My Journey To Wholeness

Born In The Wrong Century?

2011-10-25T18:54:00.000-07:00

I came across this fun blog Born In The Wrong Century - Lots of ideas here!

Healthy Cereals

2011-10-25T08:32:00.000-07:00

Our family does not eat cereal very much for several reasons. One is the cost. The price is so much more expensive than oatmeal, which my husband and daughters in particular, really love. Then awhile back I read about a study where they fed rats cereal, rat food and the third group was fed the box that the cereal came in. The rats that ate the cereal died first. The rats eating the cardboard box the cereal came in lived longer! That was eye opening. We never did eat all the sugary and colored cereals, but even some of the plain cereals are not that great for you.

The one cereal I have occasionally enjoyed when in a no cook or speedy situation is Nature's Path. They are a good company from what I've read and are based in Blaine, WA, which is just up the highway from my parents.

The Cornucopia Institute released its survey of cereal brands and companies, paying attention to details such as organic certification, use of GMO foods and use of hexane and petrochemicals. You can see the scorecard HERE. I was happy to see Nature's Path received their highest score! Since a lot of families use cereal, I thought you might like having this information.

Crockpot Cookery

2011-09-06T17:04:00.000-07:00

After years without one, I purchased a crockpot last winter. It is just a cheapy Rival that Target had on sale for $15 (normally $40) last year during the holidays. So far the funnest thing I have made in it is tapioca pudding, but I have used it for soups mainly.

Today I found this post with some great crock pot tips from Deborah Taylor Hough's The Original Simple Mom blog. She is also the author of the Frozen Assets: How To Cook For A Day And Eat For A Month book which I liked when I was doing freezer meals. Talented lady.

I have been on the look out for crock pot recipes that don't say "Open a can of Cream of Chemical Soup", then add...

Any healthy crockpot recipe recommendations out there?

Never Give Up!

2011-09-04T14:14:00.000-07:00

So, I'm basically back to Square One! My weight has a "set point" like a thermostat and if I don't continually exercise I go right back to that. Exercising has been difficult since my knee injury three years ago. The knee is better but now I have severe hip bursitis. I have been in physical therapy twice. It works for awhile and doesn't. All summer I've been thinking about what to do. It is important to me to become healthier and to do my part to live as long as possible for my wonderful family that YHVH has given me late in life! I've decided that the best thing for me to do is to jump back in to blogging. That gives me a little bit of accountability and a way to make a commit. So here I am. Never give up!

In the past I have balked at meal planning, but now I think I'll give it a hand. Because my family honors the 7th day Sabbath, my meal planning has changed some. It takes some planning to prepare ahead of time, our festive meal for Friday night as we celebrate the beginning of Sabbath and also make one or two meals for lunch and dinner on Sabbath at home or to take with us to our fellowship/worship meeting. And sometimes I forget about items in the refrigerator and they need to be thrown out! Such a waste! Planning will help reduce and hopefully eliminate this.

Today I've been looking online for some free planning calendars. So far, I found these at The Project Girl. Vertex42 has a variety and if you like using Excel you can download the files there to use, OR you can use the pdf files and print them right out. My favorite resource for homeschooling forms and calendars, Donna Young, has some options as well.

For now I am going to print out some and see which works best for me, then I'll either download and available Excel file or figure out how to make one myself.

If you have done menu planning, I would like to hear from you. What helped? What didn't? Anything you would avoid, do differently, etc?

Interested in Raw Foods

2011-01-03T09:48:00.000-08:00

Right now you can download a free pdf of Jordan Rubin's new book The Raw Truth at the Garden of Life website. Thank you Mr. Rubin!

Book Review

2011-01-01T20:19:00.000-08:00

Before I begin writing, I want to apologize to my vegan friends! I just finished reading The Butcher and the Vegetarian: One Woman's Romp Through a World of Men, Meat and Moral Crisis and it was a really fun read as well as being informative. The author, Tara Austen Weaver also has a foodie blog called Tea And Cookies that I am hoping to explore.

Part autobiographical, part confessional and part adventure story, Weaver's book also shares information about food, food ethics and how discouraging it can be to get accurate health information and treatment. Her journey into the world of the local butcher shop began when her Chinese health practitioner and naturopath told her she needed to begin eating meat to get healthy. Since she has a thyroid disorder, as do many of my family members, including my Hubby who had to have his irradiated, I was hoping she would end the book with a "magic bullet." However, her conclusion was the same as most of us come to - that each of us has to navigate the medical and health communities ourselves and there is rarely one answer, let alone one that is simple or magical.

As a person who has eaten meat and feels better eating vegetarian, but has also eaten vegan and considered Raw, I enjoyed her discussions on the process she has gone through. Since she lives in two places I have/do (Washington State and Northern California) I was happy to note some of her great resources. She was able to do some "investigating" as well and reported on some of the naturally raised meat choices available. The one I am pursuing further is Prather Ranch which I have passed while travelling up I-5. My local Co-op carries their meat so next month we may try some. I was impressed with their humane treatment and slaughter practices as well as the fact that they use all of the animal and they have been practicing ethical and environmental practices for more than thirty years because they actually believe in it, not just because they jumped onto a bandwagon!

For my friends in Washington Skagit River Ranch is a great resource for meat and eggs. They sell at some farmer's markets in the Seattle area as well.

The book does a good review of the politics of eating meat and how it affects the animals and the environment and she touches on the conflict of having something taste so good and feeling guilty for eating it. I also enjoyed her humorous anecdotes of growing up in the Hippie culture of northern California in the 1970s and eating healthy long before it was "popular". My Grandma Hopkins was a "health nut" and some of my kitchen experiences with her (or should I say "experiments") echoed those of Tara.

One caution if you have young readers, she does briefly touch on some topics such as inappropriate touching by an adult during her childhood (I don't want to be flagged in the search engines by using other wording), that are briefly and respectfully presented as part of her journey.

Overall if you are new to healthy eating or considering whether or not you want to eat meat, live as a vegan or vegetarian, I think this would be a good resource. Even if you are experienced and settled in your healthy eating choices, you might enjoy her humor and relaxed writing style. I had to laugh at some of her comments about "facing the meat in the fridge" as I can relate to them as well. I have a love/hate relationship with meat - repulsed by it but also enjoying it when it is prepared well. I am hoping her blog will carry the same writing style. For me, I would consider this a book I would read from the library (which I did), but not keep as a reference book on my shelf. It is not because of any failure on Tara Weaver's part, but because her book is not really meant for that purpose. If you have read this book or do so after reading my review, I would be interested in hearing your opinion.

Vintage Cookbook

2010-12-20T14:30:00.000-08:00

My friend Stephanie on Facebook posted a link to download a pdf version of the orignal Fannie Farmer Cookbook. I thought it would be interesting to see this and it's free. I'm sure cooking has changed a lot since then. You can down load it here.

Soy and Hexane

2010-12-15T12:58:00.000-08:00

Deciding whether or not to eat soy, is a complex issue. There are some serious health implications with certain types of soy including soy protein isolate and textured vegetable protein. There are some concerns for those with thyroid disease as well, since there are chemicals in soy which can cause thyroid goiters. Then there is the estrogen effect.

When you research soy you can find a gamut of articles on each side of the fence. The most conservative say that only fermented forms of soy such as Miso and Soy Sauce are okay for human consumption. Just when I got used to and actually started liking Tofu and Tofu noodles! LOL

A greater concern is Hexane gas, a neurotoxic chemical solvent. Natural New TV shared this on the use of Hexane gas in soy processing. If you use soy, check your labels! The Cornucopia Institute has this soy score card which can help you evaluate your favorite brands. I was surprised to see some readily and widely available brands that received a ZERO rating!

Answers on Dehydrating

2010-12-15T11:55:00.000-08:00

First of all, thank you so much for taking the time to comment on my post about dehydrating. So much has happened between then and now that this is the first opportunity I have had to post answers. I am uncertain how to answer through the comments themselves, so I will answer here.

While fruits and veggies that have been dehydrated, can be re hydrated to use in recipes, I will not be doing that with these pears. I have used other re hydrated fruits but I think that the pears would just fall apart. They could be used for a cake or muffins.

We will be using our pears for snacks. Dehydrated fruit snacks are very expensive in the store and most of them contain sulfuring of some type for preservation. Since I am allergic to sulfur, this is not a good option for me. Personally I don't care if my fruit looks brown as long as it tastes good! However there are some things you can do naturally. One thing is soaking them in lemon juice. Not only does this help with coloring but Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C) is a natural preservative. Potentially this will help them store longer.

To date I have dehydrated bananas (a big hit in our family) and pears. Apples are next.

When I was growing up, my Grandma dehydrated a lot of food. She took classes from a local woman named Gen MacManiman, a master herbalist who wrote a book called Dry It You'll Like It. A lot of her information is geared to "make it yourself" dehydrators and the old kind running on light bulb heat. However, she does have great tips and a little info on drying herbs and what they are good.

I purchased my dehydrator from a local company who happens to make one of the most highly acclaimed dehydrators used by raw food chefs and other "health nuts", called an Excalibur. They sell on their site and on eBay. You can buy less expensive models but this one is engineered very efficiently. Also the round ones cannot do very much at a time. I find even with the big one, I need to do a couple batches to go through a box of fruit.

Excalibur has their own book, Preserve It Naturally, which is a great resource whether you use their dehydrators or not.

In the future, I hope to dehydrate some veggies for making homemade soup mixes and more fruit to have for summer snacks in the winter!

Dehydrating

2010-11-12T21:14:00.000-08:00

So, this may not be the most glamorous photo I've ever taken but this jar is filled with yummy goodness. Who knew 15# of pears could fit in a gallon jar?! I made these in my Excalibur dehydrator. I have only used it twice but have 20# of apples coming specifically for dehydrating and I can't wait! Have any of you dehydrated? What do you like to do and any tips?

Organic Eggs

2010-11-05T16:37:00.000-07:00

Eggs are a controversial subject in healthy eating circles. Some people don't eat them because they are vegan and I do respect that. Others don't eat them because of cholesterol issues. In today's market there are more reasons to not eat them than cholesterol. The type of chicken farming that happens today has significantly decreased the quality and the taste of eggs.

If you have chickens in your back yard, you are extremely blessed. Home raised chickens produce eggs of higher nutrient quality and just looking at one broken open you can see the difference in color and texture. But wait until you taste it, yummy! Eggs happen to be one of my favorite foods in the entire world... I'd rather eat them than ice cream. But eggs don't like me so well and when I can, I adapt a lot of my recipes for vegan.

But today on Facebook I ran across a post that Nutiva had shared and thought it was interesting. Those of us who do buy eggs that we think are healthy... well, maybe they are not!

I hadn't heard of the Cornucopia Institute before but they have this video that talks about egg farming and quality as well as an egg score card that scores various national and regional egg farmers on their care of and provision for chickens. Many of the places where I have purchased "organic eggs" receive a 1 egg score (which is the lowest). Many producers in my home state (Washington) receive high scores, 4-5 eggs, but very few where I live in California. For locals, it appears that Clover Organic Eggs (Clover Stonetta) and Wilcox Organic Eggs (they are west coast) and Organic Valley (Wisconsin - so they are trucked a long way) are the best choices at 3 eggs which is still considered "very good" on the scale. The big surprise for me was the 1 egg score for Trader Joe's, Whole Foods and Safeway's brands! I have purchased all of these eggs in the past.

Lately I have been purchasing from our local farmer's market, but I believe they are still a large producing ranch and I want to look into it further. They are called Haney's Egg Ranch in Ceres, CA. The eggs definitely do not look and taste like farm eggs but they are better and less expensive than many in the stores. Well, doing a little research while I'm writing this up, it doesn't look good. I found a website called California Factory Farms whose purpose is to give information on farms in the state of California known for confining animals. Haney's is on their list. Sad... I think there is the perception that if someone is at a farmer's market they are "healthy".

Some of you might not care about how the chicken is treated. I do, but aside from that, when the animal is not treated well, it effects the quality and nutrition of the food.

I sure would like to have chickens in our backyard but it is required to have 10k square feet or more and we are just under 8K.

Welcome!

2010-10-28T22:00:00.000-07:00

It has been a long off and on journey, but I'm itching to "get back on the trail" and begin sharing with you my fun in the kitchen, ideas and learn what you are up to as well. Welcome back to my blog, "My Journey To Wholeness". Please excuse a little construction mess as I get the links and side elements set up. Please drop me a line and let me know how you are doing!

Do You Like To Cook?

2009-05-28T12:30:00.000-07:00

Since giving up packaged and processed foods almost completely a couple years ago, I have been having fun learning how to cook. I found another friend, Lori, who loves to cook too. She loves it so much she became a Pampered Chef Consultant! In January I went to a party she put on with my friend Lynette from church. The house across the street from Lynette had out a sign that said "I'm Beautiful Inside" which made me chuckle and we all discussed the house and the neighbors affirmed that it really was. So, I went home and checked it out on the Internet. Curiosity killed the cat, true, but Grandma Hopkins always said, "Satisfaction brought it back!" :-) That is when we discovered that house prices in our city were 40-60% of what they were 6-12 month prior. The ball began rolling and two months and a handful of days later we moved into our new home on the girls' 6th birthday!

So, to "initiate" my new home and open the doors of hospitality, I'm hosting a Pampered Chef party. I've always loved their products and when I was engaged my church family hosted a "Pampered Bride" party, it was so much fun! We've been married 10 years now and all that stuff is going strong. A few places I have replaced... not because I didn't like them, but because they made improvements on them.If you are local to me and I didn't catch you at church or Facebook, you are invited. 6:30 tonight. We are having Mexican Chicken Lasagna and a Summer Berry Shortcake dessert (I bought 4 types of organic berries -strawberry, blackberry, raspberry and blueberry!). We had the dessert Mother's Day at Lori's and it was delicious!

If you can't come but would like to order, you can do so at: Lori Loves To Cook and remember to put my name as the hostess. Thank you in advance!

Also, since after two months, I finally have my kitchen almost all set up, I am going to start blogging here more often. I've missed it and I've missed my healthy cooking the last couple months. Time to get back on my journey.

Wellness Wednesday and Soup

2008-12-10T19:59:00.000-08:00

Last week I was busy taking care of sick children and didn't get posted for Wellness Wednesday. Today I stepped on the scale and was disappointed to see that I had gained 3 pounds and I now weigh 315#. :o( Well, instead of dwelling on it, I'm going to use it as an opportunity to get busy. I refuse to let it start climbing back up.

It isn't too much of a surprise because this last week I had a candy binge. Well, I'd rather not be writing this or posting my weight increase, but hopefully if I am honest,The strange thing is that it doesn't taste that great to me anymore. I can taste all the chemicals and it is not satisfying. But my body goes through periods of craving it and I don't mean that I emotionally crave it; I physically crave it! This is something I don't quite understand. Two things I have noticed though, the cravings seem to be worse when I have been too tired to make homemade bread and that after I eat processed sugar my glands become swollen. As for the bread, I am guessing that because I am using fresh ground flour, I am getting vitamins and trace minerals that I don't otherwise. As for the glands, it is well documented that sugar decreases immunity.

