Food! Glorious Food!

Food! Glorious, glorious, glorious food! I have tomatoes from the garden! They are red and juicy and absolutely fabulous! This is the first time I have ever eaten a tomato right from the garden, and it is wonderful. The cucumbers are still growing like rabbits. I think I'm going to have to make some pickles or relish or something of the like. I'm growing more than one a day. And my farm tomatoes will become salsa later on today, because I want to eat fresh ones from my bushes.


I've been in a furious baking made these past two days. With a boat load of zucchinis piling up from the farm, I shredded up five cups of it for whole wheat honey zucchini bread. Caleb and I also made an applesauce loaf as part of our "Learn Your Letters, Learn to Serve" curriculum. Last night I had burritos on the menu, but had no wraps in the house. I considered loading all three boys into the car for a trip to the grocery store, but as the past two ventures have been disastrous, I thought it the perfect time to try my hand at homemade wraps. While they were delicious, and the dough was easy enough to make, the work it took to roll them all out - not something I'll do on a regular basis.

Lastly, this morning I found myself with four slightly stale specialty buns. They were part of a massive bag of "day-olds" that I picked up on Monday. They were all differently spiced: onion, garlic, caraway. They seemed perfect for homemade croutons, another new venture for me. It's as easy as chopping the buns, tossing them in a bit of melted butter and then baking them for 20 minutes.

Or, it should have been that easy. Everything was going perfectly. Benjamin woke up with 10 minutes left in the oven, so I took advantage of the time to get the boys dressed for a walk down to the park. The sun shone, the warm air held a slight breeze, our 20 minute walk was beautiful. The boys hopped up onto the play equipment when I suddenly had a horrifying revelation: I had left the croutons in the oven, with the oven on. It was already a good 20 minutes past the time they needed to come out.

In a panic I approached the only other adult at the park and begged for a cell phone. She only had a texting plan, and so I sent my very first text to James:

urgent i left the oven on call your mom and get her to turn it off reply to 519-***-****

That was the best I could do as I fumbled with the unfamiliar device. I waited 5 minutes for a reply to verify he had received it. No reply came. (Which I couldn't believe my bad luck, since he ALWAYS has that thing on and nearby!) So I loaded the boys in to the double stroller, strapped Benjamin into the baby carrier, and hauled off at a run. Of course, the way home is completely uphill.

I shut my eyes as I turned the corner onto our street, silently praying that there would be no fire truck in front of the house, or black smoke pouring from the windows. I dashed inside, pulled out the croutons and turned off the stove, just as my mother-in-law pulled up. (James had gotten a hold of her, but I had already left the park).

I expected a tray of blackened, smouldering rocks. Instead, I was pleasantly greeted by this:


Gorgeous! And so incredibly tasty! They are crunchy and yet melt in your mouth. I will never buy a box of pre-packaged teeth-breaker croutons again! It was so easy, and you can be sure I will never leave them in the oven again!

(Huge sigh of exhaustion and satisfaction).

I have another new meal planned this evening, since I have three heads of broccoli still to use. In fact, we are bursting with yummy fresh produce from the garden and farm, so I have a feeling we'll be eating like kings over the next while. Homemade strawberry rhubarb pie is also on the menu for next week, as well as a peach cobbler and plenty of tomato/cucumber salads.

All this has really spurred on my vision of the next house we'd like to buy. It seems silly to me to spend all that money on buying fresh local fruits and vegetables when I could grow them myself. With more land, I will be able to have a large garden without sacrificing any play area for the boys. Although I still don't have a passion for gardening, I enjoy reaping the benefits, and therefore will continue on in future years to grow more and more of our own food. Eventually I would also love to get into more and more canning and preserving, but one thing at time.

Vegetables for dinner, part two

Vegetable Mom showed up again the other day. This time I had not had time to go grocery shopping. Now honestly, we keep a 3 month food storage in the house. There is always food to eat. But I was sulking a little because James hadn't organized himself well enough to allow me time to grocery shop. So I served vegetables for dinner, because "that's all we had."

