The Elusive Family Photo

When I went to put together our Christmas card last year I realized we did not have ONE single good photo of the four of us. It is so hard to get a good family photo for several reasons: there is generally no fifth person around to take it, or someone is unhappy, or someone is missing or someone just looks bad!

So a few weeks ago, we all had our green on for St. Patricks day. I actually had make-up on and we actually had a fifth person in the house to take a picture. Perfect, I thought. Let's get a family picture. It'll be so cute with all our green on! So Susan agreed to snap the shot, but Sydney was not interested in having her picture taken and Pierce was just, well, I'm not sure, maybe confused, maybe annoyed, maybe bored?

This is hilarious, because it is our typical bi-annual attempt at a family photo: terrible! Ha!

Choice 1: Sydney is annoyed, Brett is dazed and Pierce is elsewhere.

Choice 2: Sydney is smirking with pride at her defiance and Pierce is concerned (about the Leprechauns?). Maybe we could just crop the kids out!

It'll probably be another collage Christmas card this year!

Spring is here!

Ok, so today did not feel at all like spring. But, aside from that, the last few weeks have been marvelous here. The cherry blossoms and the redbuds around Cary have been magnificent! Our gala apple tree that we planted last spring is flowering and it is beautiful (pictured above)! What a treat! Not only will we get apples in the late summer, but also enjoy beautiful blossoms in the spring.

Our blueberry bushes are also flowering. Can't wait for those to make some fruit!!!

Real Food Follow-Up

So, we've been off the "Real Food" pledge for a few weeks now. I admit that I was a little cranky and feeling a little deprived while on the pledge. However, I think that is the nature of "deprivation" - we always want what we can't have, right? In fact, we want it so much more when we can't have it than when we can have it. So, now that we can eat whatever we want, I find us ironically eating pretty much all real foods and not feeling the least bit deprived! That's just the way things work, I guess. I have not bought a "snack cracker" since the challenge and the kids have survived. Instead they have "hint of salt" triscuits (which are just whole wheat and a little salt) or fruit or nuts or cheese or popcorn. I just stumbled upon a recipe for homemade cheese crackers that I might try this week.

We don't really eat much red meat in our house (maybe once a month or once every two months), mainly because I can't eat grocery store meat now that I know where it comes from and what it eats. (See the movie Food, Inc. if you're clueless about the meat we are being sold at the store!). Also, I don't really know how to cook red meat. And I think Americans eat WAY too much of it, so I just figure I don't need it. Anyway, in spite of all that... we bought 1/8 of a cow last week! And we even bought a freezer for our garage to store it in! We got a cow from my awesome aunt and uncle who raise their own cattle, out in nature, eating grass, the way God intended. We got 100 lbs of meat for only $226! That is a DEAL and it is SO much more nutritious than grocery store meat. If you are interested in getting grass-fed beef, just google it with your city name and you'll likely find a couple of options. So, we are set on red meat for the next year!

Another interesting change I've noticed since our pledge - my insane nightly sweet cravings are GONE. It only took ten painful days to break the habit of needing (and yes, I mean needing) something sweet after dinner. I used to eat one small piece of 70% dark chocolate (which I still think is pretty good for you). Now I don't need anything. That is amazing.

So, try doing the 10 days of real food yourself! You'll hate it, I promise, then when you get off you'll realize you have totally changed the way you eat for the better and feel pretty good about it.

As for sweets, Michael Pollan says that as long as you make it yourself, eat as much as you want! The trouble it takes to make a dessert from scratch will keep you from eating dessert every night. I made meringue cookies last night and they were delicious, and the kids were excited to have a special treat. On the contrary, I went to a parent appreciation day at Sydney's school this week and they had all sorts of highly processed, cheap, preservative-laden, artificial color and flavor-laden cakes, cookies and muffins (think Harris Teeter bakery assortment). I looked at them and thought, no thanks. Not appealing to me. Not because I was counting calories or anything, but frankly I wasn't hungry, and once you eat real high-quality food the cheap stuff just isn't tempting. Not even a little.

Eggspressions by Penne Panache

My very creative mom has been busy creating some fantastic gifts for this Easter. She has a variety of Easter egg gifts including egg bouquets, baskets and ceramics with eggs and single eggs for sale at very reasonable prices. They can be personalized and many already have images or sayings on them. If you are interested, just send her an email and she can tell you more about what she has and what each items costs. Here are a few images of examples, but as a true artist, she makes no two exactly the same!