As for exercising, the pain in my knee increased and so I had to stop. It is feeling a little better again. So, now I need to work up the gumption to get started again. If you feel led, please pray for me in this.

Now for soup... We had wonderful turkey barley soup after Thanksgiving. It was so good that I'm thinking about doing another turkey at Christmas so that I can make more!

Today, I made soup for dinner. This is a great, thick soup for a cold fall or winter day. First I started with the broth from the beef roast I cooked in the pressure cooker yesterday. Then the fun began. In the Vitamix I blended up some frozen spinach, green onions, celery stalks, a large bunch of broccoli and 4 cloves of garlic. This made a thick green paste that wasn't overly appetizing to look at. I poured it in the pot with 2 bottles of organic spaghetti sauce, 2 packages of frozen veggies, 2.5 cups barley and 6 cans of diced tomatoes (that I blended in the Vitamix to make tomato sauce), then I began adding herbs -savory, oregano, basil, rosemary. Oh, I had half a jar of organic tomato juice in the fridge that I added too and one pound of cooked ground beef. This soup lends itself well to cleaning out the fridge! :o) It cooks up nice and thick more like a chili than soup. It's definitely a hardy dinner and my Hubby likes to take it for lunches. It could be served with cheese or sour cream on top and with fresh bread or corn bread.

Wellness Wednesday and Turkey

2008-11-26T15:23:00.000-08:00

Well, the scale didn't budge even though I walked 3 miles this last week. I would have been walking more but my family decided to hide all my exercise DVDs from me! I was not a happy camper. It wasn't on purpose but it was very frustrating! It takes a lot of mental energy to get yourself back exercising after a long break and I certainly don't need help finding ways NOT to exercise! LOL The DVD was found last night, all was forgiven and my girlies walked with me this morning. While I have the physical energy to push ahead further and do 2 miles or more, my knee begins to complain by the time I hit one mile. Not so sure I can keep heading off that surgery. Sigh...

Monday I made our turkey. A lot of people think that is strange I know, but we don't have anyone coming over to see what it all looks like and it takes a lot of pressure off me to do it ahead of time and then I can enjoy Thursday more. I tried cooking my turkey breast down this year to keep the white meat moist and it seems to have worked.

It doesn't look very glamorous I know! :o) I make a paste by melting 1 stick butter. I've tried olive oil but it just doesn't taste good for turkey. In my cuisinart mini chop, I chopped up one bunch of fresh Rosemary (leaves only) and one bunch of fresh sage. Hmmm... this smells so good. I couldn't find fresh Thyme so I put in some dried Thyme, salt, pepper and about 6 garlic cloves. After this is chopped I add it to the butter and even if the butter is still warm and liquidy, it returns to solid state when it touches the cold turkey. I slather the outside, the cavities and underneath the skin of the breast on each side.

We couldn't afford an organic turkey, so I bought a "natural" Kosher turkey at Trader Joe's. That was the CLEANEST bird I have ever cooked! But if you use giblets, there won't be any - they're not Kosher! No issue for us.

I carved the turkey Monday night and made a packet of white and dark meat for Thursday and put it in the freezer. I will rewarm this, likely in the oven with a pan of water below it to steam it and keep it moist (we don't generally microwave). The other meat I divided into quart freezer bags in meal sized proportions - sandwich slices, meat for stir fry, meat for a casserole or enchilada, etc.

Next I took the carcass... half went into my 8 quart pressure cooker and half into the roasting pan on the stove. Because of the large quantity of fresh herbs, it really flavors the broth. It tasted so good without the need of adding any bouillon or flavoring except salt. The meat juices and broths I let cool over night. This way I can remove the fat.

Yesterday I made soup. It was a huge hit with my family... everyone except my son who doesn't eat much of anything... I'm not sure he will even eat turkey for dinner! LOL I used my 5 liters of broth which I made plus 3 liters of organic, free range chicken broth from Trader Joe's (I just didn't have enough of my own for the amount of soup I wanted to make). I cleaned out the freezer - a package of corn, peas left over from stir fries and rice and a package of "California Style" veggies (cauliflower, broccoli, carrots and green beans) which I chopped a little smaller. For a little flavor kick I added some of my chopped up and frozen red peppers. Then I added some fresh onion and garlic, chopped up turkey and 3 cups of Pearl Barley.

I love Barley. As a child when my Mom and I were moderately poor, I loved Campbell's Scotch Broth soup. What an odd choice for a child, but it was my favorite. I don't use boughten soup now due to the MSG and other chemicals, but I haven't lost my taste for Barley. In the past I have tried brown rice, white rice, macaroni, shell noodles and egg noodles. Nothing really satisfied. Barley was the missing ingredient. The soup sat on the stove for about an hour and a half. I felt this was safe because most of the items were frozen and the pot was cold to the touch. This gave the time for the barley to expand, then I cooked it about 1.5-2 hours on the stove.

My five year old girls loved it so much they asked for it again and Hubby says it tastes even better today! :o) After dinner I had 6 quarts to go in the freezer and one quart left in the fridge.

Tonight I'll probably make pies and tomorrow I will have free time to get everything else ready to eat mid day. For a treat tomorrow night as a family, we will have leftovers and watch the movie Wall-e together. I can't wait.

I took off my tshirt that had turkey grease on it. Abbie promptly curled up and went to sleep. Probably smelled like Heaven for a kitty! :o)

Holiday Freebie from Sue Gregg

2008-11-19T14:40:00.000-08:00

Go here to my other blog for the links.

Wellness Wednesday

2008-11-19T14:16:00.000-08:00

Welcome any visitors and newcomers. On my old blog I had a weekly Wellness Wednesday post where I checked in with my weight loss progress and discussed other health and nutrition information. For those of you new here, I am NOT dieting. I am only trying to be healthier in food choices and exercise. This is the best way for me and so far I have been fairly successful with it. It's slow going but the changes are long lasting!

The last 3.5 months I have not been able to exercise due to tearing the meniscus in my left knee. Until a day or two ago I was ready to give in and have the surgery to repair it, but then I realized that a lot of my pain is coming from hip bursitis and accompany Ilial-Tibial Band Syndrome (tightening of the bands between the hip and knee), which has been magnified by the sore knee. So, I cancelled the PT appointment that I had for today because it was to decide about sending me to the surgeon. I will reschedule that so that I can have a week or so to begin the strengthening process of the Ilial-Tibial band and see if that eliminates many of my issues.

Today was the first step. I walked one mile with Leslie Sansone from the two mile walk DVD that came with Walking The Walk: Getting Fit With Faith. In reality, I likely only walked a half mile because I was very slow pokey, but the important thing is not speed or distance, but moving without causing further damage. It was a good way to get my toes wet and it felt good! So far, several hours later, I am not feeling any adverse effects. Now, I'm actually a little bit excited.

This morning I weighed 312#, which surprised me since I haven't been eating a whole lot, but I also haven't been eating as many live foods and was sick the last week, so less active. Still, while I gained back a couple pounds, I actually don't weigh any less than when I stopped exercising.

That last sentence is pretty boring for anyone else. But, for me it is exciting and victorious! In my nearly life long battle with weight, I have never maintained a weight loss after stopping exercise. This may seem like a small thing to many of you but for me it is HUGE! I am so excited! This is a sign of God's healing work in my body and in my emotions. He is transforming me and it is amazing to me! This gives me hope to keep on going!

So, I hope someone will check in here and comment, and I hope to continue posting on a regular basis besides Wellness Wednesday!

A Fun Tool and A Great Store

2008-10-07T18:35:00.000-07:00

Earlier this year I found Down On The Farm where Marci blogs about her interesting adventures on Amazing Graze Farm. Marci also has a great little store, which I believe is a new adventure this year.

She has quite a collection of items, tools and goods that are useful for healthy cooking and living. Recently I purchased some Sue Gregg cookbooks as well as Wrapping It Up, by Vickilynn Haycraft who is on a couple yahoogroups with me. I do not know her personally but she seems nice and always has such helpful suggestions. I'll be writing more about my positive experiences using her tortilla method soon!

The fun too I purchased at Amazing Graze General Store is the Natural Peanut Butter Mixer. This is one of those feats of engineering where you scratch your head and say "Why didn't I think of that?!" I love natural peanut butter, having grown up on homemade or Adam's Peanut Butter. I can't stand the regular kind - it actually gags me! I wasn't sure if this little device would work but wanted to give it a try since we always end up with a dry brick of peanut butter on the bottom that has to be chiseled out.

It WORKS! It's so awesome. We can use the jar all the way to the bottom. The tool does not actually fit on the lids of the jars we have from Whole Foods Market (Their 365 brand of crunch peanut butter is so awesome, the best and freshest tasting I've ever had - but the organic has sweetening - ICK! So, we don't buy that.) It would fit on Maranatha, Laura Scudder or Adams pint jars. Hubby puts it in and holds it over the jar (so theoretically this might also work on a bigger jar?) and turns the handle. The screw like device turns and churns inside the jar, mixing the peanut butter and the oil back together. We have used it on two jars and it stays mixed in the fridge, so we are quite pleased. This makes peanut butter eating much more pleasant.

I like to support good people starting out with their own businesses. If you are on the lookout for any of the things that Marci carries, I definitely recommend Amazing Graze store. Not only are the products of high quality, but the prices are competent and the customer service is awesome!

Pressure Cooking

2008-10-07T16:37:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the funny photo... I'm not very glamorous at staging foods. This is some chicken broth and it is HOT, that I made in my pressure cooker. I am still amazed at how good chicken broth tastes this way and also what a great way to save money it is!

I put 3 chicken breasts and 6-7 thighs in my 8 qt pressure cooker. Next I added one gallon of water and because I'm not supposed to be up standing a lot on my knee still, I didn't put fresh onion and garlic, but usually I do. This time I used dehydrated onions and granulated garlic. (The sediment you see on the bottom of the jar is the onions, garlic etc.) After that I tossed in Cumin, Salt, dried Cilantro, red pepper flakes and Cayenne Pepper. Well, in my brain I was thinking of paprika, not Cayenne and I ended up with chicken broth so HOOOOOT that it's almost unbearable! LOL It's going to have to be thinned down with some store bought broth.

I cooked this at pressure for 5 minutes and then let the pressure go naturally, which was supposed to take 5 minutes but I think it took ten. Chicken cooked this way is moist and tastes great. It is an excellent way to make shredded chicken for Mexican cooking and salads.

Generally I use the broth the next day to cook rice in the pressure cooker, but since it was so hot, I'm holding off on that for awhile! :o) I will freeze some of it though for later use. In the future I will start canning that. Making broth this ways uses NO BOUILLON! This means NO MSG. Yeah!

In the spring I purchased this Fagor set and really love it. First I did research and after reading an article reviewing their performance at America's Test Kitchen, I chose Fagor over some of the more expensive Swiss sets because they said it performed just as well as a set 3-5 times the price and had gread safety measures built in - which as a Mom, is important. I love it so much that I will be getting another one next spring when we get our tax return - a larger one to do more stuff! This will also give me two lids so that hopefully I can use two pots at the same time. Currently I have two pots but only one pressure cooker lid. They are made really well of high quality stainless steel, which was a priority for me as well.

On one of my blog hopping adventures I found The Veggie Queen and ordered her DVD, hoping to learn more. Imagine my surprise when she was using my very same pressure cooker! I did learn a lot of tips watching her but for less money could have bought her cookbook that has a couple chapters on pressure cooking. She is vegetarian and gave a lot of great ideas.

You don't need to be vegetarian to enjoy it. In fact one of our favorite things is to make a fork tender pot roast in 45 minutes! I have found that I can use cheaper roast cuts and they will be more tender cooked in the pressure cooker.

Our favorite thing to cook in it though is rice. It is so much easier and makes brown rice so much more enjoyable than the steamer (which leaves it chewy/crunchy).

The best pressure cooker specific cookbook I have found is Pressure Perfect by Lorna Sass. I also have her book Whole Grains Every Day, Every Way, which I haven't used yet, but plan to in the near future. I would love to explore more nutritious side dishes than just having potatoes or pasta all the time. And I am hoping to experiment with Legumes, which aren't a favorite in our family but we are trying to do some more healthy foods and so we (the big people) are willing to try! :o)

Do any of you use a pressure cooker? If so, do you have any favorites or tips to share? I'd love to hear.

Spicy Pear Cake Goodness

2008-10-02T17:00:00.000-07:00

This afternoon I was wandering around craft and sewing blogs and wandered onto this post at All Buttoned Up. I don't know this blogger but have followed links and ended up at her blog several times, enjoying her sewing projects and adoption posts. (Her kids are ADORABLE!)

So, when I saw the pear cake post, I had to try it with a couple languishing Bartlett pears I had in the fridge.

I wish we had "smellovision" or some such thing because this is just heavenly! I adapted All Buttoned Up's recipe to fit our family's eating habits. I used fresh ground flour, healthier sweetener and Allspice (I LOVE Allspice!!!) because we have family who are allergic to nutmeg, so I just have never had it in the house. Shhh! Don't tell anyone it's whole wheat, they'll truly never know! Thank you All Buttoned Up, this is going into the family cookbook as a regular! :o)

Spicy Pear Cake a la All Buttoned Up

In medium mixing bowl, combine:

2 c (280 grams) fresh ground soft white wheat (whole wheat pastry flour)

3/4 t Baking Powder

3/4 t Baking Soda

1/2 t Salt

2/3 c Turbinado (I may try Sucanat next time as it's less processed)

1/2 t Allspice

1/2 t Cinnamon

In a second bowl, mix:

1/2 c oil (I used EVOO)

1 egg

1/2 c yogurt

1/3 c raw honey

2 small pears, diced.

Once the wet ingredients are mixed, add to dry ingredients and mix gently. Spray 8x8 pan, pouring mix in. Bake at 350* for 30-40 minutes. (I used a glass pan and next time I will probably use either a metal pan or turn the oven down and cook a little longer. It developed a little bit more of a crust than I would want if I was serving it to company - but, I didn't want it to be raw in the center). This could be done with apples, easily or All Buttoned Up suggested using peaches and using ginger instead of the nutmeg! NUMMY! I may have to try that one next!

If you try this, I'd love to know how it went.

Baking Day

2008-10-01T07:53:00.001-07:00

Traditionally Monday is washing day, but this week it was baking day. This stemmed partially from the need to bring treats Tuesday for Bible study and partially from being stir crazy having to sit so much for healing of my knee! So Monday morning before we did school, I ground up soft white wheat berries into flour and started baking.

First I made cornbread. Oh was that good made with fresh ground corn!

Next I made 5 loaves of banana bread from the extremely ripe bananas that were scenting our kitchen.

Healthier Banana Bread - Large Batch

-1200 grams (about 8 c, I may reduce this slightly next time) soft white wheat, freshly ground flour

-1 t salt

-2 t Baking Powder

-4 t Baking Soda

-2 c chopped walnuts

In a separate bowl, combine and mix smoothly:

-4 eggs

-2 c Sucanat

-1 c Honey

-4 c sour milk, buttermilk, Kefir or yogurt or a combination (I used 3 c Kefir and 1 c yogurt)

-8 mashed overripe bananas

Combine wet and dry ingredients thoroughly. This went into 4 4x8 loaf pans plus 1 slightly smaller loaf pan. The amount will vary on the size of your loaf pan. I fill the pans about 3/4 full. Bake about 50 minutes at 350*. Remove from loaf pan and cool. The loaves that are not immediately eaten can be wrapped and frozen.