I served carrots, small roasted potatoes, corn, and green beans. (Yes, I know that corn is a grain, not a vegetable, but it gets thrown in that group often enough I count it as one). Nice big helpings of each one. It went over surprisingly well. Everyone ate everything on their plate; not one morsel was left to be scraped into the compost, a rarity at our table. Of course, the homemade cheese sauce I made probably helped in that. I figured I had to give them something if I was only going to serve vegetables.

In the end, everything really liked it. Well, Colin and I really liked it as a meal, and James and Caleb's stomachs really liked it after the fact, since their digestive systems are often gummed up with breads and grains. All in all, a resounding success.

Vegetable Mom strikes again!

Vegetables for dinner

Totally frustrated the other day with the sheer amount of bread/carbs being eaten in my home, I served for dinner: vegetables with a side of vegetables. No, I'm not kidding. Yes, I think James nearly called for pizza.

Colin has my sensitive digestion and needs vegetables, even if he doesn't want them. He's pretty good about eating them if I serve them, though. James eats his meat and potatoes first, then pushes around his vegetables while eating about half, since that's all that's left on the plate. Caleb can go days without eating vegetables, if I don't watch him like a hawk. Me, I love fruits and vegetables. There's nothing like a fruit platter or a huge salad. Of course, these weren't always my favs, so I give my family a little latitude.

So often they just aren't getting enough, and that's my area. Part of my job description is healthy eating for all, which I take very seriously. Hey - I didn't plant that garden in the back out of sheer pleasure, folks. Not my idea of fun, but I acknowledge its addition to a healthy eating plan.

So the other day I pulled out every vegetable left in the fridge. I chopped everything, then steamed the hard vegetables (broccoli, beans, carrots) and warmed the softer ones (corn, peas, peppers) and through in some black beans to fill it up a little. Topped with some Italian dressing, I served up nice big bowls of this "summer stew" to everyone. Me, I loved it! Everyone else ate it because there was nothing else. Caleb picked at it, then ate it simply because there was a promised dessert.

I have told everyone that if I continue to put vegetable scraps into the compost after lunch and dinner that they can expect vegetable dinners on a more regular basis.

I am the vegetable mom!

A hunk of bread

I had an interesting flash of a notion today. Colin, still hungry after lunch, asked for one of my homemade buns. I watched him take a huge bite and go to chewing it. Chewing, chewing, chewing. As I watched the muscles in his mouth work, I thought: all that dough is just going to gum up his system inside. Then I imagined his digestive system working overtime to process that sticky chunk of bread. I thought of ducks, to whom you should never give bread because it gums up their insides.

Then my thoughts turned to what our world naturally produces. Fruits, vegetables, herbs, spices, those things that grow from the ground. As a human race we have fiddled with food for so long. Certainly most of the packaged foods in the grocery store have little naturally occurring food inside them. But even the idea of "homemade food" - like baking my own bread - is really fooling with Mother Nature. Was wheat ever intended to be ground, mixed with water and salt and yeast, leavened, baked and then eaten? Is that really the best nourishment for our bodies? Are our bodies even designed to really want that, or does it adapt and tolerate it? Was it simply a cheap creation years ago that would fill our stomachs and satisfy hunger, without the labour of planting and cultivating and waiting for something to grow?

I love breads. Bread, cereal, bagels, buns - all forms. But suddenly I find myself thinking even more closely about what I am putting in my body, and what it naturally craves.

Homemade bagels

I found a recipe for homemade bagels, which made me jump up and dance in the kitchen. (Literally. Bagels are really expensive to buy in the stores now. And they are one of my favourite snacks.) Flour, water, yeast, honey and salt. That easy.

