A Pictures Worth A Thousand Words

If a picture's worth a thousand words, here's 3,000 to describe Mama's birthday feast. The kids made the menu, and of course, I happily obliged- it was my birthday after all!

We did manage to do much better this week inspite of moving (and birthday partying)- staying on track and eating well!

New Food, New Budget

I'm finding its incredibly easy to spend TONS of money on organic food and products- just ask my credit card company! I'm resolved however to keeping our grocery budget the same since a huge part of my inspirations for the changes we are making is the resourcefullness and self-reliance of the African people we met on our recent vacation. I normally shop with $110 cash each week for our family of 6 not including the cost of diapers & formula/baby food. I added an extra $10 to the month and came up with this new monthly spending break up since I need to pay for certain things online, and can't use cash only anymore.

*PER MONTH TOTAL GROCERY SPENDING $450.00*

*Bountiful Baskets $150 (http://www.bountifulbaskets.com/ produce delivered twice each month, we will order 2 organic baskets and 2 organic bread packs each time- monthly total 4 baskets and 20 loaves of bread- sounds like alot, but the loaves are small and go fast in school lunch sandwiches).

*Internet Grocery Shopping $100 (http://www.vitacost.com/ kitchen staples and some toiletry items).

*Local Groceries $200 ($50 per week- dairy, additional produce, some meats, eggs, etc).

Like I said, resourcefullness is the goal, but I'll keep you all updated as to whether or not I'm sticking to the breakdown!

Not Completely Off The Wagon, But Definately Dragging in the Dust!

Wow, thanks to working on our new house and preparing for a move, we've all but fallen off the organic real food wagon this week! We've made numerous trips to McDonalds and Mr D's deli nacho bar, and with no time to shop this week we are out of healthy staples. Getting back on track midweek by baking up some healthy rhubarb bread sounded like a great idea, until halfway through I realized we were out of natural sweetener of any kind and whole wheat flour, so, I finished the recipe with refined sugar and bleached flour (gasp!).

However, I did make a wonderful quick dish tonight, the last of the brown rice in the cupboard, cubed butternut squash, backyard fresh scrambled eggs for protien, and some Braggs Liquid Aminos (soy sauce alternative), kind of a fried rice type meal.

Another suprising experiment I'm calling Pot Luck Popsicles, I started with yogurt, pureed plums and nectarines, vegetable broth (like I said, it was an experiment), then realized I had nothing to sweeten my very yucky liquid with, added acai berry juice that I can't stand the taste of and need to use up (this only added to the nasty brew), and in a last ditch attempt to save the project, added some of last weeks chokecherry syrup- amazingly, they are actually pretty good, although, I think I'll probably not try it again soon!

I'm optimistic about starting fresh this weekend with a fresh load of Bountiful Baskets produce, and shipment of pantry staples from Vitacost that will hopefully last the month. I started a new book called "Potatos Not Prozac" about sugar sensitivity, I'll let you know how it turns out, and incredibly, I did manage to loose one more pound this week despite all the junk food I ingested.

As Organic As It Gets

This week we decided to spend Sunday afternoon on a picnic in the nearby mountians, we picked 2 gallons of wild chokecherries that I made jam out of- grown with nothing but rain and good clean dirt, thats as organic as it gets! I cooked down the 2 gallons of fruit to 3 quarts of juice, boiled with 2 lbs of raw sugar, and 2 boxes of pectin (it didnt set with 2 boxes, so I'll have to unseal the jars and add another, we've used some as pancake syrupthough, and its DELICIOUS!). Our new house has a crabapple tree thats covered, so hopefully soon I can experiment with that as well, I'm hoping to make it back up to the mountians and pick more chokecherries before the cold weather sets in.

This was a yummy experiment, marscapone cheese, whole grain organic bread, cucumbers, and salt and pepper, John and Heidi loved them, but the boys neither one ate them in their lunchboxes.

William asked me if I could make a cinnamon smoothie, it sounded disgusting, but I gave it a go: heres what I threw in the blender, plain yogurt, milk, ice, bananas, and cinnamon sugar- It was super tasty! He hates bananas, but he never even guessed they were mixed in!