Last but not least, I made chocolate chip cookies which I blogged about before, but have tweaked the recipe some more and wanted to write down the changes before I forget!

Healthier Chocolate Chip Cookies

Cream together:
-2 c butter at room temperature
-2 c Turbinado Sugar
-1 c Sucanat
-1/2 c Honey

Add and blend until smooth:
-4 eggs
-2 t Vanilla

Mix in:
-600 grams (about 4 c regular flour) fresh ground soft white wheat flour
-1 t salt
-2 t Baking Powder
-2 t Baking Soda

When smooth, add:
-4 c Old Fashioned Oatmeal
-2 packages (24 oz) chocolate chips (we love Trader Joe's chocolate chips)
-2-3 c chopped walnuts

Bake about 10 minutes at 375*F. This dough freezes well.

Organizing In The Kitchen

2008-09-26T20:59:00.001-07:00

Finding room in my kitchen is always a challenge. Adjoining our kitchen is a small dining room, which at one time used to be my sewing and craft area, but alas, priorities have taken over! Now it stores some of my craft items, but also contains the portable dishwasher, an upright freezer, grain storage buckets, some of my sewing and knitting stash and adjacent to my refrigerator, a 6 foot tall bookcase.

My friend Susan from church has challenged me to find ways to organize from a sitting position while I recover from my knee injury. So, today I took a comfortable folding camp chair and sat down in front of the book case and sorted things out.

First of all I weeded through my many cookbooks. I love cookbooks and have a hard time saying no to them! :o) The top short shelf is used to store all my smaller cookbooks like the Sue Gregg series and then I placed ones I am more likely to use at eye level and worked my way down, grouping things in like categories. Amazingly I even pulled a few out that I won't use anymore and many are relegated to the bottom shelf. I am pleased to announce that the few baking and sweets books that I kept are down there on the bottom!

Another problem in the kitchen was spice storage. Not only is my kitchen small but the space is poorly planned. By the way, did you know that the most common places that people store their spices - in over the stove cupboards or in custom drawers next to their stoves or ovens - are the worst places to keep them? Yes, the heat diminishes their potency and can make certain items go rancid. It's a good idea to go through your spices and sort through them. If it is long past a sell by date (because they usually give several years for spices and herbs) or it doesn't have a date and you don't recall buying it or worse yet, it looks "vintage", it's probably a good idea to toss it.

Over the last year we have been replacing the herbs and spices with organic counterparts. I have been purchasing the Simply Organic brand and plan to later refill with bulk spices. That brand has nice jars! :o) They are sorted by type - Italian, Mexican, General, Baking etc. I have also read that they should not be exposed to light. Do you think that I should tack a little calico curtain across their to protect them?

On the shelf next to the herbs and spices, is room for my recipe box, an old recipe box of my Grandma Hopkins' and my Kitchen notebook which I am working on filling. Grandma always used to say "Cleaning Is Creating Beauty" and today it felt good to get a little organizing done and to me, it is a beautiful little corner in my home!

Sourdought English Muffins and Pancakes

2008-09-26T20:28:00.000-07:00

When I went to Washington this summer, my friend Shelley gave me a sourdough starter that is a legacy of her late Mother. While we were in a cabin at the ocean, she made us scrumptious sourdough pancakes and then sent the starter home with me. A couple months and a thousand or so miles later (which makes me wonder how far these things traveled in the days of old), I pulled it out of the refrigerator and "refreshed" it. I have always wanted to try sourdough, but had not gotten that brave. Even after this foray, I am still feeling like I don't know much of anything! But, it was fun and a little exciting to be trying something new in the kitchen.

In addition to the gift of the starter, I was prompted by my recent purchase of Cooking and Baking With Fresh Ground Flour by Christine Downs, reportedly the importer of the Family Grain Mill. Ironically this last weekend I was given the gift of a hand family grain mill along with a flaker (for making oatmeal etc) by one of my scrapbooking friends who had great intentions but not enough time to follow through. It has no instructions so I am going to track those down. Anyway, on page 61, I was enticed by the recipe for Sourdough English Muffins.

Here are the muffins after rising. The powdery stuff is my attempt at making cornmeal, which ended up being more like corn flour! I followed the recipe, except I omitted the vital wheat gluten. It is such a highly processed food, even more so than white flour, that I have just never bothered with it. My end product did not, in my opinion, suffer for it!

I cooked them in two pans so that I would not be standing all night (since I'm not supposed to stand at all!). Surprisingly, the ones cooked in my only Teflon pan, cooked the best!

The ones in the cast iron did fine though. I only have one large iron skillet.

Here you can see them after turning. I was so proud of the one in the center - it looked just like a store bought muffin!

Here are the final products. Some got a little brown on the outside but are fine to eat. They are very light and fluffy texture and honestly taste better than any store bought whole wheat English muffins I have tried. The sourdough taste is mild, but present. Hubby said they are definitely a "do-over"! That's his way of saying that we can keep them in the repertoire!

Afterwards, I made myself one large pancake with the whole wheat and corn flours I had left. First I made a small one and it tasted horrible. Oh yeah, salt! So, I added salt, but it was still thick shoe leather texture. DUH! I had forgotten to put in baking soda when I mixed up the pancake batter! This was my final effort and it tasted great with black berry jam on it! Not the greatest dinner, I suppose, but there were a lot of nutrients in that fresh ground flour. That's my story and I'm sticking to it! :o)

Hubby Bakes Bread Too!

2008-09-26T20:07:00.000-07:00

My Hubby has been so good to me while I have been recuperating from the torn meniscus in my left knee. I haven't mentioned it on this blog, but most of you probably saw it over at Stitches of Grace (link to right), my regular blog. Making bread takes a lot of standing, so I taught Hubby how. This batch we did together, but he is learning and doing quite well.

I took this picture and was going to crop all the "stuff" out of it. Then I decided that I would show you what type of space that I have (or don't have) to work in, because some people might be saying "I'd like to do this, but I don't have enough room!" People, this is all the counter I have!!! To the right is the sink and then I do have about 20" to the left of the sink, but that holds the convection oven, so is not accessible for use. That's it! It's very crowded with my DLX and Vitamix there, but we make do. We could put the Vitamix elsewhere but figured that we would use it much more if it was left out where we could see it.

Here is the finished product - 5 loaves and two large rolls. We forgot to brush olive oil on the top, which tenderizes the crust, but it was still good.

Is Your Kitchen Efficient?

2008-07-18T17:02:00.000-07:00

I found this movie about an efficiently planned kitchen while reading Little Jenny Wren's blog. Some might laugh at it... but man, I wish my kitchen had been planned so efficiently! :o)

Tammy's Strawberry Shortcake

2008-07-06T10:39:00.000-07:00

Since Christmas 2007 I have only used white flour one time and that was recently to make some half wheat/half white tortillas. The reason we did that is that we have not found a ww tortilla recipe yet that will remain pliable and not be shoe leather to make enchiladas and burritos to freeze. I'm still working on that one.

Our adventures in whole grains for cooking have been mostly a success though, including desserts. Awhile back I had printed out Tammy's Whole Wheat Strawberry Shortcake recipe and had planned on making it July 4th. Well, we were a day late but it was good.

Because I had flour left over from making spelt bread, I made it with spelt. Spelt is sometimes a little tricky to substitute straight across as it generally does not tolerate as much mixing/kneading and requires less liquid than wheat. However, it has a delightful taste and is not quite as bitter as wheat sometimes can be. I ground the flour fine in my Nutrimill and used 150 grams for the one cup, which is the weight I was told to use for fresh ground wheat per cup, so I don't know if this is accurate. You can see that it looks nice.

I found it needed a little less time to cook in my oven. So I had to use a long serrated knife to cut off some of the bottom. This tasted a little like 'Nilla Wafers and my son ate it with some chocolate syrup on it! Ick! :o) I used two layer cake pans, but would probably consider using one cake pan and cutting it in half next time. I wasn't sure how much it would rise in the pan, having never made it before and did not want to have a Mt. Vesuvius disaster in my oven! LOL

The secret to the light texture of this, was beating the egg whites stiff. This was the first time I have used the plastic bowl and whips that came with my DLX mixer and it worked extremely well. The whites were very stiff and looked like stiff whipped cream! They are folded into the rest of the mix, which makes a foamy batter. The texture of the short cake is not like angel food or the fake chemical shortcakes you find packaged in the produce section with the strawberries. It was somewhere between that and a biscuit, more like a coarse cake. There was a faint vanilla flavor but it was mostly neutral so you could enjoy the whipped cream in the layer and on top, as well as the strawberries.

I highly recommend organic strawberries as I have read several places that strawberries can be washed 12 times and still have unacceptable levels of pesticide on them!

Here is a slice. The kids wanted it with chocolate sauce. We have been buying an organic chocolate syrup from Trader Joe's and they love it. Hubby and I did not like it with the chocolate and felt it interfered with the loveliness of the berries. In the future I would like to make this with mixed berries but the cost was prohibitive this time. I think it would taste great with raspberries, blueberries and blackberries along with the strawberries. If you want to be decadent, perhaps a little more whipped cream. I used 1 cup of heavy cream to whip and it was just right to get a great taste without going over the top!

Oh, what I forgot to say is that you could feed this to skeptics. My Hubby said he would not have known it was made with spelt if I had not told him! And though he has been a good sport in all our nutrition changes, he is much more picky about the taste and texture than I am, so I think this is an accurate statement. Let me know if you try it!

Facing The Past... Looking To The Future

2008-07-04T19:50:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the poor quality of this picture. This is me summer 1988 - 20 years ago! There is something I have always liked about this picture in spite of the big '80s glasses! I still had hair and lots of it (it's pulled back, was down to shoulder blades), I had life struggles, but was still young, free and pure. That spring I had faced a lot of "issues" and I was able to lose a lot of weight. Recently I had begun working as a pediatric medical assistant after graduating from technical school and life was moving forward.

That summer things began to change. A Christian woman, who I thought I could trust, introduced me to a young Christian man to date. At 22 I had never dated and honestly, looking back, I wish I never had. My husband and I feel that we will pursue the idea of courtship, NOT dating for our own children. Old fashioned, yes. But we feel it is more in line with God's plan for His children than the world's. This man betrayed me, broke me and abused me in many senses of the word. Because of all kinds of circumstances, I felt very isolated from both friends and family and was unable to find balance. Shame forced me to work hard to solve the situation on my own. Some things are never meant to do in our own efforts. I needed my Heavenly Father's love and guidance but I was so busy trying to work it out on my own that I dug my own hole deeper.

Thank you Jesus, that you are so patient with me. The Holy Spirit is a gentleman who does not force us, but gently nudges us and encourages us to grow. It still brings up feelings of panic to write this and I do not write it as a "victim" or to dwell on the past or to play a sympathy card. I write this so that I can face FORWARD and continue on My Journey To Wholeness.

18 "Forget the former things;

do not dwell on the past.
19 See, I am doing a new thing!

Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?

I am making a way in the desert

and streams in the wasteland.

Isaiah 43:18-19 NIV

Today I post this picture as a reminder, that God did not make me broken, fat, unhealthy and out of shape. My body will never be "perfect" this side of Heaven. However, this picture reminds me that when He and I work together, good things can happen.

For the last month or so I have been doing a lot of walking with Leslie Sansone and I have added an exercise section with links on the right hand side. I even joined her walk club for a year. It's a good deal for $29.99 you get the membership with all it's online benefits plus the Walk Away the Pounds Book with a walking DVD. Truthfully I would be losing weight faster if I was also dieting, but I have decided not to ever do that again. I am focusing on eating healthier and less, but not dieting. The walking is awesome. I am already feeling an underlying energy that I have not had in a long time and my body is missing it on the days I take a break!

With God all things are possible.

I will survive.

He is making me WHOLE!

Spelt Hamburger Buns

2008-07-04T19:43:00.000-07:00

Marci said my hamburger buns were getting stale - a thinly veiled hint that I should update this blog! So today I want to report that I made the spelt bread recipe from Sue Gregg's yeast breads cookbook. I made one small loaf (1# 6.6oz) and 12 hamburger buns. The hamburger buns were a hit. I never add any dough enhancers even though Vit C powder was recommended in this recipe. It's really not needed - the texture was marvelous and they have a neutral taste, which is what I was looking for in a hamburger bun. A lot of people use their regular bread recipe, but I like to have a variety of flavor, something different than the usual.

So, next I need to find a recipe for whole grain onion rolls because that is Hubby's favorite. Any suggestions?

Baking Bonanza

2008-04-08T16:48:00.000-07:00

Today was a "baking bonanza" day. I made a double batch of the whole wheat bread from Beth Holland's Bread For Life cookbook that I have been making weekly for our sandwich bread. I have been using white hard wheat and a double batch generally gives me 2 - 2.25# loaves and 3 - 1.5# loaves (12" and 8" pans accordingly).

This time I did it a little differently. I made a dozen 4 oz hamburger buns, pictured above. Next time I may make them 3 oz. It seems like an awful lot of bread to be eating at once. I make make them the same diameter but not as thick next time. Any input?

Here they are in a 9x13 pan, ready to rise. I used 1.5#, the same for a medium loaf of bread, as the recipe did not say. For the filling, I used about 1 cup of Sucanat, 1/2 cup of Honey and 1 cup of Turbinado. I find mixing natural sugars works better in most recipes. Then I melted two sticks of butter (1 cup) and 2 t of cinnamon. Chopped pecans were added on the bottom of the pan. These were actually sticky buns, not cinnamon rolls. The recipe would work for either, but you wouldn't need as much butter and sugar.

I spread about a third of the mix on the dough that was rolled out and the other 2/3 was on the bottom of the pan. I rolled the dough tightly and cut 14 1/2 rolls out using dental floss, which works like a charm! This is what they look like coming out of the oven. You can see why the Germans call them Schnecken! (Snails)

And this is the yummy result. I ate it this afternoon... you know the cook has to try out the experiments before letting others eat, right?! LOL

In addition to hamburger buns and sticky buns, I still had dough for a 12" loaf and an 8" loaf. Then there was exactly enough fresh ground flour to make Hubby his newly favorite cookies.

I can't believe it has been almost a month since I posted. I'll have to update with my bagel experiments soon!

Spelt Buttermilk Biscuits

2008-03-12T18:31:00.000-07:00

This one was a fun experiment because it came out really good! The warm ones were the best. They got a little denser when they were cold, but the recipe could be halved if you have a smaller family. In spite of the dark color that comes from spelt flour, these were light and fluffy and just as nice as when I made them with white all purpose flour. I have made them with other combinations of grain flour and they were really dense, not fluffy like these. Of course when I say fluffy they are not going to be like canned biscuits or ultra processed white biscuits, but they were pretty good. My son liked them better than the ones made with white flour which happies me since he is such a picky eater.

The recipe is adapted form Fannie Farmer Cookbook's Buttermilk Biscuits.

