Food Glorious Food!

I originally started this post with the intent of taking pictures of what my kiddos and I eat for lunches each day. Inspired by this flikr group (which I think is totally awesome) along with the vegan lunch box blog. Obviously I failed miserably at completing this task, because I started this blog entry almost 2 months ago. And my presentation leaves much to be desired. Oh well! Maybe it can give someone some ideas so I'll post it anyway.

The beginnings of Black Bean Soup, mmmmm

I Just Might be in Trouble..

So this morning my Eldest and I decided to get breakfast started while Daddy slept. Dangerous thing to do, leaving two chocolate lovers to decide on breakfast. Thank goodness there are chocolate-lovers who have gone before us, writing recipe books to document their findings. Eldest Daughter and I selected a recipe from Veganomicon: Chocolate Chip Brownie Waffles. Mmmmmm.

What???

Who says you can't have chocolate for breakfast? I mean, they're waffles, after all. And isn't that breakfast food?

They were fantastic! So good that I am going to all the trouble to type out the recipe for you to try.


Chocolate Chip Brownie Waffles
Veganomicon - Moskowitz & Romero

Measure these into your sifter:

2 c white flour

2/3 c cocoa

1 T baking powder

1/2 t baking soda

1/2 t cinnamon

1/2 t salt

Mix these in an extra large bowl:

1-3/4 c soymilk (I used almond milk because it's what I had)

1/4 c water

1/2 c soy yogurt (I used mashed firm tofu because it's what I had)

1/3 c oil

2/3 c sugar

1-1/2 t vanilla

Sift in the dry stuff, then blend with a whisk. When it’s almost mixed, blend in:

1 c vegan semisweet chocolate chips, coarsely chopped

1/3 c chopped walnuts

Ladle the batter onto your preheated (well oiled!) waffle iron. We didn't use much syrup but added a few strawberries, bananas, and whipped cream (not vegan, but whatever).

Enjoy!

Is there such a thing?

So about three weeks ago a friend of mine looked at my fridge and said "wow, your fridge looks really healthy." I chuckled. Does it??

This got me thinking. While we don't eat typical SAD (Standard American Diet), we don't adhere to just one of the "natural-y" ways of eating. I've read several books - so many that hubby can't keep up with them all, haha. From vegan, to raw, to macrobiotics, to clean food, to nutritarian, to body ecology... there have been many a diet change in our home in the past three or so years. A common thread in all books/articles/videos that I have viewed is this: eat more (green) veggies, legumes/beans, nuts, fruits, and it 'em raw if you can. Eat less refined or pre-made anything - cookies, crackers, sugary treats. And less dairy and meat. Seriously, they all say this.

Sometimes it seems profound and other times it seems too simple. And why oh why is it so difficult to do?

As for my fridge, is it healthy? Hm...

Glorious Bread!

I've had the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day from the library for, like, 3 months now. They just keep letting me renew it, so I'm keeping it! The authors of the cookbook made a recipe for Family Fun and I tried it out. Fabulous! Seriously. If you make this recipe, you will be singing "Bread glorious bread!" before long, I promise.

The Dough

2 c lukewarm water
1 1/2 T granulated yeast
1 1/2 T sea salt
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 c honey
1/3 c canola oil
6 c unbleached all purpose flour
1 c whole wheat flour

In a large bowl or lidded container, stir together the water, yeast, salt, eggs, honey, and oil or melted butter, then mix in the flours. If needed, the last bit of flour can be incorporated with wet hands.

Loosely cover the dough and let it rise at room temperature until it collapses on top, about 2 hours.

Use the dough immediately or refrigerate it in a lidded (not airtight) container and use it over the next five days. It can also be frozen in airtight containers or freezer bags for up to one month (we recommend freezing the dough in 1-pound portions for ease of use). Frozen dough can be shaped, rested, and baked after it has defrosted overnight in the refrigerator. To cut a recipe's worth of dough from the bulk batch, dust the surface of the dough with flour, then use kitchen shears or a knife to snip off what you need.

The Bread

Lightly grease an 8-1/2- by 4-1/2-inch nonstick loaf pan. To help the dough hold its shape while it rises, cloak it: dust it with flour, then quickly shape it into a ball by stretching the surface and tucking it under the bottom, then rotating it a quarter-turn as you work.

Stretch the ball into a loaf shape as shown and place it in the pan (it should be about three-quarters full). Let the dough rest for 90 minutes covered loosely with plastic wrap, 60 minutes if you're using fresh, unrefrigerated dough.

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Brush the top of the loaf with the egg wash, then use a sharp, serrated bread knife to make three cuts across the top. Place the loaf on the oven's center rack and bake it until it's brown and firm, about 45 minutes. Remove the loaf from the pan and let it cool completely on a rack before slicing.