Penny Cromer: pcromer@ec.rr.com

Jordan Lake

I can't believe we have lived here for three years and this is the first time we've made it over to Jordan Lake. That is a little embarrassing. Anyway, we drove the long 20 minutes to this beautiful public beach today and had a picnic with the kids. It was so much fun and the weather was really picture perfect. We will definitely be back again this spring and summer. It really felt like we were at the beach when we were there today because there was a nice little breeze and the water was washing up on the shore. Actually, it was better than the beach because parking was free, the drive was shorter and we didn't get all salty.

For any locals who are curious, this was Ebeneezer Park on Lake Jordan.

Home of Hope Update

Thanks again to everyone who bought advent calendar drop-ins from me last year. Brett and I purchased a stepping stone to help construct the orphanage at Home of Hope in Secunderabad, India. They needed 100 stones and they got them all. We are #95! Paul Wilkes said that they broke ground on the new building recently. It will be a Green certified building, which makes it even more exciting. All the girls and the sisters were there to take part in the blessing of the site with holy water and to celebrate a new beginning. This is great news!

http://www.homeofhopeindia.org/

Day 10: Bring on the Krispy Kreme! (KIDDING!)

So, we survived the ten days. Yay! And to be completely honest, we really only did 9 days. We had a “real” breakfast and a “real” dinner today, but decided to go out to lunch as a family this afternoon before Brett leaves town. We knew the food wouldn’t qualify, but we just said, oh well!
Anyway, we learned a good bit from doing this. Like I said last time, the main thing we learned was that we already eat mostly real foods. Mostly. And I am comfortable with that qualifier. I just can’t commit to the 100% whole foods lifestyle. I like to be able to relax the rules once in a while (like today, for example). But, we did learn a few new tricks and recipes during our ten days, so that was great!

I think the main point of eating real food is to marry calories with nutrients. Eating a diet full of refined carbohydrates and highly processed foods provides calories (probably more than you need), but those calories are not loaded with the nutrients your body needs. Maybe that is why when I eat refined foods I generally don’t feel really full. My body wants more. Why else would we want to/be able to eat six Krispy Kremes, yet only be able to eat one apple or one bowl of granola? Our bodies just aren’t satisfied.

Last week at Mass our priest talked about living a more mindful existence. His talk was in a moral context, of course, but the same idea should be applied to our relationship with food. If we are more mindful of what we purchase, what we feed ourselves, and the effects those choices have on our health and the health of the environment, the benefits will be abundant. This is the most important choice we have made in our evolving diet as a family: to be more mindful of what we consume and of the multiple consequences of our food choices.

Hopefully whoever is reading this will feel compelled to do the same. :)

So, for our meals the last two days:

Day 9:
Breakfast: various real cereals with organic milk and OJ
Lunch: pasta with low sodium and sugar free tomato sauce (seasoned with some spicy dried Italian spices we keep on hand), fruit. The kids had pesto on their pasta, which they strongly prefer; however, in all honesty it is not a “real” food because the one we had on hand had more than 5 ingredients. Theoretically, pesto should be a real food, so I didn’t bother to check the label until the last minute. We grow our own basil, so maybe this summer we’ll make our own and freeze it!
Dinner: Breakfast for dinner. Whole wheat pancakes with blueberries and real maple syrup (recipe below!). Scrambled farmers market eggs. Although the idea of whole wheat pancakes may not sound that great, these are really yummy and very filling.

Day 10:
We sort of blew it today, but did have a real dinner. Frankly after our white flour lunch (pizza and pasta on Franklin Street!), I was really glad to eat “real” food for dinner.
Dinner: whole wheat tortilla burritos with leftover black beans, rice, cheese, tomatoes, onions, jalepenos, cilantro, sour cream.

Here are some of the changes we will be implementing from things we learned this week:

• We (the adults) will continue to eat the homemade granola for breakfast (it is really delicious and nutrient packed – see Day 4 post for the recipe).
  
• For the kids’ snacks, I’ll make more of an effort to serve the highly processed snacks less frequently than more natural options (like fruit, nuts, popcorn, whole wheat crackers, cheese).
• We’ll make our own popcorn. It tastes great and is cheaper and better for you.
  
• We’ll eat “dessert” (things with refined sugar) less frequently, and substitute fruit or smoothies more often.
  
• We’ll be more selective with our condiments. For example, pasta sauce with less sodium, fewer ingredients and no sugar; homemade salad dressing more often than store bought; homemade pesto rather than store bought when possible.
  
• We’ll be more likely to read labels of new products before buying them.
  
• We’ll be more comfortable substituting whole wheat flour into baking recipes we use, knowing that it tastes great and won’t ruin a recipe.
  
• We’ll buy whole wheat tortilla shells now (they are really delicious), but are not quite committed to whole wheat pasta.
  