Spelt Buttermilk Biscuits

Preheat oven to 425*

4 cups Spelt flour (if fresh ground, use four heaping cups of flour)

1 t Salt

4 t BP

1 T Honey

1 t Baking Soda

1 c Shortening (I use Spectrum palm shortening)

1 - 1 1/3 c Buttermilk

Mix dry ingredients, honey and shortening until crumbly. (I used a mixer but could be done by hand) Add buttermilk until a wet dough ball forms. Drop by spoon fulls onto baking sheet. Makes 9 large biscuits (about English muffin size) or 12-20 smaller biscuits. Bake for 15-25 minutes depending on size. Eat warm!

Catching Up, Bread, Rolls, Biscuits and Cookies

2008-03-12T16:30:00.000-07:00

Well you would think that all we ever do is eat bread around here since that is all I have posted recently. It just happens to be the area that I am working hardest on at the moment. I have lots of ideas and things I want to discuss but am going to wait and do a quick catch up post tonight.

I know I have shown lots of pictures of the Beet/Wheat/Spelt bread on here but I got a different brand of beets at a local grocery store and look at the color of this dough! As my daughter J says, "It's Bee-utiful!" I am trying to convert my recipe to make a big batch in the mixer for 5-6 loaves. Spelt does not behave quite like wheat, so I have had some challenges. Today I adjusted the liquids as spelt does not need as much liquid as wheat and my loaves have risen but then get lumpy/bumpy when baked. It was disappointing to have another lousy batch today but I believe I have figured out the other problem... Spelt should not be mixed as much as wheat. Another mistake may have been using two rises + rising after made into a loaf. This is what works in the next recipe I will talk about. But perhaps it is not a good choice for the Beet/Wheat/Spelt bread. Back to the drawing board. My kids actually like this bread and requested it.

Here's a chuckle though... I have never liked beets and apparently there are not enough people liking beets to warrant selling them organically by the can. I have looked everywhere for them and even Whole Foods only sells conventional beets, not organic. What's up with that? Has anyone else ever seen organic beets by the can? Eventually when I can have a garden I will grow my own and can them.

After the bread mess today, it was kind of depressing to see these pictures of this BEAUTIFUL bread! This is NOT white bread. This is white whole wheat bread made from a Challah type recipe that I found in Bread For Life, volume I by Beth Holland. You can see it made four loaves + rolls. The rolls we used for Sloppy Joe's the next day!

This bread tastes as good as it looks...the dented one is because I dropped it on the stove knobs when getting it out of the pan. This bread recipe is proof that you can make 100% whole wheat bread with awesome texture and NOT use any dough enhancers or vital wheat gluten or instant yeast. It was light and fluffy with a fine crumb, but not squishy like the white fake stuff whose name starts with a W!

And the dinner rolls were light and fluffy and better than any in a restaurant or store that I have had. I believe even most picky eaters would at least try. For family reading, they remind me of Marilyn's a little bit, but a little bit lighter because of the white wheat instead of red.

And these are the delight of my husband! I altered the Urban Legend Cookie Recipe to use fresh ground hard white wheat flour, Sucanat/honey for the brown sugar and Turbinado for the white. They look a little dark because of the unrefined sugars but they are not overdone. They don't taste like your usual Toll House Chocolate Chip cookie, but once your brain gets beyond that, they are awesome. The recipe is huge and makes about 10 dozen small cookies, about 6 dozen large. I put the dough in freezer ziploc bags about 1"+ thick so that it thaws quickly. You can scoop them all out in portions, but to me that is extra work, so I put it in amounts that will roughly equal 12-24 cookies, which is enough for one time with this family of five. Your mileage may vary. I definitely recommend trying this one!

My Valentine Gift! (More Bread)

2008-02-15T15:55:00.000-08:00

Yesterday the UPS man brought a box from Amazon. Today he came to the porch with my Electrolux Assistent DLX mixer and my Nutrimill grain mill. He is a new guy, regular on our route and said, "Wow, you're the shopping lady!" LOL So in spite of being sick, I did have fun playing today. First I made flour and then I made bread! I was pleased with how everything worked. The flour is definitely finer than what I can make in the Vita-Mix and I only used the medium setting for texture.

Naturally I had to christen my mixer with a batch of beet bread. I will have to write down the changes I made later. Lately there have been some frustrating batches and I realized it was likely because I switched from storebought Spelt flour to home ground, so the measurements were different. My digital scale came earlier this week (same UPS guy! lol) and so I got it out and learned how to use it. The recipe calls for 5.5 cups of flou for the first part, so I multiplied 150 grams (I read on one of my lists that that is the weight of a cup of storebought flour) by 5.5 and used that much flour by weight. Turned out to be 8 cups! WOW! Big difference. I have heard that Spelt is fluffier than other grains when ground. I measured my wheat the same and that seemed to work. This photo is my pink dough at the beginning before all ingredients were added.

The DLX does a great job of mixing, though it did walk and bounce a bit when it got off balance. It does not come with any instructions to speak of, but fortunately, a really kind lady lent me her video from Beth Holland of Bread For Life. Since I am visual when it comes to things like this, it did help to watch this before hand. While the way it works is quite different than a Kitchen Aid, it was really easy to pick up. I was told their might be a learning curve, but I don't think I had any difference in learning how to use it than I would have with any new to me product. The dough produced was noticably better as it was kneaded well. I was afraid that I would spend my Hubby's hard earned $$ and have it not be any better than the Kitchen Aid. Today it earned it's keep though! :o)

Here is the nice stainless steel 8 quart mixing bowl it comes with and the dough is rising. I decided to do a 3 rise bread after watching the video. Usually I do only 2 rises.

Again, I used the scale to see how much the dough weighed as I put it in. I found that my 4x8 pans (measurement may not be exact) take 2# of dough. I had been using 1.5# and getting tiny loaves with these three plus one other small loaf pan. The larger loaf pan, perhaps a 5x9?, took 2# 6.5 oz of dough. You can see they raised nicely.

And here they are out of the oven. These are the nicest looking loaves I have made to date.

I cut this loaf too soon, so this picture shows it mooshed together, but I just couldn't wait!!! It tasted nummy with butter and blackberry jam. This may not be my final recipe for sandwich bread, but at least I feel well on the way to getting what I was looking for and I can't wait to experiment more with my new toys!

The Way It Should Be

2008-02-07T21:28:00.000-08:00

There was a time when neighbors were neighborly and people helped each other out. I miss that! I try to be as friendly and helpful as possible to my neighbors but most of them keep to themselves, like we are all in our own little boxes and we only emerge to get in our car (another box) and leave! Maybe I feel this way because I live in a fairly large city. Maybe it's the sirens, police helicopters and the occasion drug deal or gunshot that make me feel this way!

This week, in the midst of some stresses and sick kiddos, we had a wonderful experience. My friend Trudy from church called and asked if I wanted to come pick some more tangerines and oranges from her trees in her yard. Yeah! So, my daughter J, who was yet to be hit with the dread virus, went with me and "helped". We picked tangerines, oranges, grapefruit and Meyer Lemons. That is a grapefruit, so you can see how big the lemons are!

I've never really gotten excited about grapefruit. Genetically you are either born with a like for sour or not. It's not a matter of wanting sweet, it's a matter of not wanting the "pucker power." But this grapefruit smells so wonderful, I'm going to try it for breakfast tomorrow.

When I have a garden, I wnat to call up people and say, "Hey, ya need some tomatoes, come on over!" :o)

Thank you Lord for the blessing of fellowship and for the gift of good home grown, organice citrus fruits for our smoothies!

Where Does Your Organic Food Come From?

2008-02-06T08:42:00.000-08:00

This pdf is eye opening! I've always wondered if organics really are organics or the same food as the regular, just with a different package. I suppose this is only natural in the industry world, but it drives home the point of eating the least amount of packaged foods is best!

Tortilla's Revisited

2008-02-06T08:35:00.001-08:00

This week I made Ysenia's Flour Tortillas with hard white wheat and olive oil instead of shortening. I was able to roll them out a little thinner and they were much more pliable. The recipe made 18 tortillas. After I rolled the egg sized lumps, I let them sit ten minutes before rolling them out. This helped as well...I think! Yesterday I took the remaining tortillas and made chicken enchiladas with homemade enchilada sauce and they worked pretty good. Now, if you are used to having store bought and/or white only tortillas, you might not like them. However, they are pretty good that way and have a texture a little more like corn tortilla enchiladas, but not that flavor.

To be honest, I am shocked that my husband has taken to this so well, but he has noticed that he feels less sluggish since we have been eating better. I did mention that as soon as things became in season, I wanted to start introducing more raw veggies and maybe some vegetarian dishes. He got kind of a scared look on his face! LOL But later he admitted that it's a good idea, it's just the taste that he is fearful of! :o)

More On Meat

2008-02-06T08:07:00.000-08:00

For anyone interested, my friend Deborah received some meat from U.S. Wellness Meats. They sell grass fed beef and other meat. I have to admit that since I have never mail ordered meat, it sounds a little strange, but Deborah's sister found this place and so they tried it out.

We are very fortunate to have a lot of local resources, but some of them don't have a huge variety of cuts, like this place. I think it's always best to get local products when possible, but also I recognize that some people have no local resources for certain types of food. I'm not talking about exotic fruit or such, but everyday organic foods.

Even if you aren't interested in ordering meat, I found this pdf helpful in understanding the different cuts of meat.

What You Need To Know About The Beef You Eat

2008-01-28T08:18:00.000-08:00

If you think buying organic dairy products is expensive, try the beef! We have been trying to switch over but it's not easy. Reducing how much meat we eat has helped as well as the fact that Costco has been carrying an organic ground beef. I read this article at Mother Earth News and EWWWW YUCK! I know there is a lot of anti this and that information out there, so sometimes it is hard to know who is telling the truth. However, this is a well documented and researched article and falls in line with other things I have been reading.

The article is long but at the end there is a great summary that I am going to print out and put in my Kitchen binder in the shopping section so that I can have a handy reference.

They also recommend that you look for local sources and link to Eat Wild, which is a new resource to me and Local Harvest, a great resource I have referred to in the past.

Another article at Mother Earth News speaks about the process of injecting meat with fluids and gasses to prolong its life and/or mask negative qualities.

I have to laugh. I grew up thinking that Mother Earth News was for Godless Heathen Hippies! LOL Now I'm reading it myself and learning. It is still not a Christian resources but it is a good resource for certain things.

Tortilla Attempt #3

2008-01-28T07:55:00.000-08:00

This fits under the category "needs more work" but I think it is worth tweaking. All tortilla recipes are basically flour, salt, fat and water, but the proportions can make a difference. So, I have been trying some different recipes. I still have not been able to find hard white wheat around here so I have made mine with soft white wheat. Below I will write out my sister's flour tortilla recipe and then I will write what I did to adapt it.

What I liked: Rolled out in a nice smooth texture, tasted good when hot and supple.

What I didn't like: Dry the next day even though stored properly and they were a little "stiff" which I have found to be true using the Spectrum palm shortening when I used it for pie crust.

What I'll try next: I think I will use olive oil in this recipe to see if that helps and if i can find hard white wheat, I will try that.

Ysenia's Flour Tortillas

6 c all purpose flour (fresh milled soft white wheat)
2 t Baking Powder
3 t Salt
2 1/4 c Water
3/4 c shortening (Spectrum Palm shortening)

With hands, mix flour, BP and salt. (I use a dessert or salad fork that has the shorter tines. The shorter tines are more effective in mixing and squishing out lumps than a longer tined meal fork).

Then add shortening, mix thoroughly until mixture is crumbly (like making pie dough).

Add water a small amount at a time until a dough is formed. Knead the dough until smooth. Let rest for a couple minutes.

Pull of egg sized chunks and form into smooth balls. Start stove at medium heat, letting it war for 15 minutes. (I use a cast iron pan)

Roll Tortillas 1/16" thick. Cook on both sides.

Tortilla Happiness

2008-01-24T16:51:00.000-08:00

Well, this is the latest creation! Hubby helped me and I am just blogging this quick so that I can get my recipe down before I forget. These are yummy and came about by a mistake I made. Yesterday I went to the Bread Beckers Forum and saw a couple different recipes for Tortillas in the Tortilla Maker forum and used the one from the Moderator.

I left out the honey ("real" tortillas are not sweetened, although if you use them for dessert it's good) and the Lecithin. We think it is the Lecithin we don't like when we have tried other recipes from Bread Beckers. When I made the hamburger buns, Hubby said "Yuck! Tastes like bread machine bread" and later we thought about it and it is the same flavor that we taste in commercial bread now that we don't eat it anymore.

Anyway, as I was reading the recipe I looked at the wrong line and accidentally put in 1/2 c olive oil instead of 1/3 c so I had to add 1 cup of King Arthur's bread flour (which is white), however I think it will be fine with all ww next time. The dough is a little sticky but as long as I rolled them out with some flour, it worked okay. Also, it helps that I have a 15" square slab of granite that my SIL gave me, the cut out from their sink when they got granite countertops. I'll write the recipe below and then I'll go and make taco meat so we can gobble them up! :o) We already tasted them and they are better than the ww tortillas we had been getting from Trader Joe's. The WW flavor is not overwhelming as it is in some recipes. We will definitely be repeating this one, although usually I tweak my recipes at least once!

White Whole Wheat Tortillas

1 1/2 c warm water
1/2 c light olive oil
4 c fresh milled flour (I used 1 1/2 c soft white wheat flour and 1 1/2 c hard red wheat flour and 1 c King Arthur's Bread Flour, because that is what I had left over today but I would like to try hard white wheat as soon as I can find some)
2 t salt
1/2 t BP

Mix dry ingredients and then add the wet ingredients, combining with a fork. As it forms into a dough, very gently fold it over and knead a couple turns in the bowl to incorporated all the ingredients together.

Heat cast iron frying pan. When you place the first tortilla in, give the pan a quick spray with olive oil, but subsequent tortillas should do fine as the pan will be hot.

Break off dough in balls, slightly larger than golf balls. This recipe made 12. Roll out on flour board until about 6" +/- and even thickness. Cook in iron frying pan, turning when a bubble forms or as edges begin to lift slightly. Do not overcook or they will be brittle. When cooked just right they are soft and pliable. Fill with your favorite tortilla stuffing and enjoy!

©2008 My Journey To Wholeness

Home Management Binder and Wellness Wednesday #14

2008-01-23T16:44:00.000-08:00

Some people read this blog but not my other one, so I would like to invite you to read my Wellness Wednesday Post at Stitches of Grace today. Usually I try to double post, but today's post was really long because I discussed my home management binder.

This is the outside of my kitchen book - a D ring view notebook from Avery with scrapbooking paper to decorate.

Inside I have sectioned it off with lots of organizing ideas. This photo just shows the opening and I am holding a specialized sheet protector that I can use like a "Pee Chee" (sp?) to hold odds and end things to file. Go read more at the above link!