Weekly Success

Its been a super successful week! John and I managed to make good food choices during the camping weekend, although the kids ate enough junk food for all of us (that's what grandparents are for right?!). I packed lots of veggies, grilled zuchinni, squash, and mushrooms, made fruit kabobs, and made our own sweet treats to be sure of what we were eating. This Gelato recipe was great, we used 2 pkgs of organic raspberries instead of strawberries, and I'm hoping to try it with the limes that came in our bountiful basket order with regular heavy cream, the whipping cream made it very light and fluffy, and since its thick, it finishes in the ice cream maker really fast!

Gelato:
1 pint heavy whipping cream
2 pkgs strawberries
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup water
Beat whipping cream until the texture of butter milk, blend other ingredients and add to cream, freeze in an ice cream maker- makes 2 quarts. I think the sugar could be cut down quite a bit if using very sweet fruit.

My vitacost order was full of tasty things, so much so that I've already placed another order, and I did try the Kale chips again with fresher Kale, they were delicious, but none of the men in the family agree- my daughter said "It tastes like rotten broccoli, it tastes good!".

Kale Chips:
remove stems and chop
toss with olive oil and sea salt,
bake at 350 until crispy.

I'm still on the lookout for fresh organic milk and cheese, and sadly the mushroom didn't come to Lander this week:-( We're making quesadillas tonight with olives, zucchini and tomato slices, and fresh mozzarella cheese. My weight loss has continued without effort- 18 pounds total, and the food drama with my son has quieted down quite a bit. He even opted out of one of his days for school cafeteria food this week, and told his little brother "You dont want to eat breakfast at school, it isnt very healthy" :-)

I'm still amazed that I'm continuing to lose weight while eating whole fat dairy, and other foods that most diets black list, hopefully next week will find me a few pounds lighter!

Success and Failure

Another week has passed, and I'm happy to report that I've lost another 3lbs just by making healthy changes (grand total now 15)!!!! I've been experimenting and researching this week, these are a few of my successes and failures:

My oldest child has had an extremely negative food attitude lately, everything I make is "gross and organic". We started voting on new recipes and experiments RED(dont make this again for a long time!), YELLOW(wait a while to make this again), GREEN(make this again soon). The voting has encouraged him to eat so he can vote, and a UPS delivery of organic groceries got him excited about tasting some new things.

I found a great facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1485047910#!/weelicious ,with daily photos of healthy lunchbox ideas, the kids loved the egg and waffle sandwiches, and all but the oldest liked the mini bagel pizzas. I talked to my boy's schools and found out that there is a microwave availible for the kids (hooray!).

We also made fruit and yogurt popsicles that tasted like smoothies on a stick, (huge hit) and made over a no bake cookie recipe with organic ingredients cutting the sugar by 3/4 and they were great! I made a lasagna with whole grain pasta, carmelized onion and mushrooms, shredded zuchinni in place of cheese, and a jar of organic marinara sauce, we licked the pan clean. Baked kale chips were absolutely disgusting, but I think I didnt make them soon enough, because all my friends that made them a week earlier said they were amazing, perhaps I'll try again with fresher greens. I also found that I dont like using honey in chocolate recipes, it tastes a little different, so next time I'll use raw sugar.

A nearly 2 hour phone call catching up with another super healthy mom friend gave me lots of ideas to try and products to check out, several of which I found at www.vitacost.com, a $50 order earns free shipping, and it arrived in just 2 days!

The NOLS store (The Gulch), suprisingly had very little organic selection, but I found some great organice stone ground whole wheat, and some organic pastas as well that I can buy in bulk. No luck locating fresh milk (possibly a lead on Goats milk, I've never tasted, so that might be a new adventure for me!), but I did find a Riverton source for honey, and its time again for another Bountiful Baskets produce delivery on Saturday!

My oldest son just walked in the house with a little red plum, which means we will be making jam soon, something I look forward to every fall. We are off this weekend to camp with family, and I'm sure we will be surrounded by junk food, but we will do the best we can to make good choices, speaking of which, I'm so proud of my hubby!

Hosting a client meeting for a large group yesterday morning he decided to take treats, instead of donuts, he brought muffins and bananas "in case some people were trying to eat healthy". His Dad however told him that organic means "food tht doesnt have the cow manure wiped off yet", we will see if I can change his tune this weekend with organic rasperry gelato and pecan pie (you know what they say, the way to a mans heart is through his stomach!).

