Lately?

Four months ago I went back to work full time. The amount of cooking that I was doing had fallen drastically for the first couple of months. I'm finally starting to feel like things are falling back into place. Of course I'm not able to do everything that I would like to do but who is right? I'm into a cleaning routine and getting used to getting up in the morning. I'm taking the dog to obedience school and learning more sign language. Thanks in part to the dog, Caleb, and the spring weather I'm getting a lot of biking time in too. So, I'm feeling like I still have plenty of time to pursue my own interests.

What I'm not feeling is having time to cook the way I want to. Many of my recipes have been scrapped. When you get home at 5:45, it's just not the time to be making spaghetti sauce from scratch! It's not actually as bad as it sounds. We have been eating out a lot less and I feel like the wheat free thing has become, deep breath, I can't believe I'm saying this, a total non-issue. I've discovered the wonders of spelt flour and so I've been using that in place of all purpose flour for most recipes. My next move is to switch to the whole grain variety.

Caleb started a new daycare for the summer but she has so far been supportive about his diet. Since she participates in the states food program for childcare she has to have a form filled out by the doctor stating that he needs this diet. That should be interesting since he doesn't seem to believe that he needs to follow this diet. I was able to show the babysitter on Thursday what his skin looked like after having spent the day with his grandma and my sister who let him eat wheat products both at lunch and supper. Since it had looked great on Tuesday she was impressed; not in a good way!

Anyway back to the cooking thing. It is starting to fall back in place little by little too. I'm not cooking every night but we're not eating out that much either. My friend let me have her La Vista share this week so that got me motivated today to try some new things out on my guys. Tonight I had some leftovers from a "beer-can-chicken" so I made some chicken and dumpling soup. I just made it up and threw some things in but it turned out pretty tasty. I used a little too much water and went a little over on the bouillon so it was kinda salty. The dumplings I made with white spelt flour and they were just not quite chewy enough like my mom makes. I'm going to plan to try 123 gluten free all purpose mix next time I think since that's my stand by for bisquits. (Spelt doesn't do so hot with those either.)

Tomorrow we are having a "Chinese" night of Bok Choy and Sweet and Sour Chinese Cabbage Salad. Mike is already asking what the back up plan is! I also plan to make a double batch of blueberry pancakes and a huge salad for lunch so it'll be a big cooking day which I hope will help me out later in the week.

The last change I've made lately came after reading Temple Grandin's "Animals make us Human" I came away from that feeling like I am better of with a cheeseburger from McDonald's than a chicken from the grocery store. So, my new thing is only free-range chicken which of course is more expensive. I can usually get two meals from one chicken and also plan to offset the cost my incorporating more vegetarian meals into our diet. I'm thinking that will be pretty easy. At least until winter!

Pizza

Well, have to come clean and admit that I only cooked a couple of times last week. I spent most of the week at my sister's house helping her remodel her kids room so we had supper with them most nights. I did learn from this experience tho. I was so sore the first few days which is further proof of how out of shape and unused to manual labor I am. It felt good to be moving though. Also since I was so busy, although I was not eating the best of things, I was not eating much.

Tonight it was time to try something new again and we made wheat-free pizza. I purchased a pre-made glutten free crust (Rustic Crusts). I crumbled half a tube of turkey sausage (recall that pork is out), sauteed 1lb of sliced mushrooms with a handful of spinch I had left over from making quesadillas last night. Caleb had a blast spreading the sause, cheese, meat, and tomatos on his but he didn't want any spinch or mushrooms. I also sprinkled crushed red pepper on mine. This was a totally easy meal and it was fun to do something that Cally could get involved with. I think the pizza tasted amazing. However, as with most gluten-free bread products the crust was just too dry and gritty. Caleb didn't seem to like it and Mike said it was really good but felt the same as me about the crust. It really is too bad because the flavor was great. I think I could get over the texture but I'm not sure my boys can. The next time I make pizza I am going to try a bread machine crust subbing spelt or possibly a gluten free mixture. Luckly I was brought another box of 123 Mix, but I would still like to experiment with making my own mixture to have on hand. It is just going to be a huge upfrount expense but it will make a lot.

So, I don't know that's about it. I'm still frustrated with my mother-in-law feeding him whatever she wants to but I am just going to have to continue to cut back on the amount of time alone she spends with him. A few days ago she gave him fried chicken, prepackaged no less, and then was upset later when he was bouncing of the walls. It is partly my fault as I have not sent some homemade spelt nuggets.

