaced the hydrogenated oil with high oleic canola oil. I have never heard of this before and even after googling it I am still not sure if it is good for you or not.

I have just about run out of my grass-fed beef order and have decided that I will not be getting that package again. Cooking the roasts and ground beef have been easy, but the other cuts have definitely stressed me out. It is very easy to ruin a grass-fed steak. Our new refrigerator came with an Omaha Steaks gift pack and I was so excited to cook the grain-fed sirloin steaks tonight. I knew I could just season them and throw them on the grill and they would be cooked just the way we like them and taste just how we expect them to. From now on we will be ordering only grass-fed ground beef since this is the type of beef we eat the most of, it is almost impossible to ruin and it is the cut of beef most likely to cause illness from e coli bacteria when it comes from grain-fed cows.

Isn't amazing how the changing of seasons ushers in a changing of appetites? Even though it was a 90 degree October day here in Vegas, I still yearn for desserts made with pumpkin and apples and hearty soups. Soup is one of my favorite meals. You can pack lots of vegetables in it that your kids will ignore if they were just side dishes on their plates and they are so easy to throw together. If you are missing an ingredient or like something so much you want to have more of it in your soup, chances are the soup will still taste good. Any leftovers go into my kids' lunch boxes in their handy little thermoses. Our first soup of autumn was a family favorite: lasagna soup. I was even able to use spinach from my garden (yes, the fence is still keeping the chickens out of the garden so things are actually growing!). If you would like to make your own, pickup a baguette of crusty french bread or a lovely ciabatta loaf and prepare as follows:

Lasagna Soup

1 lb. ground Italian sausage (mild or spicy, you choose)

2 cups onion, chopped

1 cup carrot, diced

2 cups button mushrooms, sliced

2 Tablespoons garlic, minced

1 can tomato sauce (15 oz I think)

4 cups chicken broth

1 can chopped Italian-style stewed tomatoes (14 1/2 oz)

1 cup of bowties, medium shells or similarly sized shaped pasta

2 cups of fresh baby spinach

1 cup of provolone or fresh mozzarella, diced (I use provolone and the more it smells like dirty feet, the better it tastes in the soup.)

1/4 cup shredded parmigiano reggiano cheese (If you don't have some just use the Kraft stuff)

4 teaspoons thinly sliced fresh basil

Brown sausage in a large soup pot. Add onion and carrot and saute for about 5 minutes. Add mushrooms and garlic and saute another 5 minutes. Add broth, tomato sauce and stewed tomatoes and bring to a boil. Add pasta and cook until soft. Add spinach and cook until wilted, about 1 minute. Divide cheese cubes in individual bowls and pour hot soup over them to melt. Top with parmigiano reggiano and basil.

Feel free to omit the mushrooms if you don't like them. Throw in an extra cup of pasta instead. Use the crusty bread to sop up the remaining tomato-ey goodness.

Arrivederci!

Allergy warning: This post contains peanuts or peanut products!

I confess, I have been a lazy blogger. Sometimes I just don't have anything to say so I would rather provide quality rather than quantity to your reading experience...

When you choose to go against the grain with your family's diet, it sometimes feels like a job. All labels must be read, you can't grocery shop at just one store if you want to get the best deals and a lot of the food you bring home gets rejected by your love ones whom you are trying to nourish. As if that isn't enough, instead of earning a paycheck, you actually have to pay more! I expected my kids to avoid any illness this year because of their healthier diet, but as I am writing this, I am home with a boy who has been sick for the last five days and had to receive intravenous antibiotics as part of his treatment. If not for this blog, I am sure I would have given up about a month ago and resume the easy way again.

Since I have not given up, I will share with you what I think is the tastiest peanut butter I have ever had. I always assumed that peanut butter was ground-up peanuts and maybe a little salt. After reading the label on my jar of Skippy, I discovered that in addition to those ingredients it also contains partially-hydrogenated oils. This discovery led me to look for a more natural peanut butter. In fact, I made it myself; well sort of. In the bulk food section of Whole Foods, there are about four machines that freshly grind nut butters. Just for fun, my kids made some regular peanut butter that ended up costing a little over $3 for a 16 ounce container. It is delicious on a PB&J, and even better spread between two milk chocolate stars!

