Unprocessed Day 2

10/2/13

I found some recipes for homemade, flavored coffee creamers and now have peppermint mocha and French vanilla in my fridge at my disposal. I know it sounds silly, but giving up coffeemate was my biggest scare. So… yay! I’m craving cheese (my favorite snack) and I don’t have any organic in the house. Tillamook is close, with only 1 added ingredient (color) and grass fed as often as possible cows. We’ll see if I can hold out.

I haven’t gotten around to making my bread yet. We’ll see if I get to that today or not. It may need to wait until tomorrow. I need to get Chris’ Victorian waistcoat finished ASAP and I need to add a ruffle to my bustle. The ball is Saturday, and that’s throwing a wrench in the food prep time.

Tomorrow is Farmer’s market day! On the shopping list:

beets (why did I not grow these again this year?)

Kale

Bell Peppers (mine didn’t do well this year)

Honey (stock up for winter.  I love local raw honey)

This was dinner tonight:

The good:

· Jim’s organic coffee

· Homemade organic coffee creamer

· Kashi cinnamon harvest cereal with milk

· Salad with home canned organic beets, fresh home-grown tomatoes, organic greens

· Salmon with herbs de province and roasted brussel sprouts & greens as a salad

Where I cheated:

· Bolthouse farms yogurt dressing

What Qualifies as Unprocessed–My Personal Definition

 

A friend asked me how I decided what was considered processed vs. unprocessed since it’s not always obvious. 

Good question!  Thanks for asking.

I happen to like how they define it over at eatingrules.com.  The following is taken straight from their site:

_________________________________________________

The “Kitchen Test” Definition

The first question I’m always asked is, “How do you define processed?”

Obviously there’s a wide range of implications in that word, and we will probably each define it slightly differently for ourselves. My definition is this:

Unprocessed food is any food that could be made by a person with reasonable skill in a home kitchen with whole-food ingredients.

I call it “The Kitchen Test.” If you pick up something with a label (if it doesn’t have a label, it’s probably unprocessed), and find an ingredient you’d never use in your kitchen and couldn’t possibly make yourself from the whole form, it’s processed.

It doesn’t mean you actually have to make it yourself, it just means that for it to be considered “unprocessed” that you could, in theory, do so.

________________________________________________________

These are the guidelines that I am using while deciding what is processed vs. not.  I can use flour, for instance, without having to grind it myself as long as it’s unbleached and un-enriched (which is what I use anyway).  For my purposes I will also consider raw cane sugar as un-processed as well.  (You can find that in the ethnic section with the Mexican foods, not with the other sugar, usually).

I hope this helps!  I’m always open to questions if you’re curious.

Unprocessed Day 1

10/1

I went shopping and was reminded why eating this way exclusively is hard even though I already cook a lot from scratch, and already attempt to eat this way. It’s expensive. (I should note that in addition to eating unprocessed, I am also avoiding GMO’s as much as possible, which means buying organic).  I’m excited about Kroger’s organic line of foods and was really happy to find almond flour in a smaller bag! I need to find a good recipe for homemade crackers. Does organic bacon exist?

The good:

· Fresh garden tomatoes

· Organic banana

· Simply orange orange juice

· Chicken cacciatore – organic, free range thighs from Trader Joe’s – all other organic produce.

· Roasted Green Beans

· Organic Cereal with milk

Where I Cheated:

· None. Woot!

October #Unprocessed 2013

What would happen if I went for an entire month without eating any processed foods?

I’ve been moving my family toward eating cleaner and more un-processed anyway, so when this challenge popped up on my Facebook newsfeed I thought “Hey!  We can do that.  I think we can do that.  Can we do that?  How close are we already?”

I started really thinking about the things in our diet that are still present and adding them up.  I realized I’m not as close as I want to be to eating only real food.  So here is where my very neglected blog comes in.  This will be my place of accountability through this month.  It may not make for exciting reading for some, but hey… This is about being accountable to myself and my family.  Hopefully, if someone is reading this, they may find something helpful.

On that note: If you are reading this and you’re interested in recipes, etc.  Just let me know.  I’m happy to share.

So here we go!  We’re doing this!  If you want to join in, click here to find the guidelines and officially sign up.  (You don’t have to officially sign up to play along).

Thankfulness and Gratitude

(This is a long one – you’ve been warned)

 

“Thanksgiving Day comes, by statute, once a year; to the honest man it comes as frequently as the heart of gratitude will allow.” - Edward Sandford Martin

 

Last week a giant wind storm hit our city.  Well, our entire county, actually.   It was an unusual storm for our area with winds up to 102.  We don’t normally get hurricane strength winds here.  Even though we are used to getting a couple good windstorms a year (usually 1 in the spring and 1 in the fall) strong enough to displace shingles and siding, with the occasional fence needing repaired we aren’t used to it shaking the entire house so much you felt like it was an earthquake that just kept going on and on… for hours and hours.  It was exhausting.  Impossible to sleep through.  I did manage to sneak in a nap for a couple hours Thursday morning after laying in bed with my eyes closed, trying to convince myself I was on a cross-country vacation - traveling by train, and it was just the normal movements and sounds of the train I was hearing as it scuttled me away to some place fabulous.

The power had been knocked out in the wee hours of the morning while it was still dark, wind blowing hard.  Our drafty little house was pretty cold.  The wind was still going at it.  I called the school attendance line and let them know that even though the closure line  indicated school was still open, my kids would not be there – I was not about to let them out the door with all the flying debris.  I’m glad we still have one of those old-fashioned phones in the house that plugs into the wall.  I knew it was a good idea to keep it around.  (School was officially cancelled a couple hours later).