Healthy-ish Banana Bread

2008-01-21T15:14:00.000-08:00

Every family has its own recipes which are "sacred". In my family, it is the Banana Bread Recipe of my Aunt Grace. Her banana bread is dense but very moist and is not like the cake type of breads that most people make. It was a staple at all our family get togethers, especially Thanksgiving and Mother's Day which were generally spent at Grandma Hopkins' house. Hubby loves it warm with butter melted on top. I like mine cold from the fridge with cold butter spread on top! We still love each other! :o)

About Thanksgiving time I decided to try adding half store bought ww flour to make Banana Bread without telling anyone. I did and noone could tell the difference! Hubby was surprised when I told him. So, I got to thinking, what if I went all whole wheat? Then it dawned on me, why not substitute honey for the sugar? Well, the results today were pretty good. It doesn't hold together quite as well as the recipe made with at least half white flour, but it tastes good. What I find when I adapt some recipes is that it doesn't taste the same, but it doesn't taste bad either. I want to make whole foods that my family will enjoy - if they are not enjoying their nutrition at all, then what is the point? They'll just leave what I teach them as soon as they can! So, I'm trying to find things that will satisfy certain food cravings without making us sick and fat.

I loved being able to use the Vita Mix to mix up all the wet ingredients and blend in my cyrstalized honey, so that it was all smooth without grit!

This is what the batter looks like going in. It's a lumpy pancake batter texture.

Here are the loaves coming out. I should have taken them out a couple minutes earlier but had my hands tied when the timer went off and had a brain slip! It's okay, just a little darker crust on the bottom and sides.

It looks all "mooshed" together because we could not wait until it cooled thoroughly. Hubby thought it was a great treat since this is how he likes it anyway. Recipe Follows:

Theresa's Healthy Banana Bread

In a large bowl, mix together:

4 c white whole wheat (pastry) flour

1/2 t salt

1 t BP

2 t Baking Soda

2 c walnuts, chopped (optional or may substitute other "lumpy" ingredients)

In 2nd bowl mix wet ingredients, then add to dry ingredients:

2 eggs

1 1/4 c raw honey

2 c sour milk or Buttermilk (I actually used sour buttermilk)

4 over ripe bananas, squished

Put into 2 Large loaf pans or pans of varying sizes. Bake at 350* for 45-60 minutes depending on loaf size.

Taco Pizza

2008-01-21T14:55:00.000-08:00

Nummy! Nummy! This is what we had for dinner last night! After eating homemade pizzas I really cannot stand eating the ones from take out or restaurants. Sometimes they taste good going down but my stomach doesn't like it afterwards and they always leave an aftertaste. So, since we have been married, we have been making homemade pizza using a recipe from our Zojirushi bread machine booklet. I wanted to try making it even healthier and read about using hard white wheat berries to make flour for pizza dough. Our co-op only had soft white which is better suited to quick breads, pie crust etc. But I decided to try it anyway and will do some looking around to see if Whole Foods or another local store has it before I try to find an Internet source.

Our first wholegrain pizza attempt was scrumptious but could still use a little tweaking in the recipe. Maybe just finding the hard white wheat, which has a little higher protein will help. I'll put the recipe that I concocted below and would love to hear any hints and suggestions:

Whole Wheat Pizza Dough

First grind enough white wheat berries into flour for the recipe's required amount.

Add ingredients to your bread machine as they recommend or adapt to non-machine method.

1 1/2 c warm water

1 1/2 T olive oil

3 3/4 c white whole wheat flour

1 T honey

1 1/2 t salt

1 t Lecithin (optional)

2 t Instant Yeast

In the Zojirushi, I used the quick dough setting. This did not seem to be quite enough rising time so we set the pan on the top of our gas stove which is warm to touch due to the pilots. We allowed it about 15 minutes additional raising time, for a total of 1 hour of dough preparation.

Divide the dough in two and roll out onto a pizza stone. This rolls out quite thin. Let raise in warm place for another 15 minutes.

While the dough is resting, make pizza sauce. Since I was using seasoned taco meat from this recipe, I did not add a lot to season. I use one small can about 6 oz of tomato sauce and this time added dried minced onion and garlic powder. Usually I use fresh onion and garlic, but since I had them in the meat, I did not. Heat the sauce to a boil and turn off. This will not look like a lot of sauce. Too much sauce makes all your toppings slide around.

Spread the seasoned tomato sauce evenly over both crusts. Distribute the taco meat as desired and add any other toppings you like. We only used sliced tomatoes as this was for the children who don't like lots of "things" on their pizza (nor does their mother).

Generally I grate and use Mozzarella cheese, but was out, so since this was a "Mexican pizza" I used Monterrey Jack. I find that cheddar is too greasy. But you can use cheese to your liking.

Bake for about 20 minutes at 400*F

It doesn't look too exciting, but boy! It sure tasted good.

Whole Wheat Tortillas

2008-01-17T12:39:00.000-08:00

I was so excited to receive my copy of the Bread Becker's Recipe Collection in the mail today. It has lots of suggestions and ideas. It's a simple, self published booklet, but is well done and is a good place to start. Just thumbing through it, my mind is going all different directions with ideas!

Since I had a few cups of flour extra from what I ground on Tuesday, I decided to try some whole wheat tortillas. That would solve two things: My desire to try something new and the age old problem of what to make for dinner. I figured if they turned out I could have tacos for dinner tonight.

In my early twenties, my stepsister Ysenia, along with her three boys, lived with my Mom and StepDad and after I moved out I visited a lot. I was really spoiled with her homemade tortillas, which were made with white flour and Crisco. Naturally they tasted wonderful, but I know they aren't healthy. She never used a recipe, just years of experience and the mentoring of her Grandma Cruz Cruz who raised her. One of my favorite things was to hang out in the kitchen with her. She made the tortillas and I made Sloppy Joe meat. We would put the Sloppy Joe meat and cheese in a raw tortilla, wrap it and then deep fry it. YUMMY! (also not healthy! LOL)

When Ysenia made tortillas, she used a little dowel about six or so inches long to roll them out. I remembered that she would pick them up and turn the direction so that they would be evenly rolled. Not having my own dowel, I chose to use the little rolling pin that was mine as a girl and also my mother's as a girl. It's about 6" long plus handles.

The directions are to make tortillas in a combination press/cooker that the Bread Beckers sell, but I don't have that so I rolled them in a ball, about golf ball size (First I sliced them as they recipe called for, which you can see in the photo above, but that was too small. I recalled Ysenia rolling them into balls first and that worked better.)

I cooked them in the iron frying pan. It was difficult to tell when they were done because unlike the white flour tortillas, they do not bubble up. The first one was too done (it will crack if bent) so I adjusted by that. Another technique I learned from Ysenia was to move the tortilla quickly with my fingertips. Be careful so you don't get burnt!

A was my "helper" in the kitchen. Often I have more help than I can stand! :o) A is sitting on a step stool that I have had for about 35 years. It was made by my Aunt's step father in law. It has a tall back to it, which you can see behind A's head, and in the back is a hand hole so that you can pick it up and move it anywhere. It is finished in "antique gold", a special technique, popular at the time, which my mother spent many hours perfecting on my bedroom furniture.

Here's my stack of 12 tortillas. Like my step Dad would say - They look like maps of Texas!

The real test is whether or not the family will eat them. I tasted them and thought they were "okay". I might try with white wheat next time (these were hard red wheat). However, the kids had bites and they LOVED it! They asked for cheese crisps for lunch. Or cheese crypts as A says!

D liked them too and he is my real "hard sell" for any food, let alone a healthier version of something he already eats. Praise God he loves my homemade bread and prefers it to the store bought. And he liked these!

J, my little "rock star" eats all kinds of things but is sometimes picky about bread products so I was glad that she gave it a "thumb's up" as well.

All and all I would say it is a good recipe. But, I will probably try some others. It is exciting that I can make this for MUCH less than I can buy it. I am anxious to try out some more things like hamburger buns, bagels and English Muffins. I made them years ago in high school but with white flours. Life certainly has been an adventure since we have been trying all these new things.

Potatoes Au Gratin

2008-01-16T18:42:00.000-08:00

At a Christmas lunch with my friend Sonia, we had some yummy potatoes au gratin. A table mate asked for the recipe and the head chef came out and explained that their recipe would call for 100# of potatoes and would not convert to home cooking. She explained what ingredients were in it and that explained why it was so rich. I liked the taste but it was a bit greasy for me. I thought I would try my own version. It uses heavy cream. Tonight I tried it with half and half and that just does not cut it. You would have to add more cheese if you used half and half and that defeats the purpose so I think I will go back to using heavy cream. I asked my Hubby about our meals and which ones he liked and did not like. When I asked him which think I make that he does NOT want me to eliminate, he did not hesitate to say these potatoes. So, they will stay in the menu, though not frequently as they are high calorie. This is part of our plan to not uses boxes and mixes. Really, this takes no longer than making from a box and does not contain dehydrated potatoes and chemicals.

Here are all the ingredients - Heavy Whipping Cream, Havarti Cheese, Red Potatoes, Leek or Green Onions, Garlic, Salt and Pepper and Organic Salt Free Seasoning.

First I grate the potatoes, skin and all in an 8" square pan. I do it the old fashioned way with a hand cranked food processor that I will probably never give up for a Cuisinart!

Layer the potatoes about half way up the pan as in picture.

Sprinkle finely chopped leeks, minced garlic, salt and pepper and seasoning over the potatoes and toss gently with a fork to distribute the flavoring.

Pour 1 cup of Heavy Cream over the top of it, distributing it evenly in the pan.

Place four slices of Havarti cheese over the top of the potatoes.

Here you can see how it looks in the pan, so you will know if you did it right.

If you don't like it browned on top, you can cover with foil, removing it for the last 10 minutes. This was baked at 375* for about 45 minutes. Recipe below:

Potatoes Au Gratin (serves 4-6)

4-5 red potatoes

1 cup heavy whipping cream

1 medium leek, diced

3 garlic cloves, minced

salt

pepper

salt free seasoning

4 slices Havarti cheese

Preheat oven to 375*

Wash potatoes and leaving peelings on, slice in pieces using a food processor. If hand cutting, slices are about 1/8" thick. Place potatoes into an 8" square glass baking dish.

Salt the potatoes generously and pepper to taste. Use about 1 teaspoon of salt free seasoning. If you use a seasoning salt, adjust the salt amount accordingly. (This is also good with Italian seasoning or your favorite herbs. I have done it with Rosemary and Oregano as well.)

Wash and dice up the white part of a medium sized Leek. Green onions could be substituted. Place on top of potatoes.

Mince 3-4 cloves of fresh garlic. Place on top of potatoes.

Take a fork and gently toss the potatoes to distribute all the seasonings. Next pour 1 cup of Heavy Whipping Cream evenly over the top of the potatoes. Place 4 deli-sliced pieces of Havarti Cheese over the top of the potatoes. You can also use Fontina or another favorite softer cheese.

Cook in oven at 375* for about 45 minutes. Your time may vary. The potatoes need the time to cook through, so if you don't want your cheese to brown so much, you can cover with foil for part of the cooking time.

NOTE: I like to serve these with a lighter meal as they are pretty "heavy" on their own. If you want more sauce, you can use more cream. When they are made with cream you do not have to make a bechamel or add flour like most recipes for au gratin. Please feel free to use my recipe but do not post or distribute without permission. Thank you.

Wellness Wednesday #13

2008-01-16T08:20:00.001-08:00

This is reposted from my main blog Stitches of Grace (link at right).

Hello Everyone! Here in northern California the temps are beginning to warm and we are having blue skies again! I'm glad I have that to cheer me up because when I stepped on the scale this morning I had a surprise! 323#! OUCH!!! I am really hoping that it is because of my time of the month/bloating and NOT because I've been enjoying too much homemade bread! I hope next Wednesday will bring a better report.

However, I did start the day off right. Even though hubby needed to sleep an extra half hour to prepare for an important interview, my body woke me up at 5:30 AM without an alarm and I got dressed and walked with the DVD all by myself! So in spite of what the numbers say, I am feeling overall victorious this week.

I've been walking.I've been doing more reading about nutrition.I have not had any cookies, no donuts at church, no extra treats.I managed to alter my bread recipe to use no white flour and ALL of my family likes it!I have been finding time to dig into God's Word every day.

The last one is the most important in my opinion. I am not one to place a heavy yoke on a person that they must read so many chapters of the Bible a day or at a certain time or certain way. But, I do believe that taking in God's Word is our best nourishment! Paul writes in Romans that faith comes by hearing the Word of God. My Grandma Hopkins instilled that in me. If I only remembered one thing she taught me, that would be key.

This week I have been reminded of this. Since I got a new Bible at Christmas with one of my gift cards (This one for my old eyes!), I started out reading through the Gospels. Currently I am reading Luke and was reminded in Luke 3 and 4 how first Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit after John baptised Him (I believe that all Believers in Christ are given the Holy Spirit with salvation) and then he was tempted by the enemy (who I won't credit by naming) for 40 days in the desert. When Jesus answered his enemy's temptations and accusations, He always used the Scripture and reminded him that "Man does not live on bread alone." (Luke 4:4)

I am taking that to heart and applying it to my life. Part of becoming "Well" or "Whole" is being spiritually whole. This journey would be impossible without faith in Him. Just as my body needs fuel, so does my spirit. So, the last two weeks my routine has been to walk with hubby at 5:30, take a shower and then spend about a half hour reading in my Bible. Sometimes I pray then, but mostly I am reading, soaking in His Word. I am amazed, though I shouldn't be, at how many times during the day, something from what I read that morning comes to mind and is applicable to my life. And you know what else? The more I read, the more I want to read. Some mornings I do not want to stop. I believe that faith is like a muscle - use or lose. Just like you don't physically lose a muscle, just the strength, not practicing or feeding your faith will make it weak.

So my challenge to you all this week is to take Jesus' example - he frequently went off by himself to pray and commune with God. Try to find some quiet time to fuel your spirit. This is certainly better food for you than any other. Does this all sound strange to you? Do you not know about who Jesus is? Don't be afraid, many don't. If you would like to know more, please feel free to email me or you can also click on the red "ready?" button at the right.

And one last thing I wanted to share with you that I read in Perfect Weight America by Jordan Rubin. I had been concerned and kind of knocking myself that I have not been eating enough fresh food, other than some smoothies. Then I read this and it made so much sense.

From Page 69:

Winter: Eat 75% cooked foods and 25% raw foods. Eat warming foods like fish, chicken, beef, lamb and venison. Also eat potatoes, onions, garlic and eggs.

Spring: Eat 50% cooked foods and 50% raw foods. Tender, leafy vegetables are now available such as Swiss Chard, spinach, romaine, parsley and basil.

Summer: Eat 25% cooked foods and 75% raw foods. Most of the fruits are in season and fresh.

Fall: Eat 50% cooked foods and 50% raw foods. Look for more warming fall foods like root vegetables, garlic and onions.Doesn't this make sense? This is how God provides the food to us!

I will be double posting this over at My Journey To Wholeness where I plan to be posting more recipes and ideas in this new year. You are welcome to join me over there if this interests you. Thanks for joining me again for another Wellness Wednesday. Remember that if you post a comment, I will be praying for you this week. And if you lurk - I pray for you too because He knows who you are. God bless you all in your journeys this week!

More On Bread

2008-01-15T19:42:00.000-08:00

This is starting out with the hard red wheat berries (in jar at right). The downfall to using the Vita-Mix for making flour is that you can only do 2 cups of grain at a time. On the other hand it's extremely fast so not really that inconvenient.

