Real Food-Day 6

Well here we are, half way through the 10 day challenge.  In the beginning I was feeling discouraged but we are learning and discovering a lot.  I think I mentioned before but it is crazy how many foods have added stuff in it.  Saturday I took some time (by myself) and went to Fareway to compare products and prices.  I went armed with my HyVee receipt and was pleasantly surprised to find that Fareway had most of the products I purchased at HyVee and were either the same price or even cheaper!  I prefer shopping at Fareway so this made me very happy!  Of course, there wasn't as much organic produce to choose from but I am excited because we start receiving our CSA shares this week!

Also by no means are we starving ourselves or really, limiting ourselves on the amount of food we eat.  Friday we grilled out with some friends who were gracious enough to take into consideration our little challenge.  We enjoyed grilled chicken, roasted onions and potatoes, zucchini and cheese, fruit and a salad.  I was stuffed!  For salad we are making our own dressing which is SUPER easy.  For Christmas John gave me this bottle.  I just love it because it has the recipes right on the bottle with lines to say how much to fill so there is not measuring to be done.  On Saturday we grilled again, this time with our homegrown steak and veggie kabobs.  

On Sunday I spent some time in the kitchen trying to find a bread recipe that we enjoy.  Our bread machine makes the most dense, dry wheat bread ever.  It is delicious right out of the machine when it is warm and slathered in butter but then it goes downhill fast.  So I used our new food processor and made the recipe that came in the book.  It turned out much better than the bread machine but not the soft doughy bread from the store that we are used to eating.  We also made some cheddar crackers.  This was my third attempt and I screwed it up again but they still ended up tasting pretty good.  They were Elsie approved.  I used the food processor this time but had in the dough blade and it just wasn't mixing up quite right so I thought maybe it needed water.  Then I figured out that I just needed to use the metal blade so in the end they were a little wet to handle but still turned out okay.  If I hadn't added the little bit of water

Two of my favorite recipes so far:
Tzatziki Sauce - I made this last night and it is sooooo good!  I used it to dip my carrots/veggies in for lunch and last night I tried it with Triscuits (which are approved-only three ingredients:  Whole Wheat, Oil, and Salt).  It would be really good on a whole wheat pita with chicken or in a wrap.
Easy Cheesy Crakcers - I rolled them out and used a little circle to cut them out into little bite size circles.

All in all I would say things are going pretty good.  I am not missing all the added sugar at all.  I do miss some savory/salty items like tortilla chips to go with salsa.  I miss some convenience items like tortillas and lunch meat.  Actually it is John who is really missing the lunch meat.  And I miss being able to just go out to eat and order whatever we want.  I feel like I am spending so much time in the kitchen prepping, preparing and then cleaning up from meals and snacks.  But I feel good about what I am eating.  I do know that I couldn't keep this up 100% no matter how much I wanted to...it just takes so much time-which I don't have a lot of with a two year old running around :).

10 Days of Real Food

Disclaimer:  This post ended up being pretty text heavy.  

Today our little family is starting a 10-day Real Food "Challenge"  I have been following this blog 100 Days of Real Food for over a year now and have been slowly incorporating a few of her recipes into our meal plans.  But Back in November in my 31 goals post I listed doing this challenge as one of the goals I wanted to accomplish this year. I know it is only 10 days but it is a start.  Hopefully with only 10 days we will be successful and feel good so we will keep on going.    Here are the basic rules of this challenge. 

So I know some people believe that we shouldn't be eating grains or dairy but John and I feel like this is something we wish to keep in our diet-especially if it is in a "whole" form.  I won't go into details about the philosophy of this particular lifestyle but we chose this because it lines up most closely with our beliefs on food.  The bottom line-just cut out all the processed stuff.  :)  There are posts upon posts on her website that explains everything so I know I couldn't do it in one short post.  The next two weeks  we will just follow two of her four meal plans to make it easy and then hopefully branch out from there.  

I would love to say this is going to be easy-John and I do try to avoid processed foods (especially artificial sweeteners) but lets just say going to the grocery store yesterday wasn't easy.  I was frustrated, overwhelmed, and a bit discouraged.  It took an hour and half to buy just one weeks list of groceries.  I headed out to HyVee because I know they have a section in the store called "health market" and on Wednesdays everything in that section in 10% off.  I do know that we will not go 100% organic-of course I would love to but I know our pocketbooks just won't allow us to at this point.  So when the list called for 100% organic whole grain past I just went for 100% whole grain for over $1 less a box.  I am selective with produce but not everything is organic.  We start our CSA next week and they farm with organic practices so that will help a bunch.  We will buy organic milk (we hope to start getting it from a local dairy) but even though their website listed that they sold their milk at the particular HyVee I was shopping at, there was none to be found.  