Or not. It turns out I am terrible at kneading dough. Away I went, taking the crazy night and stressful morning I had out on my poor little ball of flour. Smoosh, fold, turn, smoosh, fold, turn, smoosh, fold, turn. My only instruction was to knead "until smooth and elastic". I also know you have to be weary of over-handling dough. So I stopped when it looked right. I thought it would look better when it rose. I thought it would improve when it broiled. I thought there would be a change while it boiled. I held out a little longer while it baked. But - no such luck. My scrawny, lumpy, puny bagels look nothing like the beautiful photo posted by the "Heavenly Homemaker". And she actually takes pictures as she makes it - so you know that's really what they should look like.

Ah well. They look awful, but there taste scrumptious. They aren't the dense lump of knotted dough I expected. Once I actually get the kneading right, they are going to be FANTASTIC! I think next time I'll let the bread machine do the kneading.

Eat food

Okay. I understand the title of this blog entry might strike you as a little strange. We all eat food, right? Well, I'm learning maybe not. Between reading Laura's blog entries on "Getting Real with Food" and Michael Pollan's new book "In Defense of Food", I'm quickly learning that most of what I eat on a daily basis is only masquerading as food. Have you looked at the ingredient lists on what we find at the grocery store? I can't even pronounce most of the stuff I put into my body. (click on links above to see for yourself)

Michael Pollan's book is so good that I can't even choose which excerpts to include here. Suffice it to say the book is definitely worth a read. His main arguments are to: Eat food (real, whole foods), not too much (enough said) and mostly plants (not only, just mostly). He talks a lot about "nutritionism", the ideology of breaking down food into elements. I had never noticed it before, but marketers now sell us food based on things we can't even see: low-fat, omega-3, psillium fibre, low-carb... what ever happened to just getting natural food as it naturally grows?

I highly recommend a perusal over Laura's "Getting real with food" series. She's a regular mom on a less-than-regular income, but has decided that eating whole, natural foods is not a luxury these days, but a necessity. She writes about her grocery bill ($500/month to feed a family of 6, including 5 males), ways to store food you grow, buying a cow, and the every day reality of searching for good food. She also includes her weekly menu plan, complete with recipes. Her idea revolves around eating simpler but still eating yummy. Just glancing over her menus inspired me to start adapting my own menu ideas.

I wish I could write all my thoughts on this subject, but I don't even know that I could form them all into a coherent stream of consciousness. I'm sure the subject will pop up again as I move forward in my search for real food. I will be attending a workshop on the "100 mile diet" in September (basic idea: eat foods grown within 100 miles of where you live) and I'll certainly have some ideas to write on that. In the mean time, anyone in the Orangeville area with information on local, natural, organic food sources, please let me know!

Kitchens

I have a developing love for the kitchen.

In the past, kitchens meant: grabbing a quick meal, washing dishes, constant sweeping, washing dishes, scrambling to cook a meal, and washing dishes.

But with the help of a few old memories, and the aid of a couple new interests, the idea of the kitchen is evolving in my mind.

The first house we looked at (and nearly bought) spoke to me because of the kitchen. The front door opened directly into it. There was no hallway, no foyer, no fancy sitting room. The door swung opened and you were standing smack in the middle of a beautifully large kitchen. There was an old, big wooden preparation table in the middle of the room, and counter space and storage space that would thrill any mother. I immediately thought of life a hundred years ago, when daily life seemed to revolve around the kitchen. Kids coming in and out, mom cooking, baking, mending, sewing. The kitchen used to be the hub of the house!

My Nana lived for a long time in a large house that had a kitchen add-on. She told me that they used to build kitchens separate to remove heat from the heat of cooking from the main house. Once again, the entrance we used for the house came right into this kitchen.

My uncle is a fabulous cook. "Uncle Baden" dinners are famous in our family, and people will travel hours to partake of Christmas or Thanksgiving or Easter dinner at his house. We always arrive in early afternoon, and so are able to help in preparation, and visit with family while the delectable aromas waft in and out of the rooms. There was never less than three kinds of meat, two or three types of potatoes, three or four other vegetables, fresh rolls, and a whole host of desserts.