I'm still springing for the pre-made tapioca bread this week, and continuing to think about purchasing a breadmachine with gluten free settings. I am also going to try to get my mom to take a trip to whole foods with me tomorrow... it's just too long of a drive to go bymyself and be bored!

GR review of In Defence of Food

In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
His book really did change the way I think about things. Not in way that made be want to do a whole foods diet, because I already knew that, but in a way that motivated me to do it better. In all, a good read with great points a tiny touch on the radical side for me. A couple of things I learned/accepted as fact:

I need to get over my "fear of fat".

Meat and starches are side dishes.

The idea of shopping around the outside of the store, not down the aisles, so true!

I need to be less concerned about how to replace the wheat in Caleb's diet and just focus on feeding him more plants.

I really think the most important point it the "eat less". I am constantly thinking about how he said if you ask an American how you know when you are done eating they say, "When the food is gone." As opposed to other cultures who actually stop when they are full, again so true. Mike and I started eating on the small plates (what do we even call these they are too huge to be saucers but half the size of a dinner plate.) that came with our set. I guess if you know that you have to (clean your plate!) eat everything there are many ways to play tricks on yourself. We are already noticing that we feel full with less.

I also love his explanation on when "what's for dinner" became such a hard question. I never thought about it and his answer is right on.

I also found his stats on the amount of money spent on groceries vs. other cultures VERY interesting. I totally agree that it's about making food a priority over things like cable, etc. However when it's hard just to pay your mortgage increasing your grocery budget is not really an option. This made an impact on me though and will keep it in mind as our income increases. I wish that he would have spent more time pointing out that sometimes eating whole foods is cheaper because you are making things from scrach, and that eating less is cheaper. These are two ways I can stick to my grocery budget and be healthier.

I couldn't give this book the full 5 stars because it was very dry at times. His talking about the same scientific studies (he used a lot of science to tell us to ignore modern science and listen to our mother) over and over made my eyes glaze over while I was reading and there were a couple of points I didn't agree with...Like not taking supplements. I don't take them myself but I am also not convinced that we can truly get all the nutrients we need from the food we eat in this day and age. If you could grow ALL your own food and live in an area with no pollution this would likely be true. I just know that they times in my life that I was taking a good quality* multivitamin I felt much better.

*quality being the key

View all my reviews.

odds and ends

So when was the last time I updated this? A few days I think. Not much has happened. I made my own meatballs for the first time and they were good but next time I think I will cook them in the skillet method where I can turn them because the turned into meat... I don't know something flat on one side because of the oven. Of course I substituted oats for the breadcrumbs for Caleb but I think everyone should do this anyway. I've always prefers oats in my meatloaf and salmon patties, etc. I discovered that I could buy WF pasta and flours at amazon.com for much less money than buying at the healthfood store or making the trek to Deirburgs, and I'm very excited about that. I am looking for someone to share with though because I can't store (or eat) a whole case (12) of spaghetti. Since I have decided that making WF bread in my bread machine is out of the question I bought a loaf at the health food store until I can purchase a machine with a GF setting. The last time I bought the bread it was all hard and dry. This time it was soft and Caleb has already enjoyed two peanut butter and Jelly sandwiches. Maybe it just seemed soft after all my failures at making GF bread in my machine. At $6 for a TINY loaf I think it's still worth my efforts to try to make my own. Now that I mentioned peanut butter I have to say I was very exicted at Shop n Save this week. I was buying Skippy "Natural" peanut butter at Deirburgs but hated to pay the price for PB and now shop n save is carrying it. Yea, shop n save. I was so happy I bought two. Well they were on sale for $1.50 too. Shop n save also carries Bob's Red Mill WF bread mix too, which is exciting. I am still disappointed at times because half the time they do not have Brown Berry Natural Wheat and half the time they do. I even talked to the manager and told him I was disappointed because I would rather buy from him than make the trip to Wal-mart for it... The next time I went it was back... now it's gone again. GRRRR. Oh, Jenn committed on buying organic canned tomatoes so I want to mention that I bought some at Shop n Save in the Wild Harvest brand. I love that they carry this brand and frequently buy from it. Like buying my produce from Aldi, I worry about what country it's coming from. As a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure it's distributed by the same people who do Aldi food. All in all, I have to praise shop n save for making the effort to offer organic at a very resonable price. I hope sincerely that more people are buying it so that store managers know there is a demand for natural products. Still in a quandry about how to make chili without canned beans but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. Did I seriously start this blog with: Not much has happened?