YUUUUUUUMMMMM!

Cookie cake.... sorta.

I have posted about this cookie recipe before and I want you to know that it makes a dang good cookie cake! A little while ago I really wanted a piece of cookie cake. Having no reason to purchase one from somewhere, and being averse to all the junk that goes into mass baking these days, I used my favorite cookie recipe and it worked! I originally intended to make some icing and put it on top, but we ended up eating it before I got around to it.

Cornbread yum yum

How many of you out there love Jiffy? I mean, who doesn't, right? Well now you can say, "I used to love Jiffy, but Anna showed me a better recipe and now my life has changed forever." Really, go ahead and just say it because I'm about to change your cornbread-making forever. Ok, ok, that's a bit lofty... but here's an awesome cornbread recipe that you seriously won't be able to stop eating. I mean, look at that pan. That's after our family of 2 adults and 2 small girls have eaten dinner. We LOVE this stuff. Here goes:

Golden Sweet Cornbread
(originally from allrecipes.com)

1c all purpose flour (I've used a combo of whole wheat or white wheat that worked well)
1c yellow cornmeal (I've used blue before and if worked fine)
2/3c sugar
1 1/2t salt
3 1/2 t baking powder
1 egg
1c soy milk
1/2c veg oil
1/2t vanilla

Preheat oven to 400 and grease your pan (either a 8x8 or something equivalent). Combine flour, cornmeal, sugar, salt, and baking powder. Stir in egg, milk, and veg oil until well combined and pour the batter in the pan. Bake 20 minutes or until the center is done.

Really??

Hubs got this in the mail yesterday and we were both really surprised. Unsure of what to do with it (pass it on and let someone else actually wear it? or put it in the garbage?) we just tossed it. Awful, I know. We were both horrified that the beef industry is now going after the medical industry with gusto. I mean, really? They must be suffering a bit with everyone touting the benefits of abstaining from meat. Makes me laugh, really. Now that I think about it, I should probably post something about what we eat and why. That will come one of these days!

Food & Grocery Thoughts

Ok, so let me let you in on a little secret: I buy too much food. Betcha didn't expect that, hah. I can't help it! I'm easily sucked in by fabulous clean foods, seasonal produce, anything unprocessed, interesting meat-free items, all grains, fun pastas, interesting flours, weird beans (fava, anyone?) and most everything that has no GMO's. I love love LOVE good food, or at least good for you food anyway. My kitchen cabinets and fridge are very very full of it.

I have read and considered just about every type of eating out there. Vegetarian, Vegan, Raw, Macrobiotics, Dr Fuhrman... I will most definitely be blogging about our diet changes over the past few years, but not right now. I seem to be chasing a rabbit. Back to the point!

One would argue (not that I would, ahem, know or anything...) that we have enough food for our family of 4 to eat off of for two or three weeks very comfortably. If you count the freezer, well, then we have enough food for about a month, easily. So as you can see, I need to work on this. Food hoarding, hah.

Here are some things I am vowing to work on:
- Trying to eat up what we have before buying a bunch of stuff, grains and all. Freezer too! That's going to be hard because I like fresh produce, but it's one of my new missions... no one ever said going through our house would be quick work.
- Formulate a plan! A menu is a novel idea. But better than a menu is to understand the way our family eats. We don't do well with a menu because it does not lend well to our food impulses ("I feel like eating breakfast tonight! But we didn't put it on the menu. Dang." this scenario does NOT work for us). Which is why we end up with so much food. I need to find a way to work on this.
- Actually sticking with a plan when I go into the grocery store and not impulse buying
- Entertaining the idea of getting rid of our deep freezer. Shock of the century! I have had a love affair with this deep-freeze for quite a while now and I am totally amazed that I am thinking of getting rid of it. But we don't use it like we used to! When we first got it, it held a lot of meats and convenience foods. Both of which we don't eat any more. Hm...

Here are a few embarrassingly incriminating photos:

My baking corner cabinet is full of at least 4 bags of flour - which does not count the small containers of flour in the top pink baskets. Coming from a family of bakers, I have always thought it unfit to have a kitchen without the necessary ingredients for a cake, brownies, or cookies of all sorts (obviously). As our diets have changed, we've still made room for goodies! But perhaps I have too much flour?

This is just oil and vinegar and about 3 rows deep

This cabinet houses our grains, pastas, beans, peanut butter, nuts/seeds, dried fruits, and sea veggies. It used to actually have a lot more food in it, but I've actually been working on getting rid of the stockpile of food in here for a bit.

This one is deeper than it looks and holds at least 5 rows of canned veggies. We have tons of tomatoes. And yes, we do drink, but so rarely that the Jack has been there with about 3 oz in it for the past 2 1/2 years.