• We’ll switch to jams/jellies with no sugar added. They were just as good as the ones with sugar.
  

Things we won’t change:

• We’ll still treat ourselves to a meal out every so often and to a weekly pastry treat at La Farm even though they are not whole foods. I think “junk” in moderation is just fine!
  
• We’ll let our kids use Trader Joes (no HFCS) ketchup with fries, etc.
  
• We’ll let our kids eat some very low-sugar, whole grain, but nonetheless imperfect cereals for breakfast (plain Cheerios, multigrain Cheerios, etc.).

If you are considering reducing the sugar, high fructose corn syrup and refined white flour that sneaks into you and your childrens’ diets, here are a few suggestions (from changes we have already made before starting this challenge that are EASY to make):

• Switch from Jiff/Peter Pan to natural peanut butter with one ingredient: ground (organic) peanuts. Your kids will not complain and it is so much better for you!
  
• Switch from Aunt Jemima/Hungry Jack to real maple syrup that comes from a tree in Vermont. The flavor is SO much richer. Plus, once you read the label on your Aunt Jemima, you’ll see it’s just colored high fructose corn syrup. Nothing maple about it!
  
• Buy breads that are “whole wheat” not just “wheat”. All flour comes from “wheat,” so unless it is “whole,” you are being fooled. I actually started making my own bread in a bread maker. So tasty! And inexpensive. Just a few “real” ingredients. Read the label of your “whole wheat” bread from the grocery store – it probably has 30 or more ingredients!
  
• Migrate your kids snacks from highly process to minimally processed products of nature.
  
• Consider local produce, meat and eggs as a much better alternative to store-bought.
  

Ok, friends. Happy EATING!

PS – I don’t think we lost any weight this week. Sorry to disappoint! (Switching from a more highly processed diet to this one would probably result in weight loss!)

Whole Wheat Pancakes (see link):

* I add a little extra milk to her recipe because I think the batter is too thick otherwise. Also, I think frozen (organic) blueberries are even better than the banana, but use whatever fruit you like.

http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/2010/04/21/recipe-whole-wheat-banana-pancakes-freeze-the-leftovers/

Day 8: Running Low

Ok, at this point we are running low on a number of things: money (actually we are out), enthusiasm for this challenge, and food. We have eaten all the granola, all the grape nuts, all the fruit, almost all the yogurt, and are feeling a little poor when we look in the pantry. While I appreciate the exercise and all that we will learn / have learned from it, I will be very happy to get back to a slightly more nutritious version of our “normal” eating. Brett commented to me yesterday that what he has learned from all this was that we already ate pretty healthy foods, most of them "real." I agree. And the limits of this challenge are getting old around here!

Nonetheless, dinner was really great tonight. It's actually something we eat pretty regularly and it happens to be a real foods qualifying meal. We had grits (that's whole food right??) with butter and parmesean melted in, topped with sauteed farmers market sausage, red and yellow peppers and onions. Yum! (It was really pretty, but I forgot to take a picture of it.) The kids don't really like meat or peppers, so they had the grits with whole wheat toast and a fried farmers market egg and apples. No smoothies tonight. Just right to bed! I think everyone is tired from a long, but great week.

Two more days!

Day 7: Surprises and budget busters

A few surprising places we have found sugar and/or high fructose corn syrup:
Ketchup, fresh-made salsa, stir-fry sauce, plain Cheerios, peanut butter (national brands), salad dressing (it was actually the first ingredient in one of our dressings - yikes!)

As I said before, we use the Dave Ramsey plan of only cash to buy groceries. When it's gone, it's gone. On weeks when I have extra money, I set it aside for those weeks when I need some extra! This week I needed it, and sadly my jar is now empty! I had to run out to the store yesterday for more fruit (that's what happens when you don't have any sugar in the house - you eat LOTS of fruit). Then today I had to pick up cilantro and jalepenos for our dinner tonight. Real food is definitely more expensive... although I do think it is largely worth it.

Here's what we had for dinner tonight:

Black beans (home-made from dried beans: cheaper and much tastier than the canned ones) and rice burritos on whole wheat tortillas with cheese, onions, tomatoes, jalepenos, and cilantro. Salsa was not an option since we found out that it has sugar in it! The kids had the same thing, disassembled, minus the onion and jalepenos. Leftover sweet potato hash browns and oranges as side dishes. Yum, yum! No smoothies tonight because the dinner was very filling!

