What You Need To Know About The Beef You Eat

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

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

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

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

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.

©2008 My Journey To Wholeness

Taco Pizza

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

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.