April 2009 Archives

For this week’s cook-a-thon I went with a Something Old/Something New theme. The Something Old was meatloaf. This loaf would horrify my friend J.Wo – not only is this a loaf of formed meat (something she hates nearly as much as she hates birds) but I crafted it from three different meats! Beef, Turkey and Pork are not usually found together in nature, but they seem to be doing just fine in my freezer.

The Something New is pinto beans. It boggles my mind that this is true. Never before this weekend have I cooked beans from scratch from a dry package. Canned yes, dry no. I managed to be a vegetarian for several years without trying this. I do remember I once tried to cook lentils but I never got past the soaking stage. If I remember correctly the lentils sprouted before I managed to cook them. To be honest after that experience, dried beans scared me a little.

Then this past week I was surfing around looking for sites that supported natural cooking. What caught my eye was The Hillbilly Housewife. Surprising, no? The author of the site is a country homemaker who is apparently a practical expert on feeding a family cheaply and healthfully on as little money as possible. She is also excellent at explaining how to properly prepare and cook dry beans.

Little did I know I love pinto beans. They are delicious and filling and inexpensive. All hail the dry pinto bean! After cooking them up as directed with delicious bacon, I used the beans to make stuffed green peppers. Beans, onions, brown rice, diced tomatoes and marinara sauce. Healthy, hearty and filled with yum! I see more dried beans in my future.

Another Something New I cooked up was Apple Cinnamon muffins. They turned out to be tasty but small. Very small. I think I over-mixed the batter. Given the way the banana bread turned out last week, I think over-mixing may be a major weakness in my baking. And that is something to work on.

Dinner I have down. Breakfast and lunch are still works in progress. More on this soon!

In addition to reworking our diet, at my house we are also reworking our budget. For several months I was on the fence between business as usual and Panic! Such is the confusing state of the world economy. We finally settled on a plan of living a little leaner and saving significantly more without giving up all luxury. I bring this up because the new budget doesn't include much in the way of eating out - especially for weekday lunches. It's time to brown bag it folks!

Flounder has never been one for carrying a lunch, and has very limited space in the office to refridgerate food. On the other hand, my office has several giant fridges and a whole bank of microwaves. I can take leftovers or meals I have pre-cooked without a problem. In fact this could be my golden opportunity to cook up foods that Floumder doesn't enjoy, (Squash!) and gobble them for lunch. He will need something more along the lines of an "elementry school lunch" a la sandwich, fruit and cookie.

Which brings me to my new nemisis: bread. Grocery store bread is very full of unecessary crud! This leaves me with three options: find a local all-natural bakery, buy my bread at whole foods, make my own bread.

We do have a great local bakery, but I don't yet know how additive-free their products are. I will also do an investigation of bread at Whole Foods this weekend. It has been a few years since I last bought wheat products there. I am curious to learn more about the cost and longevity of their bread products. I realize that taking away preservatives also means loosing long-term freshness. Like so many things in life, it's a tradeoff.

Quick breads like banana bread are one thing, but I am not interested in making homemade yeast bread on a weekly basis. Enter Maryment! She has very kindly offered to lend us her underused bread machine. Yay! So that is a good option I will try out and report back on in the coming weeks.

Finally, on the topic of lunch...I have been considering the downsides of eating well and economizing. One downer that comes with brown-bagging-it is the deminished in-the-moment freedom of choice. When you pack your lunch you don't get to relish the "what's for lunch?" ponder. You know what's for lunch. You packed it! And when you are trying to limit your spending, it get's harder to justify a splurge just cuz that PB&J is looking squished and dull. Boo!

Next time: What's for breakfast? Can you really eat homecooked eggs on-the-go?

I am not a well practiced cook. In fact I have been always been a very lazy cook. I didn't really want to be bothered. In my single years I would have been happy to have simple pasta or cereal for dinner. In my early 20s I was a vegetarian as well (and not a very healthy one) which has not helped me hone my meat preparation skills. So naturally in this first week of revolutionizing our
way of eating I decide to make a pot roast. More about that in a minute.

Because I am a lazy cook and I work full time I REALLY don't want to come home and make a full meal in the evening. That wasn't a problem when I could rely convenience foods and takeout. LOTS of takeout in fact. So I decided to give pre-cooking a try. I take a few hours during the weekend to prepare a few dishes for this week. This time around I made:

Banana Bread
Marinara Sauce
Slow cooker Potato and Leek Soup
Pot Roast

How did it go?