Day 6: Thoughts on the basics

So, this has gotten much easier for us than on the first few days. (Although I would be lying if I said I didn’t still think fondly of my Lindt chocolate from time to time). Had I not proclaimed to the world (ok, maybe to 10 people or so) on my blog that we were going to take on this challenge, I would have given up on day 2. I can’t believe that, because I consider us to eat already very healthy food, and honestly didn’t think this would be all that hard. Anyway, because I had said publicly that I would do this for 10 days, we continued. I’m glad we did because there is a lot to be learned from an experiment like this, even if we don’t plan to be so strict afterwards.

I’ve been thinking about how changes in our diet and our relationship with food start with the basics. Making changes about the way we purchase and consume certain staples can have significant affects on our health and the health of our environment. Here are a few basics, where the healthier choice is just as easy to fix and eat as the less healthy option (although often at a price premium). There are much simpler ways than going hard-core whole foods to make some changes. Here are a few good places to start.

Meat: First of all, Americans eat WAY too much meat, which of course is linked to heart disease and obesity, and so on. You could write a book about our excessive meat consumption. But that is not the point here. If you substitute supermarket beef with grass-fed local beef, you will be making a choice both beneficial to your health (in the form of higher Omega-3’s and lower Omega-6’s) and to the environment (have you ever seen a feedlot where supermarket beef comes from? It’s disgusting and the waste from the lot pollutes waters in massive amounts). We have decided to substitute all the meat we eat (which isn’t all that much, once a week total) for grass-fed, local meats. We prefer to eat less and eat better for the same amount of money.
Eggs: Same story. Free-roaming hens lay eggs with significantly higher omega-3s and significantly lower cholesterol. Crack a supermarket egg next to a farmer’s market egg and you will easily be able to tell which is which. The farmer’s market egg has a brilliant almost orange yolk that stands on its own and is actually hard to break.
Milk: Organic milk comes from cows NOT injected with growth hormones and antibiotics. I sure don’t want that in my milk!
Bread / Flour: White bread has almost no nutritional value, whereas wheat bread is a great source of fiber. Again, I think the whole grains are more filling. When baking, try substituting half whole wheat flour in your recipes for higher nutritional value - you probably won't even notice a difference in flavor.
Sweeteners: Consider honey and agave as alternatives to sugar. And try to be the one sweetening your food rather than letting Kraft or Nabisco do it for you. You’ll add much less than they would!
Fruit and veggies: Fresh, seasonal and organic is the best combo both nutritionally and environmentally, but that can be hard to do. Frozen fruits and veggies preserve the nutrients well and are just as good as fresh in that regard. Check out your options for a local CSA subscription program to introduce you to new and seasonal options. We really enjoyed ours last year.

OK, here’s what we’ve been eating!

Day 5:
Breakfast: various real cereals, organic milk, OJ
Lunch: various real food combos (some whole grain, a fruit, a protein of sorts, a veggie of sorts)
Dinner: veggie and tofu stir fry over brown rice, edamame, dried seaweed (this is a great snack for kids - Trader Joes sells it now), organic milk and water to drink
Smoothies for dessert (we tried frozen mango and pineapple this time – very good)

Day 6:
Breakfast: various real cereals, toast with jelly (with no sugar added), organic milk, OJ
Lunch: various real food combos
Dinner: leftover whole wheat macaroni and cheese, sweet potato hash browns, carrots, kiwi. (Fewer dishes tonight! Yahoo!!!)
Smoothies again… are we addicted? We did reduce the recipe down to 1 cup of yogurt, 1 banana, 1 cup of frozen fruit, so the servings are small, but still…

Kids snacks so far: popcorn (not from a microwave bag), dried apricots, triscuits, raisins, almonds, cheese. No complaints yet, but I feel like my choices are limited.

Recipe:
Brett's tofu -

To make tofu for your asian dishes that isn't soggy and tofu-y, follow this recipe. It takes a little forethought, but it easy and tasty.

Start with extra firm organic tofu ($1.79 at Trader Joes)
Slice the tofu in half to creat two thinner rectangles
Lay the halves on a cutting board slightly elevated on one end with the other end pointed into the sink. Cover the tofu with foil and lay another cutting board on top. Put all your heavy pantry staples on top of the board to squeeze out the excess water. Let it drain while the kids are naping or something!
Next slice the tofu into small squares (approx 1/2 inch). In a mixing bowl, mix reduced sodium soy sauce, a little seasame oil, honey, and rice vinegar (enough to coat the tofu). Toss the tofu until coated and brown. Bake on a cookie sheet (spray it with non-stick spray first) for approximately 15-20 minutes at 375 degrees, turning every 5 minutes or so. The tofu will be flavorful and slightly crispy and dry. Great in any Asian dish.