A television show I used to watch showed an episode where the mother took her teenage daughter along grocery shopping for a class project. The mother described how much she enjoyed grocery shopping, because it was a process that began with planning out her family's favourite meals, and then carried into the store as she thought about each family member and how much they would appreciate the things she bought and made.

As these and other memories have converged upon me lately, I am beginning to discover my love for the kitchen. Food preparation is becoming much more than simply getting a meal on the table. I am currently clearing out a space for a vegetable garden to start next year. And I'm reading a book about building a root cellar to store my crops through the winter.

I have always been fascinated with farming, seeing it as the career that is at the very heart of humanity. Food is the basic necessity of life, and therefore farming is the basic work of life. Although I don't see farming in our future, I do imagine our next house being one out of the town, with enough property in the back to grow a substantial garden, providing most of our vegetables myself. I see my children working alongside me, learning the true meaning of self-reliance. I see our kitchen as the hub of our house (as opposed to a play room or computer room or tv room), where my boys come to scour the corners for snacks and meals, and engage in a little conversation as they munch.

Why, you might ask, in this age of convenience, would I picture such a rustic image of the future? First, because I think self-reliance is not only important, but crucial in this day and age of uncertain markets, natural disasters, and world-wide unrest. Second, because I think it is an inherent drive for men and women to grow and farm through some hard work. I may not be packing up to living in an Amish community, but there is a simplicity and happiness to that life that burns naturally inside me.

"Slowly we are carving a new lifestyle. To some it might seem to be one that is looking backward, for it cherishes the homely, the rude, the unpackaged, the unmechanized, the careful. We do not think of it as a blind shutting out of any visions of the future, but rather, for us, the right way to face the future. The carving is not easy. It is often painful. But in it are the seeds of sanity, of joy." - Mara Cary, Basic Baskets.

It all makes sense

Today I passed naptime in two ways: for the first half hour, I was catching up on some computer things (reading, emailing, etc). Then for the last hour and a half, I mowed the lawn, worked a little on my fence, and then dug a hole to plant a bush.

During this two hour block, I ate: a chocolate bar and a glass of milk, and later, a green apple and a glass of water. The first was while I sat at the computer, the latter was after I came inside from my yard work.

And then it hit me. I am very in tune with my digestive system (after many years of battling stomach ailments), and so I always eat to my cravings. Lately I have been eating much more chocolate than usual. This mystified me completely, after nearly 28 years of eating junk food sparingly.

But since Caleb was born, I have not been able to be out and active as much as usual. I have found myself confined to the house due to winter weather, lack of transportation, and having a toddler and an infant in tow. And it was during this period of inactivity that my body craved the chocolate.

Isn't that wild? The more active I am, the more my body demands fruits, vegetables and water. The less active I am, the more I crave sweets, chocolate, and juice. No wonder it's so easy to get into the vicious circle of laziness and eating junk food. I'm sure there is some fantastic medical
research out there to back me up on this, but I think it's amazing when you discover these truths by yourself. Now it all makes sense.

Homekeeper Challenge #9 (gardening)

You may think I have been neglecting the challenge, but quite the contrary. As I consider my fence part of keeping my home beautiful (and safe), this is an extended project that is taking more than a week to complete (obviously). Thanks to my fantastic father, I am now half done the picket panels I need to build. I am well on track to being where I need to be for July 9th when the posts go in. It looks amazing, if I do say so myself. I won't give you any sneak peaks until I'm done, though.

Today, however, I do have a second project to tell you about. Yes, I do keep myself busy with many things going on simultaneously. In fact, my neighbour jokingly asked yesterday "Do you ever take a rest!" This was gratifying to hear, because I often feel like nothing is ever getting done.

My second project is the gardening around here. My long term plan (for next year) is to turn my current backyard jungle of a garden into a vegetable garden. This year is really more about getting everything under control. I have finally learned what are the weeds and what are the plants. I have also learned how to prune back my crazy bushes, and how to move my lovely ferns (which are the only thing worth saving where my veggies will go - pretty much everything else is coming out!) I have also learned the true meaning of "grow like a weed". I will never use this expression again.