This picture was taken after counting to five, so you can see it happens fast.

This picture was taken after 35 seconds - Voila! Fresh ground flour!

Today I ground spelt berries to make flour. Spelt is a relative to wheat, but I find it makes a little lighter flour and has a natural sweetness to it. It seems to cut the slight bitterness that can sometimes occur with Whole Wheat. Yesterday I made a batch of my beet bread using some spelt flour I had. It wasn't really rancid, but wasn't fresh either. Then I realized that I had bought it at the farm where it was grown in Eastern Washington. I was last there in August 2006! So, this was 18 months old. That's old especially in our hot climate. I did have some spelt berries of unknown age, but younger than the flour! So today I ground fresh flour from them and that was the key! It truly is amazing, even when your flour is fresh from the store, the difference in taste between fresh ground and purchased flour.

This is the wheat flour along with the sprouted, ground flax I found at Costco. I'm hoping this is okay to use. I was going to fresh grind flax seed as well. (Initially this recipe called for whole flax seed) But, the reading I have been doing lately suggested that sprouted grains are healthier, so I thought we would try this. I don't know for sure whether it is any better or not!

This is the beet/water/oil/honey combo in the Vita-Mix. Isn't it pretty? I don't like beets, so the smell is pretty horrid to me.

This is halfway through the mixing. The first ingredients are put together, yeast is added and allowed to rest. Different brands of canned beats seem to differ in color. This one is average. Another brand I used (but can't remember) produced beautiful raspberry dough. I let it rest for 20 minutes at this point in time, then come back and add the rest of the ingredients and the salt. This is supposed to enhance the yeast performance.

After the dough is needed in my Kitchen Aid Pro5 mixer, I put it in this large stainless steel bowl and set it on my stovetop. We have a gas stove and the heat from the pilot is vented to the top as well as through the vents. It is warm enough to aid in the proofing process but not too warm to kill the yeast.

While the dough is proofing you can read a book, sing a song, do a dance or visit with your damsel (A has a pink damsel's hat on but her head is tipped so you don't see it) who is playing with Mater!

After proofing, shape into loaves and allow to double in size again. This part, I'm still quite amatuer at as you can see from the shapes of my loaves. I have not figured out yet what size and how many to do and I think I have been proofing them too long because they collapse a little on top. At first I thought it was too much moisture, but that was not the problem with the dough today and after reading I found too much proofing can do this. I think I might need to just go back to doing 3 loaves and not using the small one, but am not sure. I did eliminate my large pampered chef pans. :o( I have three glass pans - all three are different sizes!

Here they are, ready to bake. Just behind the brown pan (part of a baking set I bought in Germany in 1984 and it makes a "cutie little loaf" as my Grandma would say) is an oven thermometer. My oven seems to be running 25 degrees lower than what the knob reads. I still did not adjust the temp. 375* on my oven is really 350* and if you adjust 25* for glass, that would be right anyway. I take the smallest loaf out at 30-35 minutes and leave the rest in 5-10 minutes more. That works for these sizes. I used the full 50 minutes when using big loaves.

Here are all 3 loaves, a little lumpy but very yummy. My daughter J would not eat the bread when I made it with white flour, but will with the spelt added. I think it has to be the sweetness of the spelt covering the slight bitterness of whole grain. This recipe, when fine tuned might be the keeper. It's a miracle that all 3 of my kids AND Hubby like this bread!!!

Here is a closer picture showing the nice texture. My adjusted recipe is as follows:

Beet Wheat Spelt Bread

Set Aside: 1/2 cup warm water

1 t honey

2 T Instant Yeast

Blend: 1 - 15oz can beets

1/3 c honey

1/3 c light olive oil

2 1/2 c warm water

Mix: 5 1/2 c whole wheat flour

1/2 c ground sprouted flax or flax meal

2 t Lecithin granules

Yeast Mixture

Beet Mixture

Mix only until combined and let set 20 minutes.

Add: 3 1/2 c spelt flour

1 1/2 c whole wheat flour

1 T salt

Knead in mixer for 4-5 minutes. If dough seems too sticky, add more whole wheat flour a little at a time. I added an additional 1/3 cup whole wheat flour. Placed in oiled bowl and cover with a towel. Let rise in a warm place until doubled.

Divid dough into 3-4 loaf pans, depending on your size. Let them raise until double again.

Bake at 375* or 350* for glass, 30-50 minutes depending on loaf size. Remove from oven and release from pan. Brush olive oil on crust to keep tender.

Serve and Enjoy!

(Feel free to enjoy my recipe but please be kind and give credit where credit is due. This is shared to enjoy, not to be sold or copied without permission. Thank you!)

Instant Yeast - UGH!

2008-01-11T07:11:00.000-08:00

UGH! I just read at What's Cooking America's yeast page that Instant and Rapid Rise yeast, which is often used in bread machines, is genetically engineered from different strains of yeast! You are supposed to use 3/4 of the amount when using them as you would regular dry yeast. No wonder my bread has a nice fluffy texture and raises easily! Also Instant yeast does not need double proofing, which I have been doing. I am going to go to the health food store today to get some lecithin and Ascorbic Acid powder to use as dough enhancers. It looks like I might need to get some regular yeast too. That's another thing, the SAF Instant yeast I was using has Ascorbic Acid in it as well, which could explain why my bread had nice texture. But it also has sorbitan monostearate - what's that? (see below)

This Bon Appetit article by Alton Brown, one of my favorite foodies/scientists, has some good general information about yeast. It does not mention genetic altering, just that the yeast is dried in such a manner that less yeast are killed, making more active and available. I have not found any info on genetic modification anywhere else by googling so I emailed the LeSaffre company who makes SAF Instant yeast and asked them directly. I'm not expecting an answer, but you never know. I also checked Cook's Illustrated (and had to sign up for a free trial membership). They had articles on using it and they evaluated it as the "cleanest" yeast to use in breads that don't have lots of milk and sugar to cover up the taste that comes from dead yeast which is found in active dry yeast (they die because of the drying process and this is normal).

Next I looked up Sorbitan Monostearate and Wikipedia does not paint a pretty picture. This site describes it as an emulsifier and it is found in a lot of things from cake mixes, puddings, imitation whipped cream etc to hemorrhoid cream! This PDF with FDA information says that it is used in yeast as a re-hydrating agent and cannot be more than 1% by volume of yeast. At least now I know why it is used, but I still don't know if it's "freaky but safe" or "best to avoid." Anything chemical sounds a little scary. The Center for Science in the Public Interest lists it as safe. They have an interesting list on that page, but I noticed they also list Splenda as thought to be safe. Further googling shows that it is considered safe for use in Canada, Ireland and Europe. Sometimes they ban things that we use here ( like GMO fruits and veggies and some additives).

I find this rather frustrating. The more you know, sometimes the less you want to know! :o)

Using Dough Enhancers

2008-01-10T14:58:00.000-08:00

One of my commenters suggested using dough enhancers and I asked about that on my Wellness Wednesday post yesterday, hoping to hear from one of you who uses them for whole wheat bread. Deborah recommended soaking the flour in yogurt or Kefir over night as this helps the wheat protein to be more digestible. This is the recommended course of action in the Nourishing Traditions book. It does make a lot of sense and I want to try it too, I just have been battling a migraine for three weeks and haven't been up to a lot of experimenting - just sticking to the tried and true.

Today, curiosity got the best of me and I had to google. I found this Bread Machine site that had a lot of good information and gave me some ideas. I have been interested in using Lecithin as I have read that it also is what helps keep cholesterol from sticking in your arteries - that is why eggs are not the evil food that some make them out to be. They are high in cholesterol but they have Lecithin too. It's like God naturally designed the perfect package to take care of things. Recently I "met" Teresa (we connected through mutual home school blogger Amy) and she recommended Bread Becker's. They have a lot of information on their site, including free recipes and others which you can purchase. Teresa has been using their bread recipes with success after hearing them teach at a homeschool conference. (I wish we had speakers like that at our conference!) Our local natural food co-op carries Lecithin granules in the refrigerated section, but it does not say what their source is. I want to avoid soy as it is bad for Thyroid and for other health reasons with soy.

Back on topic! Lecithin is supposed to keep the bread fresher, longer, working as a mild perservative. It also works with the gluten and can be used 1 Tablespoon per cup of flour.

Ascorbic Acid works as a preservative, deters mold growth and makes a good environment for the yeast. It comes in a pure crystal form or you can use Fruit Fresh or a crushed Vitamin C tablet. It's about 1/8 teaspoon per loaf of bread.

I was surprised to see that Ginger can also be used and it is good for a number of other reasons. 1/4 teaspoon per loaf will not change the flavor of your bread and will act as a yeast booster, helping it keep working. Bread will stay fresher longer and it deters mold and bacterial growth.

1 Large Egg replaces about 1/4 cup of liquid in a recipe. Eggs have Lecithin in the yolks.

Buttermilk helps yeast grow quickly and vigorously while softening the texture. I have had success using this for my whole grain biscuits and I use it in my banana bread recipe, in which I also substitute 1/2 whole wheat flour without any recognizable difference. Buttermilk helps the bread stay fresher longer and deters mold and bacterial growth. If you do not want the slight tartness buttermilk brings, you can add 1/2-1 teaspoon of baking soda.

The website also had recipes for making dough enhancers, however they all used wheat gluten. Wheat gluten by itself is highly processed and if you are going to use wheat gluten you might as well just use some white flour!

Any input? I'm thinking of trying a combo of Lecithin and Ascorbic Acid as well as possibly adding some ginger. It might be trial and error, but it's important to me to get a good bread that my family will eat. It doesn't matter how health it is if it won't pass their lips! LOL Currently J will not eat the wheat bread. So, I give her some of my light rye wasa brod. Now, everyone will eat that but A. I feel like my Grandma used to say, "can't win for losing"!

Now can someone tell me about Instant Yeast??!!

2008

2008-01-10T10:53:00.000-08:00

Alie Edwards shared on her blog about choosing ONE WORD for the 2008 to signify your goals creatively and otherwise for the new year. There is a list of words if you are looking for inspiration.

It shouldn't surprise you that my word for the year is WHOLENESS. I will be using that word to screen everything that comes into my life. Does it contribute to it? Does it prevent it? Will it be helpful? It is amazing what you can say no to, when you have an effective screen!

When I chose "My Journey to Wholeness" as a blog name, it was with a purpose and concept in mind. For me, the changes I am making are not just about the large amount of weight I need to lose. They are about being complete, being the person that my Heavenly Father created me to be in the first place and allowing Him to heal me in all areas - physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. He created us as complex and marvelously wonderful beings and I don't see how it would be possible to extricate one facet of one's self to work on without it effecting the others. When I work on physical health it causes changes in my emotions, in my mind, possibly even spiritually and when I work on my emotions it is easier to make positive changes in my physical health. What binds it all together is my relationship with God. His Word (the Bible) is my primary guide book for my life, all of my life, including the physical aspects such as my body.

Now that the holidays have passed, I hoep to writ emore here. It helps me sort through things, keeps me focused and encouraged and I love the input I hear from you all.

So, I am wondering? Did you make any New Year's resolutions? Did you set goals? Below is an extract from my Wellness Wednesday post for January 2, 2008.

Happy New Year Everyone! I always love the change of the year as it seems like a fresh start. Have you seen those Valerie Bertinelli commercials for Jenny Craig where she is in near tears because she no longer has to make a resolution to lose weight? I know exactly how she feels! It has been on my perpetual resolution list!

Did you make resolutions this New Year's Eve? I did not. This year we had a wonderful sermon on December 30th which talked about having a Godly perspective. Hubby and I sat down and prayed together and then made a list of goals for the year. We prayed that our goals would have the proper perspective, that God would give us discernment in whether or not they were realistic and that the goals and/or the end result of the goals would be glorifying to God. It was a very satisfying process and nice to share that with Hubby.

Some of the goals are fairly ambitious, due in part to the fact that we are hoping to sell our trailer at the end of the year. There are a lot of things to do in preparation for that. Some of the goals are small and some of them are mundane and practical. Health is a shared goal for 2008.

In addition to making goals, we wrote down and prayed about the steps we would take to attain those goals. Goals are meaningless without a plan.

My personal health goal this year is to be under 300#. Today I weighed in at 320#. I think this is a realistic goal for someone who is not actually dieting but re-learning how to eat healthy. Naturally I hope that I will lose more, but I am going to work towards that 20# as a goal.How I will attain that goal:

1. Draw closer to God through prayer and reading His word, focusing on who He created me to be vs who the world says I am or should be.

2. Continue blogging for Wellness Wednesday and also at My Journey To Wholeness so that I have some accountability and encouragement. I also plan to pray for each and everyone of you who comments on these posts. We are in this journey together!

3. Work towards having a whole foods "repertoire" of meals to adapt or replace the old unhealthy menu.

4. Organize my pantry and settle into a rhythm of purchasing products for my kitchen and home.

5. Experiment with healthy whole foods, recipes and natural household products, including making some of my own.

6. Add walking with my Leslie Sansone DVDs when the weather does not permit.

7. Become more physically active, playing with my children.

Beet Bread Revisited

2007-12-19T14:49:00.000-08:00

So that I don't have to post twice, please go visit Wellness Wednesday #9 on my main blog to learn about my latest adventures in breadmaking. I will post the recipe here though:

Beet Bread (adapted from A Good Cook...Ten Talents by Frank and Rosalie Hurd, published by The College Press, Collegedale, TN, 1968)

Into a blender:
1 can diced beets, including juice (abt 2 cups)
1/3 c honey
2 1/2 c warm water

In small bowl or measuring cup:
1/2 c warm water
1 t honey
2 1/2 T yeast
Dissolve and let set five minutes, while...

Put beet mix in bowl and add:
1/2 c oil (I used light olive oil)
1/2 c ground flax seed
5 1/2 c whole wheat flour (mine was fresh ground)
Yeast mixture

Mix at low speed (I used a Kitchen Aid Pro5 mixer). When thoroughly combined, allow to rest in mixing bowl for 20 minutes.

After resting, add:
5 c unbleached white flour (I used King Arthur bread flour)
1 T salt (it is important to add the salt last, AFTER the yeast has rested in the dough as described in the previous step)

Knead 5 minutes until smooth and elastic. It may take less time in the mixer. Place in oiled bowl in warm, draft free area. (I used a large stainless steel mixing bowl because it grew out of my glass mixing bowl last time) Let rise until doubled.

Oil bread pans. Shape into 3-5 loaves, depending on size of pans. (I got 3 loaves using 2 large Pampered Chef stoneware loaf pans and 1 medium glass loaf pan or 4 loaves using only one stoneware pan, two medium glass pans and one small metal pan) Allow to rise again until double.

Bake at 375* for 50 minutes until done. Time will vary depending on loaf size. The glass pan could have done with a little less time. The stoneware pans were just right at 50 minutes. Loaves are cooked through if they sound hollow when tapping the bottoms. (ADD: Lately I have been setting the timer at 35 minutes and take out the smallest one, then set another 5 mins and check the mediums and take them out and leave the large one another 5 minutes. This seemed to work well.)