Well, hopefully this week will bring more good food success to share, see you again soon!

Hunting and Gathering

I'm finding that Wyoming is kind of a no mans land when it comes to locating fresh organic food, but my hunt for tasty things has gone well the past couple of weeks.

A neighboring town organized a Bountiful Baskets drop point where we can get organic bread and produce every other week, friends gardens are finally over producing (especially zuchinni, my friend calls it "drop a zuchinni on your neighbors doorstep season") and they happilly share, I'm finally figuring out which organic brands at the grocery store are good bargains, and a local mushroom farm is delivering to our town once a week.

Our "Chicken Little" is laying one egg every other day, but our other hen "Brian" (obviosly the kids named her) should start laying soon. Still not much for our family of 6, but I've found a couple of local people that sell fresh eggs from home.

We've eaten veggie dogs and soy bean mock chicken meat and decided we're not THAT "Organic"! I'm looking forward to the next few months when John will fill our freezer with elk and antelope.

My biggest hurdle has been convincing a Wyoming man that switching to Organic is a good idea- however since all of his hunting produces the most organic meat on the planet, he is excited to contribute that way. He's coming around, losing 12 pounds over the last couple of weeks is definately helping his outlook (I've lost 14)! His asthma and allergies have been less severe, maybe its the changes we're making? Time will tell.

I was completely overwhelmed by the cost, and limited resources in our area, but as a creative person, I'm enjoying the challenge. My goals for now: find a local source for honey, avoid "organic junk food" in the lure of convenience, plan more creative school lunch ideas for the kids, check out the Natural Grocer 2 1/2 hours away during our next monthly trip to Denver, and browse the NOLS store this week.

If you dont know what a "NOLSy" is, this is a brief description, hippee clothes and hair, smells like inscence and BO from extended survival trips in the mountians without toilet paper or soap, hobbies include hugging trees and eating granola- hhhhhmmmmm, I think it may be rubbing off on us! (I'm obviously joking, NOLS is a very reputable and renowned outdoor survival type school that has locations all over the globe including one in our town, and I'm really excited about checking out their store!)

Well, I guess thats it for now, I'll be posting about once a week with our progress!

Dinner Experiments

We were able to experiment with dinners quite a bit this week thanks to our Organic Bountiful Baskets order and a roadside mushroom stand filling our fridge early in the week. Sorry, no pictures- my camera is STILL acting up! All of these ingredients are organic unless specified.

*Portabella Mushroom Pizzas -the kids LOVED this and so did John and I. Cut off the portabella stems and save them for another recipe, brush both sides with oil, bake 5minutes at 350, top with marinara sauce (from a jar, I'm not exactly a gourmet chef!),and your favorite shredded cheese, bake 5 minutes more.

*Whole Grain Spaghetti with Olive Oil, Italian Seasoning, and Parmasean (still looking for organic parmasean), in a separate pan, sautee shredden zuchinni with a little butter, then toss and serve- not a bite left in the pan!

*Chopped cucumbers and chickpeas tosssed with olive oil, salt and pepper, and dill

*Homemade whole wheat pizza, mushroom, spinach, and mozzerella.

*Leftover baked potatos and brocolinni made for a tasty skillet hash, I served it with turkey burger patties- again, not a bite left in the pan!

*Spinach salad topped with sauteed portebellas, olive oil,salt and pepper

Lunch Box Ideas

The boys were definately begging for cafeteria junk food this first week of school, so we compromised on 2 days each week for now. They chose pizza and hamburger day, happily Benjamin told me the hamburger was "not so good" (hooray!). I'm struggling with lunch because they cant warm anything at school, and sandwiches get old after a while. These are lunches I packed this week, all ingredients are organic unless specified.

*PB and jelly sandwich, rasins, dried pineapple rings, apple sauce, juice
*Mixed nuts, yogurt, apple sauce, cereal bar, baby carrots/ranch dressing, juice

Hopefully next week will bring more creative lunches!

Breakfasts This Week

Sorry, my camera is acting up, so no pictures, but these are some of the breakfasts we enjoyed last week on our new organic kick!

Whole White Mushrooms (sauteed in olive oil), and scrambled eggs
Whole wheat honey zuchinni muffins
Simple Breakfasts: Organic 7 grain toast, Plain yogurt sweetened with a bit of honey.