The more I have been using the pastured butter from U.S. Wellness Meats, the less I think I need it. It is very salty and seems to be similar in flavor to organic butter. It also is sold in 1 pound blocks which makes measuring more difficult. I gave it shot but when it runs out it won't be gracing my fridge anymore.

Our chickens have been thriving but I must confess they aren't terribly bright. The compost pile is up against a wall and they have been using it to climb up to the top of the wall. I discovered them walking on the wall behind my garden and grew very concerned that they would jump down and eat everything in it again. I shooed them off and didn't see them up there for a couple of days. Since they are chickens, I had hoped that they forgot how to do it and it wouldn't be a problem. Unfortunately they did it again today. I came into their area of the yard and found one chicken in the backyard (Maddy who is in the pic) and the other five in the front yard looking into the backyard through the gate. Then when I opened the gate to let them back in, they just stood there like poultry statues. It is a miracle that one of the neighborhood cats did not discover them and I am tremendously thankful. It made me realize the importance of boundaries. In the Bible, God tells us things we shouldn't do. He doesn't forbid these things because He is out to spoil our fun and give us a boring life, the boundaries protect us from doing things that will hurt us or hurt others. Like the chickens, we ignore the boundaries that are there to protect us. Sometimes we are okay, like the chickens were this morning, but other times the consequences are much more severe. I guess chickens and people have more in common than I thought.

Would you like some pesticide with that produce?

I have just returned from a weekend ladies' retreat with my church where I might have broken every dietary rule. Somehow, when you load up the car with six friends and set out on a road trip, you feel entitled to eat whatever you want. For the fleeting pleasure the junk food gave me, I brought home 3 extra pounds and a disgruntled digestive tract. Maybe I would have done better if I hadn't stopped at Tom's Farms on the way there and the trip home!

We have constructed what I lovingly refer to as the "monster chicken fence." This 8 foot barrier has protected my young garden from my young chickens. They tried to find a way in at first but seem to have resumed their previous jobs of picking through the compost pile and leaving "presents" on my pool deck. It will all be worth it when they laying eggs in a few months.

My cookbook for grass fed beef has arrived and I have successfully prepared two of the recipes. One of the secrets to a tender steak is marinading it in unfiltered organic extra-virgin olive oil. Apparently, when olive oil is unfiltered it contains enzymes that tenderize the meat. I was amazed that I could even find such an obscure ingredient but they actually had three different kinds at Whole Foods. It has a great aroma and seems slightly thicker than regular olive oil.

I also received my first order from U.S. Wellness Meats which included free-range chicken breasts, pastured butter, ground beef and a couple of skirt steaks. The pastured butter is supposed to taste better and is the recommended fat to cook the grass fed beef in. The taste reminded me of butter that I used to have when I was a kid. I was almost out of the ground beef from my last order with Grassroots Meats so I purchased 5 pounds from them to supplement because I am not ready to place a full order yet. The author of the cookbook claims that grass fed beef's flavor changes with where the cows are from. For example, cattle raised in Colorado will taste different than cattle raised in Missouri. Since the animals exclusively eat the plants that are available where they are pastured, their varied diet creates different flavors in the beef. I haven't cooked it yet but I am curious to see if it is true.

I believe it goes without saying that the healthier food cost more and yet here I am saying it again! Since I started this, it has gotten easier to pay more and buy less but if you are not interested in a radical food makeover and need some baby steps to change your family's eating habits, check out this slide show which exhibits the foods that contain the most pesticides and chemicals and the ones that are safe to eat when they are conventionally grown. There are many naysayers that will tell you that it is impossible for organic produce to be completely organic and that it is a scam. Since our soils have been saturated with chemicals from conventional farming it may be true but at least these farmers have changed their methods to make fruits and vegetables more nutritious and less artificial. Organic produce has not been genetically modified, takes longer to grow (which allows it to draw more nutrients from the soil), and does not have chemical fertilizers or pesticide residues. If you are wondering if these compounds are safe for you, read the warning labels on these products at your local nursery. These are diluted compared to the industrial-grade versions. Up until about 60 years ago, food was grown with healthier methods but corporate farming has corrupted the system and our food supply has been compromised in exchange for higher crop yields and more profits. Whenever you are able, send a message by purchasing "real food."