Oil tops to keep soft. When thoroughly cooled , wrap and store.

My Grandma Hopkins' notes say that she used 13 1/2 c whole wheat flour and 3 1/2-4 c beets/juice. From this she made 2 medium loaves, 4 small loaves and 12 rolls.

Beet Bread

2007-12-10T16:02:00.000-08:00

Look what I did today! This feels so good to have a bread success, especially when you don't know really what you are doing! I had been looking for a recipe for years, for beet bread, which my Grandma Hopkins always made. Then last year my Aunt found it in the Ten Talents Cookbook, which is a Seventh Day Adventist cookbook. This is my first chance to make it. I remember helping Grandma grind the wheat and put the dough into all kinds of containers...baskets, tin cans and occasionally real bread pans! :o) She was always inventive about things like that, the ultimate frugal queen!

She made batches and batches of this and always gave it away. It had the loveliest raspberry colored dough and I always liked it, though many others were afraid to try it when they heard what was in it. Grandma was always making "experiments" and some family members and friends were quite cautious when she offered her goods! LOL

I ground the wheat in my Vita-Mix, so had fresh flour. It called for 5 cups wheat and 5 cups white. I used King Arthur unbleached bread flour and followed the recipe except for the 1/2 cup of soy flour, because we don't use soy. As I suspected Grandma didn't follow the recipe! :o)

You can't tell by the pictures but this is a king size loaf. My bread knife was in the dishwasher and the dishwasher was running so it didn't cut well, but I ate two slices with a little butter and a little wild, raw honey! Hmmm...DELICIOUS! It is tender and moist with a texture that a storebought bread eater would tolerate. That must be the white flour. I believe my Grandma used more beets because hers was really raspberry colored and used all whole wheat flour. Hers was a fairly dense bread. I would like to work on using less or no white flour but still need a texture that my picky family will tolerate. Would it work to use some oat flour or barley flour to replace some of the white?

This is a blurry picture, but I feel blessed to have Grandma's original cookbook and she does have notes. I misread her notes...that's why I have two king size loaves instead of 3 or more normal ones. Still, overall this was a bread success. My goal is find a bread my family will enjoy eating on a regular basis so that we can quite buying store bread!

Playing With The Vita-Mix

2007-11-27T15:51:00.000-08:00

Well, naturally I have been playing with my new "toy". I want to make sure that I learn to use it and then *use* it. My hubby works hard for our money and I don't want to waste it. The kids are fascinated by it and even watched the instructional DVD with me twice. I have watched it about 5 times just because I think of something else I didn't remember. Of course the kids all lined up with their little chairs in the entrance between the kitchen/living room to watch what I was going to do next...and wait for samples.

Yesterday I made smoothies twice. We have lots of frozen berries because I didn't get jam made this past year and because my folks brought some or my favorite Washington Raspberries down with them. (They grow in CA but they don't taste that great, it's just not raspberry weather here.) I also froze some peaches. I haven't experimented with those yet. The first was bananas, orange, blueberries and strawberries. That was so pretty, a raspberry/burgandy color. The second for after dinner was oranges, bananas and strawberries. My son, who is the pickiest, did not like them at first. Of course he needs to train his tastebuds that not everything that tastes good is sweet. I have tried to feed him healthy, but he just came out with a taste for sugar and chocolate in particular. He is one of the reasons that I am doing this.

For dinner last night I made the tortilla soup recipe. I started with boiling water, but the other ingredients are cold and I was a little timid about using the machine, so it did not come out as hot temperature wise as we like. So, we did end up heating it in the microwave and there were a couple things we would change but we really liked it. Hubby said that was the first time he had ever voluntarily eaten cabbage! lol The soup recipes are very adaptable and most of them involve much less heating than a regular soup would have, so they are healthier. I would like to try doing a soup night once a week. This will save grocery $, be nutritious and get us out of the habit of thinking we need a slab of meat on the plate to call it dinner! My husband had two servings, so that is a good sign. :o)

This morning I wanted to make bread. I knew I had some wheat that had been in the freezer and was shocked to see that it had a date of 12/2005 on it! I defrost and clean my freezer every 6 months and we do a lot with the freezer, so I was a little surprised to find something that old! Oops! I decided to try it anyway, since there is no $ until payday on Friday. I was really impressed with how quickly it made flour. I followed the bread recipe but I am not sure what I did wrong, but it was too wet, like a batter. I decided to cook it anyway to at least taste what it was like. It actually tasted really good and was not heavy like some all wheat breads. So, right now I have a second loaf that I made from some white whole wheat flour I had on hand and it rose nicely. The verdict is still out though.

You may be wondering why I am doing wheat if I want to go gluten free. Well, I am only one of five in our family and I am the only one who is doing this. In the mean time I would like to find a good recipe of bread to make on a regular basis. I think when I find a recipe, I may try it with the Kitchen Aid mixer because I can do more than one loaf at a time. However, if things continue to progress so well, I will probably be able to eliminate the bread machine, which I don't use for making bread anyway, mostly mixing dough for pizza and cinnamon rolls. Time will tell. Also Charlotte mentioned that gluten free bread is easier to do in a bread machine. I would imagine that less handling helps that. There is a gluten free recipe in the Vitamix cookbook and I will try that too.

Today I have also been making ice. We just have one ice cube tray since we don't usually use ice and don't entertain. So as soon as it gets done, I dump it into a ziploc and put more water in the tray. Hubby would like to try the pineapple smoothie recipe tonight and it requires ice cubes.

I almost forgot, we made a smoothie of our own concotion today at lunch. We haven't hit a formula yet that works for the picky boy! :o) We are trying. This one had carrot, cabbage, 2 apples, 2 bananas, honey, rice milk and strawberry Keifer. I thought it was really good and it was a peachy color. The girls drank it but D could only get half a cup down. It's a start and I know he wouldn't touch cabbage or carrot with a ten foot pole otherwise! I think that next time I will use half a carrot. Diane, the woman who sold me the Vita-Mix cautioned that a little bit goes a long way. And I figured this would be true because you could really overload on too much fruit or certain nutrients and get sick too. Charlotte also cautioned me about Beta-Carotene. I had to laugh at this, because when I worked in peds it was one of the most common calls I had from first time moms..."my baby's nose is turning orange, what's wrong?" "Did you just begin feeding solids?" "Yes." "Have you introduced carrots?" "Why yes! Baby loves carrots!" There you go! LOL Charlotte mentioned beta-carotene poisoning and I meant to ask her more about that, but forgot...hey Charlotte, if you read this, will you comment? I am also very cautious about eating carrots because Vitamin A in high doses is one of the triggers for Pseudotumor Cerebrei, a horrible disease I experienced and never want to go through again. But carrots do give it a pretty color, so all things in moderation.

Okay, if you read this far, do you have any recipe suggestions for the Vita-Mix? Please let me know.

Vita-Mix

2007-11-26T14:38:00.000-08:00

For quite some time I have been debating whether or not to purchase a Vita-Mix. I have gone to several demonstrations, but I think I have gone to ones where the demonstrator was new and couldn't answer most of my questions. Sunday, I went to Costco in a neighboring town. I don't normally go there and I rarely ever shop on Sundays but because of the post Thanksgiving shopping, I had avoided stores. Eventually food runs out and you go to the store! Well, I honestly think that I was meant to be there. I should also back up and say that the night before, I couldn't get to sleep and I was praying about the idea of going gluten free and whether or not this was necessary for me or if I was going against my own advice and taking bigger than baby steps! I asked God to make it clear to me.

So, I go to Costco and I walk towards the produce section and there is a Vita-Mix demonstration. I decided to stay and listen even though I doubted there would be any new information. Wow, this gal was really knowledgeable and without me even asking, in the course of her demonstration she answered all the unanswered questions that I had. I could tell that she really knew what she was talking about and not just regurgitating company information. It turns out that she is a sponsored athlete (runner) and a personal trainer, including strength training for Navy Seals (she is in San Diego).

After her demonstration, she switched off with her partner and spoke with me. We talked about it for awhile and she said that as soon as I could give her half down, she would mail one to me, postage free and take payments, because the cost is going up a good chunk on January 1st. She also talked to me about what I was doing for my health and I explained the steps I have taken. Without missing a beat, she said, "Well, I think your next step should be to eliminate wheat and possibly all gluten." You could have knocked me over with a feather. Now, I am not saying that she is the voice of God, but I do believe that God uses people, books, the web and all types of different resources to teach us. I am continuing to pray about it but I think that is the answer I was asking for.

So, I go home and talk to Tim about it and he agreed, it would be a good deal and we should do it now to save the money. It was such a generous offer too. So, I emailed her and confirmed the information and told her I would send the payment on Friday when we got paid. She wrote back and said she had a "good feel" about me and she wanted me to come to Costco today for their last showing and pick it up. Now, my mouth really fell open! Shocking! So, the kids and I went back out to Costco. She just took my contact information and I walked out with a Vita-Mix 5000 and the dry blade container too.

As a token of my appreciation for her more than generous gesture, I took some of my photo greeting cards to her. This really blessed me. She told me how her father was injured a year ago tomorrow in a mountain biking accident in Mexico. His neck was broken and he is still in a hospital on a ventilator in San Diego, trying to recover. She is going to frame the card, seen above in low resolution and frame it for her Dad to look at in his hospital room since he loves to camp and be in the outdoors. Maybe everyone who reads this could stop and pray for this man's healing!

So, that was another long entry, but it was hard to describe succinctly and I'm more than just a little excited, having just drunk my first smoothie...orange, banana, frozen strawberries and frozen blueberries that I had already in the freezer. It was soooo good.

I appreciate the input that people gave me on the Vita-Mix, both the pro and the con. It helped in my decision making. I have about 3 feet of usable counter in my kitchen, on which I already have a Kitchen Aid mixer. The Vita-Mix will do the work of a couple different machines, so in that sense it is a good choice. It goes both slower than and faster than a blender, which allows it to do some food processing and grain grinding, mixing bread and dough and juicing. I like that you can use all of a fruit or vegetable as opposed to a juicer which leaves pulp. My husband told me that he would much rather drink some vegetables than eat them and it is a good way to get some veggies in for the kids. As a matter of fact, the kids loved the sorbet that was made with carrots and my son, the pickiest of all my eaters, said it tasted better than ice cream!

So, we shall see what happens. This is part of a new step to try and eat more fresh foods. Tonight though, I will be practicing on hubby making the delicious tortilla soup which I had at the demo. It's a good way to use up some more of those turkey leftover! :o)

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle Review #3

2007-11-26T07:33:00.000-08:00

As I promised, I am back to share my thoughts and the advice I've received on how to implement the ideas from this book in practical every day ways.

The main thing that I have read, heard from several of you and my gut tells me is true, is to take "baby steps".

On the right you will see a list of the steps my family has taken. This has been a process of about two years and we are moving forward still. I would love to get to the point where we could grow almost all of our fruits and vegetables ourselves. We hope to move back to Washington State and find a place to live where we can garden organically. We will be renting at first, so that may take awhile. Not all landlords want their backyard cultivated! lol In the meantime I am beginning to learn about what it takes to garden organically. In the meantime, some Costco's carry organic produce and I also frequent our food co-op, Whole Foods Market and Trader Joe's. (links at right)

Now according to Kingsolver's book, these are probably not the best options because in general they are not local produce and have been shipped long distances. I do live at the north end of the valley in California where much of the produce is grown, so sometimes it is locally grown, but still usually it has been shipped somewhere else and then transported back to the store. So in terms of thinking globally and ecologically, this wastes a lot of oil. A better alternative would be the local farmer's market. You might be surprised where you find one. Our HMO, Kaiser Permanente, has one every Friday at their hospital to promote health for employees and patients. Again, on the right, I have a section of links for finding local foods and farmer's markets. There are actually some groups that you can join up with where you can get a certain amount of produce each time with differing kinds of fruits and vegetables in season.

A third issues in the book, is eating seasonally. This makes good sense, but I feel like I have been "conditioned" and in some ways have a hard time wrapping my mind around the idea of not eating a salad and tomatoes in the winter. After all, eating salad is a good thing, right? When we eat foods out of season, we are eating foods transported long distances from foreign lands or they are grown by some alternative means which produces relatively bland fruits or vegetables. In this day and age, especially if you have never gardened or lived in farming community, sometimes it is difficult to tell when the seasons are. In Review #2 I did cover that briefly.

So, I see 3 Issues for healthy eating:

1. Eat Locally
2. Eat Organic
3. Eat in Season

Is it realistic to tackle all three at once? For me it is not possible. I am starting first with eating organically. On the side bar at the right, I listed the "dirty dozen", a list of 12 foods, which if you eat those organically will eliminate about 90% of your pesticide ingestion. That's what we have started with and we are working from there. Without exception we have found the organic foods to taste better. They are picked when ready instead of gassing them when they are green. A lot of organic food in the stores tends to come in season only, except for tomatoes and greens.

When it's possible I do purchase locally grown produce. There are usually signs at Whole Foods saying where they are grown, especially for local produce. I purchase locally gathered raw honey. But, I have not found a local dairy source.

Now, I am trying to be aware of what things are in season and enjoying what I can, when it is available. One alternative is to purchase items in season and can, freeze or dry them. I already do a lot of freezing but I am hoping also to start canning this next year too. I have put that off since living in northern California where the temps could be 105* or more during canning season! While, I would prefer to eat everything fresh and make it now, realistically there are times when you have to grab something quick. I would like to have things I have made instead of purchased packages laden with chemicals!

One resource I recently found that has helped me is The Organic Cook's Bible by Jeff Cox. This is especially helpful if you are a newbie to eating veggies and fresh food. It covers just about everything and discusses what constitutes good and bad for each food covered, when it is in season and there are usually one or more recipes for each food, along with a discussion of traditional preparation methods. It's a big book and if you are fairly knowledgeable about this in the first place, may be unnecessary for you. But, it is helpful for people like me who are learning!

My friends Charlotte and Deborah also gave great advice...you don't have to go out and by specialty cookbooks. Most things can be adapted from your standard Betty Crocker's, Better Homes and Gardens etc. My favorite basic cookbook is The America's Test Kitchen Cookbook. I like it better than my others because it is well illustrated with photographs and explains *why* you do things certain ways as well as how to do it. For a questioner like me, this is helpful. They also evaluate cooking implements. If you have ever seen the show on PBS or Cook's Illustrated Magazine, you will know what I mean. If you are a bibliophile, like me, I will be reviewing other cookbooks in future posts as I have several ordered from my local library.

In summary, I believe it would be difficult for the average family to jump right into an experiment like Barbara Kingsolver's. However, I think the ideas are wonderful and can be implemented in small steps. I think a good indicator is that if you are feeling extremely overwhelmed, you might be doing too much at once. I find that if I am overwhelmed by something, I am more likely to quit or fail. Take baby steps. Your baby steps may be different than mine because we each have a unique set of circumstances. The ideas in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle are not only healthy for our own bodies, but teach good stewardship of what God has given us on this earth. They are an ideal to work towards. Big steps make big changes, but small steps contribute positively and are a good start!

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle Review #2

2007-11-20T07:52:00.000-08:00

Welcome back to the second part of my review Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.