Well, it's been a bad weekend. Yesterday we had lunch at Subway and so we let Caleb get McDonald's. Then last night we went to his grandma's and she served beef hot dogs. I had ham and beans though. Then it got late so she served up a bunch of those little appetizers that come from the freezer. I don't even want to talk about them because it was really gross. Caleb spent the night there so goodness knows what he ate today. I fixed fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and mixed vegetables. The chicken was the best that I've ever made because I looked up on the Internet how to do it, never learned to fry anything. Not that knowing is good, but we rarely eat fried foods and it's much better than McDonald's. I used spelt flour for the breading and no one knew the difference. Mike wouldn't eat the gravy I made because it was too sticky. I have to try to remember to make my gravy out of corn starch like my mom has been recommending. To round out a weekend of bad eating Mike got us ice cream from Dairy Queen. It seemed kinda gross too actually. I think my tastes are definitely changing. I still need to work on incorporating "mostly plants." Caleb just requested "lemon water." for bed.

Well, tonight is breakfast for supper night. I was going to make the usual but I found myself reading on the Internet about how to make hash browns and found a site that showed how to make omelets too. I Know, I know it's silly. I figured hash browns were just shredded potatoes and fried but I wanted to make sure because I've never made them. Why do people even buy the frozen kind? I guess so they don't have to shred them; but frozen real estate is too valuable at my house so I never did. Plus it gives me something to do with the huge bag of potatoes I got at Aldi. So I'm going to make Turkey sausage for Caleb and regular for us (of unknown parentage), hash browns, and cheese and mushroom omelette's. Reflecting on the last two weeks of not eating out, what I am most impressed by is the amount of food that has not been wasted. I had some mushrooms left over from mushroom soup, a few I used in salad and I had just enough left still to chop up and use for the omelets. I never used to be able to buy them because they would go bad before I could use them all. Now that I am cooking more, I finding uses for everything. Leftovers are getting eaten too, for lunches or leftover nights. Today I did have a huge hankering for McDonald's. After I ate lunch (celery, peanut butter, honey, banana) it totally went away. It's just a body's habit: Hungry? OK, fast good = McDonald's. Speaking of natural peanut butter Caleb does not want to eat the kind that you have to stir. I'm going to have to shell out the money for the no stir kind... He's been so good about eating whatever I put in front of him I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. It really is kinda nasty, peanut butter has to have SOME sweetness to it. Caleb is also eating regular brick cheese now. He and I both love Colby Jack. It's better than the 'cheese food' he was demanding, which we still have some left in the fridge, but anytime he sees me slicing or shredding brick cheese now he's wanting some. I really love the land o'lakes individually wrapped cheese but I can't get over the excessive packaging it involves so I haven't bought anymore.

Last night was chili and I made my old famous recipe and for the first time read the ingredients on a can of beans. Why in the heck is there high fructose corn syrup in beans? I'm going to look for some different ones next time I'm at the store but I am also going *try* to use dried beans next time I make chili. I dump the whole can in with the juices so I'll have to figure out how to sweeten another way. We also finished off Caleb's turkey dogs and had white bread buns, oh the horror. Caleb did without a bun just fine. And unless I can find out how to make my own hot dog buns they are just going to have to be white bread. Considering we only eat hot dogs like 4 times a year I think we'll survive. I'm gonna try serving peanut butter and celery with chili from now on. That'll go over like a fart in church I'm sure.

Well, tonight was Chicken Fettachani Alfredo with Broccoli. (Betty Crocker's Fettachani Alfredo) recipe) I *think* that every one liked it. I had no idea how easy Alfredo was to make! The only problem was the huge mess and huge amount of dirty dishes I had when I was done. I guess I could solve this problem by using left over chicken and leftover broccoli. I think next time I make it I will double the sauce recipe because it was plenty to go with the noodles (wheat free) but it didn't cover that great when I added the broccoli and chicken. I don't know it still tasted good and made it not quite so heavy so maybe not. I served it with a leftover salad which would have been better fresh but oh well. Caleb didn't eat totally awesome but he ate enough for me to know that it wasn't because he didn't like it. When Mike came home and saw the pot on the stove I told him it was chicken-pot-pie (I had been experimenting with wheat-free gravy and made that 3 times within two weeks) He just about had kittens. So he was relieve that it wasn't that. He also said that it tasted better than Alfredo out of the can. With that and the fact that it was so easy, I know I'll never buy another jar. Of course I wouldn't be able to add this to my wheat free fiasco blog without mentioning that I used a rice fettachani that was a mix of white and brown. This was great. I know from previos experiemnts with whole wheat pasta that a mixture is the ticket if I expect the fam to eat it:)