I am not sure why, but the banana bread came out quiet dry. The recipe I used seemed pretty standard, but this coming week I will up the banana content and lower the cooking time. I will also be careful not to over mix. That said, the dough/batter seemed dry as I worked with it. Maybe a little apple sauce too for good measure?

This marinara sauce came out great and it sure to be an old standby. I did use canned tomatoes (organic, with only 3 ingredients: tomatoes, sea salt, basil) which made the whole process a snap. The true test will come this summer when I try my hand a fresh tomato sauce.

The slow cooker soup was a little deviation from GOAL ONE. Since I am just starting this adventure there are still some processed foods in the house that need to be used up (or in some cases given away, like the Crisco.) This recipe was one I had all of the ingredients for before committing to drop the processed foods from our diet. It called for evaporated milk. I was really alarmed by just how many ingredients are in a can of evaporated milk. Shouldn't there just be one? At any rate, I am sure I can find a substitute for the evaporated milk in this recipe. I also threw in a bunch of beautiful young turnips I picked up at the farmers market. They were a yummy, tender and sorta sweet addition to the pot.

Now we have come to the pot roast. I am going to be very honest and say I don't know a thing about braising. I should have read up a bit before taking on an Emeril recipe. The meat turned out tender, but dry. Far too dry. The meat shrank to such a point that I will likely only get 4 moderate servings when I was hope for 6 to 8. Not a success story. But an experience to grow on right? Right?!

The verdict is still out on the usefulness of the pre-cooking approach. I think it will take a few weeks to determine its total worth. I will say that dinner (soup, bread and veggies) last night was very easy to throw together. I do see one weakness in my approach at this point. I need to chop a whole slew of veggies during this pre-cooking time to ensure the easy composition of salads for the week. I guess it shouldn't be a surprise that What I pre-cook is just as important as If I pre-cook.

I have several quandaries that need serious consideration and probably creative solutions. Stuff like: Finding, using and paying for "additional crud"-free bread, what's for lunch when you aren't eating out & what's for breakfast (ditto).

Time for Shout Outs: I am also very fortunate to have a husband like Flounder who is willing to ride out these food experiments while I find my stride. He has a big heart and an iron gut.

Stay tuned! These and other privileged-people-problems next time!

This blog space has been all but abandoned for the last year or so. In the past this was a space where I chronicled the ups and downs of life. Today I revive it with a new purpose!

This week I am kicking off a new approach to eating in our house. I want to strip as much processed/artificial food out of our family diet as I reasonably can. Sounds tough, right? I know! Truly, I love Velveeta and Twinkies even more than the average person, but these "foods" aren't helping me to live to a spry 100 are they? The plan is to create a diet comprised of whole, natural and homemade foods with a little wiggle-room for when Life gets in the way. We are not moving off the gird to farm for subsistence here. I will be working with all the same resources I always have: the standard grocery store, the local (and beloved) Farmers Markets and when the going gets desperate, Whole Foods. I am also still saddled withthe same "issues" from the past as well, a severely overweight body and a unholy love of processed starches and sugars. Which is why I am taking on this challange in a spirit of adventure and forgiveness. I am not going to do this perfectly. Perfect isn't possible here, and that's ok. I would love to eat all organic, local & cruelty free as well but for the moment Goal One is to cook and serve unadulterated foods free of what I will deem "unnecessary crud."

I don't intend to preach or tell others what to do. I truly have no high ground here. What I do have is a desire to show off what I am up to (I crave gold stars) and document all the progress I make toward Goal One as a reminder of success when I inevitably backslide.

For now I will focus on cooking fresh food, serving it up and telling you how I've done each week. Sometimes with photos! Sidenote: I have turned off the comments for now because the spambots love to punish me for having readers in the past. One of these days I may find a way to turn them back on in a spam-free-ish format.

I will be back soon with my first cooking post. First subject: Pot Roast!

Finally, the disclaimer: I am not going to spend any time justifying this choice or trying to back it up with science. This is a move I am making because it feels like to right thing to do for me and my family. I also don't claim to be a foodie, a great cook or a nutrition expert. And that's all folks!