Interesting vegetable information:

* yellow/orange/red vegetables contain carotenoids which protect against cancer.

* green/yellow plants contain phytosterols which block cholesterol absorption and inhibit tumor growth.

* blue/purple fruits contain phenols which are age defying anti-oxidants.

Some of that is not new information to me but when I correlated it with the recent information I found about the difference in levels of nutrients in organic vs conventionally grown fruits and vegetables, I can't help but think that it is really important to eat organic. Sure you can pop vitamins, but wouldn't a steady course of natural, alive nutrients be better?

According to the book, thousands of phytochemicals have not been studied or named yet. They have so many varied roles which are fine tuned fuel for our bodies. God is awesome isn't He? He created things perfectly. We messed that up in so many ways. A head of broccoli contains more than 1000 phytochemicals.

The follow is helpful in knowing what is in season when:

1. Leaves - spinach, kale, lettuce and chard (April/May)

2. Heads of leaves/flower heads - cabbage, romaine, broccoli, cauliflower (May/June)

3. tender young fruit set - snow peas, baby squash, cucumber (June)

4. green beans, green peppers, sm tomatoes (July)

5. mature, colorfully ripened fruit - beefsteak tomatoes, eggplants, red and yellow peppers (late July/August)

6. large hard shelled fruit with developed seeds inside - cantaloupes, honeydew, watermelon, pumpkins, winter squash (August- September)

7. root crops

This fits under the WHAT? category: We export 1.1 million tons of potatoes each year. We import 1.4 million tons of potatoes each year.

Transporting 1 calorie of perishable fresh fruit from California to New York takes 87 calories worth of fuel.

I don't want to go off the deep end and be reactionary, but the statistics are a bit alarming and I am surprised that I never really gave a lot of thought to my food getting to my table before. As Christians I think we have some responsibility to be good stewards of what we have. And I think that applies both to what goes into the body God gave us and to the resources like oil that we are using from this earth.

In recent years, I think what has been alarming to me is meat. First, we have noticed that regular hamburger puchased from the store has very little flavor, no matter what the fat content. We were really surprised to find a big difference in our grass fed beef! We have had the same experience with our chicken.

Having worked in pediatrics during the 1990s when there was the big ecoli break out after eating Jack in the Box hamburgers I have been very cautious with meats in general, raw meats in particular. One of the patients at our clinic died after eating at the Jack in the Box down the road from my house. It is a horrible way to die. And he wasn't the only one. My step Mom loves to eat raw hamburger, she has done it all her life, though now that she is in a nursing home, I doubt that she has been allowed to continue. A lot of people think it is ridiculous, stating "I've eaten rare meat all my life." But people don't realize what a difference there is in what is in our grocery store now compared to even twenty years ago.

Kingsolver touched on that in her book. Animals who are raised for the market are generally raised at CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations). Animals are packed in tightly standing in their own excrement and some never see the light of day or breathe fresh air. Okay, I am not a "tree hugger" and I'm not vegetarian, but it makes me sick to think of what happens to these animals. Besides the poor treatment of the animals and crowding, there is increased pollution from the excrement. CAFO animals create 16x the fecal content of people each year, waste that needs to be dealt with. Whereas, pasture fed animals distribute their waste over the land, adding nutrients back into the soil, building it back up. The third adverse effect is that because of the crowding, the animals are stressed, weak and sickly and so they are fed with antibiotics. There was a time when no farmer worth his salt would have butchered sick animals for food. Today about 75% of antibiotics used in the United States are used for CAFO animals. That is a huge amount. That leaves 25% to be distributed between domestic animals, small farms and people. Still with this high usage, testing shows that 70% of supermarket chicken has campylobacter or salmonella. The high use of antibiotics is just producing antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria.

And she didn't even cover the usage of hormones in meat production animals! This is what initially started our natural meat purchasing because we have two young daughters and a son that we are concerned about. Children are entering puberty sooner and sooner. In my parents' generation it would not be unusual for a girl to begin menstruating as late as 14-16 years of age. In my children's generation it is not entirely unusual to begin at 7 or 8! Isn't there something wrong with that?

I know that most of you, if you have even read this far, might be tuning out about now. It used to be that information like this was shared by people who lived in school busses with many other people! lol But, I think now that we have been sleeping on the job and a great number of things have been happening which directly effect our food, our health, our children's futures. I am still absorbing some of this information. I do live in the real world. I do know how difficult some of these changes are to impliment and how unpractical they seem. But they are important. There isn't a single one of us, when given the chance would say, "Here Johnny, it's time for your cancer inducing chemicals, come to the kitchen!"

So, in part three, I want to discuss ways that we can implement this knowledge into our daily life.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle Review

2007-11-19T08:17:00.000-08:00

As I wrote in a couple of my Wellness Wednesday posts on my Stitches of Grace blog, I have been reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver and her husband Steven L. Hopp and daughter Camille Kingsolver. As the cover flap describes it, it is part memoir and part journalistic investigation. Interspersed are recipes and seasonal menus that the reader might find helpful in their own efforts. If you would like to read more from their perspective, I recommend visiting their website Animal, Vegetable, Miracle which contains the recipes from the book along with other resources in local eating and sustainable food. Some of the resources from the book I have provided in my links sections at the left. This is still a work in progress, so if you find anything inappropriate or not working correctly, please let me know.

First, I must say that the information really is NOT new in her book. Much of what she wrote, my Grandmother shared with me in the 1970s. There is up to date information on genetically modified food and seeds as well as how commodity crops have damaged our food supply, our health and even potentially the economies of poorer nations that buy our excess. If you are already aware of the food and seed situation, organic gardening and sustainable living, this book will probably be redundant. Personally, I think I would have enjoyed it more if she had shared more memoir than food culture evangelism. However, I can understand her passion about this topic after working hard at it for a year and certainly lending her "celebrity" status as an author to this cause couldn't hurt. Her ideas are quite liberal and she has a Masters Degree in evolutionary biology, but that is only mentioned briefly in reference mainly to animal and plant health selection. It really does not interfere with the whole concept of the book.

With that introduction, or warning, I would like to proceed with some gleanings from the book.

* This generation of American children is the first generation to have a shorter life span than their parents.

* The Government promotes increasing fruit and vegetable consumption, but continues to subsidize commodity crops and not fruit and vegetable farmers. In fact, the Farm Bill, really "kills" the small farmers.

* After WWII, there was an excess of ammonium nitrate from explosives. This was made into fertilizers after discovering how it made the crops grow.

* Because of this, commodity crops increased after WWII. A commodity farmer, generally growing corn and soybean, needs large acreage to run at full force in order to make their efforts profitable because they make a miniscule amount per acre, compared to small farmers.

* Commodity farming produced excess. This excess had to be put to use somehow, since the government was paying for it. (I do not think this was an evil plan as some do. I think it was the consequences off poor planning and foresight as well as incomplete knowledge of how altering Creation would effect us.) A secondary industry developed, producing items such as High Fructose Corn Syrup, Soy oil used in "everything" and feeding corn to cattle to fatten them (this is unnatural for them and they would not do this on their own). It fattens cows and it is fattening us too!

* $10 Billion is spent on advertising foods to kids every year!

* Food travels an average of 1500 miles to reach us. This uses a lot of petroleum fuel.

* Vegetables lose flavor and nutrition because of transport.

* If every US citizen ate one meal (any meal) each week composed only of locally and organically grown meats and produce, it would reduce our country's oil consumption by 1.1 barrels a week! I found this astonishing!

* The main barrier between ourselves and local food culture is attitude, not price.

* While we are not the only country to each processed foods and foods from all over the world, primarily other countries eat what is local to them. The French eat French food, the Italians eat Italian etc.

* When we eat food only when it is in season, we eat it at its best taste and nutritional value.

* Most of us no longer know when certain items are in season because most thing are available in the supermarket year round. But if compared a food in its season to one grown out of season in a hot house, you will likely taste a huge difference. Just think how great your home grown tomatoes taste!

* Fruits and Vegetables are now bred to be indestructibe in transport, not to have the best taste. Heirloom varieties of produce are ones that Grandma and Grandpa grew in their garden and that neighbors used to share seeds with neighbors. (Soon I will have some heirloom links up as I want to explore this further!)

* Humans have historically eaten some 80,000 plant species but now 75% of all human food comes from 8 species and this is quickly narrowing down to three genetically modified species: Corn, Soy and Canola.

* Plants are now viewed as patentable properties, not God given gifts.

* 6 companies - Monsanto, Syngenta, Du Pon, Mitsui, Avanti and Dow, now control 98% of the world's (not just US) seed supply. (Is anyone else concerned about many of these being HUGE chemical companies?!)

* Plants are genetically modified to resist Roundup so that they can spray the crop and it will survive but the weeds will die. (Have you read the warnings on a bottle of Roundup lately? Did you know that you are eating it with your food? I didn't!)

* Monsanto owns the patent on this genetically modified seed. Surprise! It also owns the patent on Roundup.

* The Government does not require genetically modified food to be labeled as such, so unless you are purchasing food that is from a known source or marketed as being non-modified, you are eating genetically modified foods every day.

* Traditional farmers raised many crops of both animals and plants because crop failure was inevitable. Modern farming places all its eggs in one basket, thus there is an increased need to control the outcome, preventing tragedies like the Irish Potato Famine.

This is the end of part one. I will continue in part two. I am sorry to break this up, however, it is important to spend some time off the computer each day! lol In addition to giving further insights from the book, I would like to discuss practical ways of applying this information to our own lives without going overboard.

Wellness Wednesday #4 and Welcome

2007-11-14T11:59:00.000-08:00

Welcome everyone who came here from my Wellness Wednesday #4 post at my other blog! I am just beginning to enter resources and information in the links. Feel free to browse and comment.

I have to say that since beginning this journey now, I have the most hope I have ever had that I will succeed! It brings me joy and encouragement as you travel along with me!

In The Beginning...

2007-11-13T09:28:00.000-08:00

The genesis of my health problems was my family's brokenness and the death of my brother. My Grandma Johnson dealt with her grief and my pain by saying, "Here, have a donut!" "Would you like some candy dear?" Yes, I am responsible for my own choices, but what 6-7 yo would not go for a donut or candy when offered? Not too many would refuse.

Shortly after this period I began my first diet. I was either 7 or 8 years old.

These two events began a long struggle, one which I hope to terminate! The first battle is with using food to comfort. The second is with dieting. Every diet I have been on has contributed to the enormous size I am today! Diets do not work! Sure, you can take off weight with them, but unless you change the entire way you eat and live, the weight will come right back on. And as most of us who have been on this roller coaster ride know, when the weight comes back on, it brings friends.

Throughout my adolescence, not only was I plagued by the need to diet, but also by an unrealistic view of my actual body size and shape. At the time I felt as if my body was a ghastly 300#. Today I weighed 323#. I look at the pictures of me at 120, 150, 175, 200, 250... and I wish that I weighed that now! Not only did I perceive my body incorrectly, but eventually I came to a point where dieting would trigger bouts of anorexic symptoms. To this day, I can start out with good intentions and end up eating 500 calories a day in order to make it "work". It becomes a competition. I starve. I binge. I hate myself. It's a viscious cycle.

Somewhere along the way, I decided to set aside the Cinderella thinking (or the grass is greener, it will be better when... etc) and focus on the problem. I am a child of the King of all the Universe. Why should food conquer me? Why should an inanimate object gain so much attention in my life that it distracts me from truly important things, that it limits my ministry possibilities, that it takes me away from fun with my children, that it shortens my life? Not that I ever wanted to die early, but being a late in life Mama changed my perspective a little. My children inspire me to do better and live healthier and longer. However, I will not diet again. Diets destroy me. Instead I am seeking healthy habits to implement and learning as I go. A slow and steady weight loss is better than gaining each year as I have in the past!

When I was 11 years old, I asked Jesus to be my savior. (If you would like to know more, please ask or click on the Ready? button above.) I truly believe "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." (Philippians 4:13) So, my first step on the journey was to submit to Christ and ask for His help. It took me several years to learn how NOT to eat for comfort. Food is an integral part of our culture's celebrations and is often used as a reward. Food comforts not only in times of depression, stress and sorrow, but also in times of success and happiness. This is not easy to undo. After some time I have learned to go pray, drink water, find something I enjoy doing etc. instead of eating. I am glad to say that the times I seek comfort to fill my emotions have decreased and occurences are rare. Still, it is a continual struggle and I need to be on guard.

After learning not to comfort myself with food, the next step was to control portions. My husband, though not obese, also struggled with this. We both load up on carbs that taste good... and if we are honest, "feel" good. His greatest weakness is ice cream; his second is cheese. My greatest weakness is fried potatoes and eggs (yolks only), no kidding! I would rather have that than candy, but good pastry/pie comes in a close second. We are gradually helping each other rethink what goes in our mouths. And, I have to admit that sometimes I am too exhausted to make a whole meal and put it all together, so we end up eating 3 or 4 portions of the main dish instead of one portion, plus veggies, plus salad etc.

Our children have really made us think a lot about what goes into our food. The fourth step was to eliminate high fructose corn syrup. Step five eliminated MSG. And step six was to start eliminating animal products which used hormones and antibiotics. Step seven introduced organic foods. Currently I am considering an 8th step, eliminating wheat and possibly also gluten altogether. I have not decided yet.

My steps:

1. Submit to Christ who strengthens me.
2. Eliminate eating for comfort reasons.
3. Portion control.
4. Eliminate High Fructose Corn Syrup.
5. Eliminate MSG
(Steps 4 & 5 included eliminating processed foods)
6. Eliminate animal products which use hormones and antibiotics (including yogurt, milk etc)
7. Eat organic fruits and veggies and local as much as possible.
8. Reduce/eliminate gluten/wheat.

Every Wednesday I post a "Wellness Wednesday" post on my Stitches of Grace blog (link at left). I will continue to do this and may double post, placing that information over here as well. I will check in with my weight. Scary, yes. I can no longer diet. I will no longer diet. But, I must reduce my weight. The blogs provide some accountability for me.

This blog will contain more than just my weekly post at Stitches of Grace. I learn by reading and then "regurgitating" what I learn through notes and sharing. So, this will be my format to share and hopefully I will learn from the rest of you as well. Okay, so far the rest of you is probably 2 people. But that's okay, God knows who should be here. If you would like to join me on this health journey, let me know and I will post a link to your blog in my "Joining Me On The Journey" section on the left hand side.

If you made it this far. Thanks!

My Journey

2007-11-12T15:26:00.000-08:00

My journey to wholeness includes, spiritual, physical and mental health. For years I have been on a journey to heal emotionally and spiritually some of the things I have experienced in life. My loving Savior, Jesus Christ, is healing me, making me Whole in Him. As a part of that journey I am learning to develop a healthier lifestyle, which includes exercise, health and nutrition. I began journaling this on Wellness Wednesday on my regular blog (see link at left for Stitches of Grace). However, I am finding that there is a lot more health information I would like to share as I read and learn. I am enjoying reading hints and tips from my readers as well. But I realize not everyone wants to read about organic veggies on a knitting blog, so I will use this blog to journal my journey.

Welcome. Please join me. All sincere comments are welcome!