After the storm, we surveyed the damage.  We lost some shingles – thankfully not too bad considering the roof was just redone a couple months ago.  The chimney hood needs to be replaced.  There were some other minor losses like my garden trellis, but all in all we came out with really minor damage.  Most of our neighbors did not fare so well.  One house in our neighborhood lost a good portion of its roof – plywood and all.  The insulation was popping out like tissue paper from a gift bag.  Trees were down everywhere.  Nearly all fences were either completely gone or severely damaged.  Houses had exposed ply-wood from where shingles, tar paper and even siding had been.

Semi trucks were on their side along the frontage road near our house and on the freeway.

That was a solid brick fence, reduced to a pile of rubble by the force of the tree and wind.

This is what a good portion of the trees now looked like.

 

It may sound like I am complaining.  I’m actually not.  It’s times like these when I get to witness amazing things. 

When the wind was still blowing, but not super hard anymore, my oldest, the teenager across the street and my next door neighbor’s daughter all got together.  They were all going a little stir- crazy.  No school - they loved that.  No power – not so much.  So we let them go for a walk to see what havoc had been done.  They retrieved some garbage, recycling and trash cans belonging to their families from the park where they had been blown.  Then we saw them bringing other garbage and debris from around the neighborhood and park and throwing it in the cans until they were full.  They helped stack debris from sheds and fences into piles – all without being asked.  You don’t see that often from 14 year olds.

Afterwards, they all headed to my neighbors house where they dug out board games.  This may not seem like a huge deal, but I am really grateful that my son enjoyed this time with them.  He’s at an age where he doesn’t  have a lot of non plugged-in interaction with other kids.  In addition, we have only been here for a year, so he’s still getting to know people.  He’s missing Washington and his friends there a lot lately.  It was good to see him connecting more with new friends here, outside of school.

It was also awesome to see the entire community pull together in clean up efforts.  We live a few houses from the city ball park.  On Friday morning the parking lot was full of trees brought in by trucks, wheel barrows, and people pulling them by hand.  They were being tirelessly fed into a mulcher.  By the end of the day, there was only a pile of mulch left.  This is the same parking lot again on Sunday:

Full of trees again.  Also full of people coordinating traffic and unloading trucks for strangers into organized (but HUGE) piles.

I didn’t get a picture, but the girls in the neighborhood got together and made cookies and delivered them to all the volunteers.  There was, and still is, a big sense of community as everyone I see comes together in clean- up efforts.  I am reminded of one of the reasons we wanted to move back here so much.  There really is no better community to live in, that I know of.

So today, even though it’s not Thanksgiving day any longer I am thankful for so much.

I am thankful we are home.

I am thankful for good friends for both Chris and I, and for our kids.

I am thankful for family and the chance to give them a hot meal and enjoy their company.

I am thankful for electricity.

I am thankful for our home and warm beds.

I am thankful for food storage, and the security of knowing my family will not go hungry during an emergency.

I am thankful my family is healthy.

I am thankful for heat in the winter time, and for a fireplace when the electricity can’t do the job.

I am thankful that we are mostly prepared for an emergency, and the chance to learn where the holes are in our plan, to fix them.  (I bought an indoor stove after the storm, since my emergency cooking solutions all required being able to cook outdoors – you can’t do that in 90 mph winds)

I am thankful that when my child asked me what we were going to do if the power was out for a week, I could tell her confidently that we would be just fine, and detail why to help relieve her worry.

I am thankful for great neighbors.

I an thankful for the internet, computers and other modern conveniences.  Yes, I can live without them, but I wouldn’t want to!

I am thankful for board games, cards, and building forts in the living room with mounds of blankets.

I am thankful for the holiday season.

I am thankful that I have the means to give.

My heart is full right now with gratitude for my life and every facet of it.  I know I am fortunate.  I know I am blessed.  I know I don’t deserve it.  I know there are so many others out there that don’t have as comfortable a life as I do. 

Falling Behind

Fall is getting away from me already.  The weather can be like a light switch here – good one day, horrid the next. 

I have yet to put the garden to bed for the winter.  The snow could be upon me any day now. 

Is it too early to hang the Christmas lights?  If we don’t get the timing just right on those they get to be hung in the snow, and on icy rooftops as well.

Yesterday marked the beginning of November.  I intended to keep a video gratitude journal each day of November this year.  I haven’t recorded yesterday’s yet.  (I am grateful for my heritage).

I’m supposed to be learning Spanish through Rosetta Stone, and I have yet to do the first lesson.  I signed up for this in September.

/sigh

Things are not looking promising if I can’t get my act together and get some things done.  I need to put ‘my’ stuff on the schedule so it stops being moved aside for someone else’s stuff.

On the bright side though, I really, truly do love the fall.  It is beautiful while it lasts.  And I love the holiday season.  I’m so grateful to be surrounded by my extended family once again, even if they do keep me hopping all over the place.  Oh look!  I think I know what my gratitude topic will be today – now to just do it!

Cooking it up 50’s Style

I inherited my Grandmother’s old cookbooks when my sister was cleaning out some thing she found in their garage.  I haven’t gotten around to looking at them until now.

Most of them have a published date of 1950

They have little extras in them like “Note: These are delightfully salty.”

Isn’t that delightful?

And fun illustrations.

This one is from 1976:

My son laughed and said “Men like all foods”.

A ward cookbook that is approximately 60 years old.

and an unidentified one that needs more TLC than the others:

I am looking for suggestions on how to best repair these.  A lot have un-attached covers, and of course there is the last one, which I fear is a lost cause.  In the mean time, they will likely live in a binder in sheet protectors, but I definitely intend to use them.