So mostly I have been dig, dig, digging. Hard work. I have also discovered a blue recycling box is a poor substitute for a wheel barrow. Dirt is heavy! My muscles are growing and aching, aching and growing.

But this picture below represents my biggest accomplishment in the garden so far. We had this terribly ugly thing posing as a bush, right in front of our mailbox and front steps. It was really the only thing you could see coming up to the house. It was flat and evergreen and infested with spiders. And it had to go. Not an easy feat. I took my hand saw to it, tearing away branch after branch. That was day one. Day two I dug and dug and dug at the roots. And dug some more. Then covered in sweat and dirt, left it for day three. Day three. I dug more, then started taking the saw to the roots too deep to get to. Then I started rocking the stump back and forth, jumping on it to try and wiggle it free. Then it started to rain, which I completely ignored.
This stump was too close to leave now! In front of neighbours watching to see who would win the battle (I hope their money was on me!) and with cars slowing as they passed to witness the crazy lady jumping and shaking a bush stump (we live on a surprisingly busy street!) I finally tore the thing from the ground! Here I am with my prize:




Okay - this picture doesn't do my opponent justice. I am the conqueror! There are now some lovely beautiful green ferns in its place. This gardening stuff is hard work, but I am learning how gratifying it truly is to "till your own land."

Food for the tummy

Tonight it's just Caleb and I at dinnertime, and I'm just noticing now how I really eat. You wouldn't notice it until you're only responsible for feeding yourself.

When I was making food for myself:

In high school, I ate cereal and green apples.

In university, I ate soup and crackers and green apples. When I ate out, it was Subway (it was their chocolate chip cookies that drew me in!)

Now I eat what I call "deli lunch". Basically it involves a smorgasborg of little snacks all rolled up together to make a meal. On my plate tonight I have: grapes, cheese, potato salad, crackers, pickles, pickled beets and yogurt. So incredibly yummy. Colin and I have "deli lunch" at least 3 times a week, in various forms. And, of course, I still love green apples. What is your staple?

Homekeeper Challenge #4

This week I challenged myself in the area of cooking. I have done fairly well up to this point in reproducing recipes from a cookbook. I'm not the type to necessarily measure everything exactly, and sometimes vary it up a little. But I have decided that I'm ready to venture out a little further.

So, en route to creating my own recipes, this week I decided to see if I could replicate something I had in a restaurant. It was a fantastic dish called Balsamic Chicken Penne that I had at Kelsey's. I loved it so much I packaged the leftovers up and brought it home for a chef's dissection.

The result was, I can humbly admit, a delicious success. And so, as a record of my challenge this week, and for all you food epicures out there, here is the recipe:

Creamy Balsamic Chicken Penne
Serves 4

-2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
-2 red peppers, cut into 1 1/2" strips
-2 cups spinach
-1/2 red onion, cut into 1" strips
-Basil
-Penne
-Balsamic cream sauce (recipe at end)
-Shredded mozzarella cheese

1. Place chicken and 1 tbsp of basil in a pan of water. Bring to a boil, boil for 2 minutes, then remove from heat, cover and let sit for 20 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, cook 4 servings of penne or other large pasta (ie: rigatoni).
3. Make the Balsamic cream sauce (recipe at end)
4. When chicken is ready, cut it into 3" strips. Sautee the chicken, red pepper, onion and basil to taste, for 2-3 minutes or until pepper and onion are softened.
5. Boil the spinach for 2 minutes.
6. Top noodles with mixture, spinach, desired amount of sauce and shredded mozzarella cheese.

Balsamic Cream Sauce:
-1 cup balsamic vinaigrette dressing (or make your own with: 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar, 1 tbsp dijon mustard, 1 clove garlic and 3/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil)
-1/2 cup mayonnaise
-3 tbsp parmesan cheese
-4 tsp basil
-1/4 tsp pepper

Whisk dressing and mayonnaise. Stir in cheese, basil and pepper.