Shopping yesterday REALLY opened my eyes to how much junk is really in our food-even the stuff in the "Health Market" listed as organic.  Is organic sugar really better for you than regular old sugar.  Our challenge eliminates all refined sugars (white, brown, corn syrup, etc) but allows you to use natural sweeteners like honey and maple syrup  in moderation.  So this morning I just swapped out my refined brown sugar on my oatmeal and drizzled a little honey instead (and sprinkled some cinnamon too-it was yummy).  Also, after the 10 day pledge (which is pretty strict) things can be more lax in that you can used 100% fruit juice to sweeten things up or to add a splash of flavor to your water.  And the blog author does use sugar on a rare occasion for a special treat.  

So one of my biggest frustrations was when I was trying to find corn tortillas.  Her list called for frozen corn tortillas that she found at Earth Fare (similar to Whole Foods).  Well I couldn't find frozen corn tortillas anywhere in either the regular section or the health section and the stuff on the shelf-well-lets just say I stopped reading the label after ingredient #2.  The rules that anything out of a bag or box with more than 5 ingredients is out of the questions so these tortillas with at least 20 weren't going to work so I left without any corn tortillas which really isn't a big deal but just shows how difficult some things can be.  So I looked up a recipe to make my own.  Guess how many ingredients are in it?  Three if you count water!  It is sad that it is so hard to buy real, unprocessed food!  

Knowing that this was coming I tried to make some homemade cheddar crackers to replace the goldfish that Elsie eats.  This was a little bit of a disaster in that they tasted kind of crappy.  But I didn't follow the instructions.  I didn't use a food processor (I didn't have one) and I knew the dough wasn't mixed well enough, I used pre-shredded cheese because that was all I had on hand (I imagine freshly shredded cheese is more moist because it doesn't have that anti-caking crap on it) and I used mild instead of sharp which sharp definitely has more cheddar taste to it.  My second attempt was better than my first and I used a little circle to cut out shapes.  Elsie ate a few of them but now like she does the goldfish.  So I ordered a food processor which should arrive tomorrow (it seems to eat "real food" I will be using this a lot) and I purchased some sharp cheddar cheese in block form.  I hope they turn out :)  

Oh also, I am still trying to find locally raised chickens that are available so for now, I am making a whole chicken this weekend but it won't be local.  The local co-op will start carrying local chicken at the end of May but I hope for find something sooner than that but it is proving to be a challenge.    Our beef is raised by us so that is pretty local and we buy our pork from someone local as well.  

Here are some of my expectations/hopes:  

• Elsie will not be able to this 100%.  She eats three meals a week at daycare and I don't expect everything to be 100% real food.  
• John and I will try our absolute best to do this 100% for the ten days but I already know that when it is over we will do things like eat homemade jelly/jam despite the fact it has white sugar in it.  At least it is homemade :)
• I hope to have more energy without all the added sugars dragging me down.  I did weigh myself this morning just to see if there is a difference at the end of 10 days.  No expectations in regards to that though.  
• That eventually, those bland 100% whole wheat Shredded Wheat cereal will start to taste normal and not bland.  (Seriously, whole wheat is the only ingredient.  I was excited about that.  haha 

This morning John served Elsie fruit and a piece of homemade whole wheat toast.  After breakfast I noticed that she didn't eat her toast with one-ingredient peanut butter.  I asked her why she didn't eat her toast...she said "I don't like it!"  haha I think we need to tweak our bread recipe or skip the bread machine and bake it in the over.  

Oh one more note. . . I highly recommend this book (although I haven't finished reading it yet :)  I think I like it so much because it is a lot of what I already believe.  

Well wish u luck and if anyone else is up for the challenge let me know-we can share tips and tricks!  

31 Years, 31 Goals

So last year I did the 30 Goals for 30 Years.  Overall I think this went well.  I definitely did not accomplish everything but it kept me thinking about my priorities and my goals.  I had a lot of fun doing it.  I am working on an update of which goals were officially accomplished and the details.  So I decided to give it a go this year too.

*signifies a goal that I set last year but did not accomplish so it goes on this years list.

1.  Run 365 miles this year-one mile per day
2.  Family Fun Day Once a  Month
3.  Monthly Date Night-I found this to be so important last year that I want to focus on this again this year too.
4.  *Take camper out 5 times-A big fail on this last year so lets try it again.
5.  *Go to a Twins Game
6.  Read 2 books a month/total of 24 books
7.  Plant a mini garden with at least 5 different types of vegetables
8.  Lose Another 10 pounds-5 of those by Jan 1st.  (Hopefully by the time I turn 32 we will be expecting a new little one so I don't want to focus on the scale this year).
9.  *Spend a Weekend in the Amana Colonies with John
10.  Run a 10k (maybe a half marathon??)
11.  Explore our county parks and trails.  Visit one new one a month.
12.  Complete Photo Books:  Family 2012, Family 2013, Elsie's 2nd Year, Pregnancy Book/Journal, Family 2011.
13.  *Update birthdays of friends and family.
14.  * Send out 12 "Just Because" notes to family or friends.
15.  *Make 5:30 my standard wake up time
16.  *Complete Outlander Series by Diana Gabaldon.
17.  *Learn how to use Photoshop
18.  *Attend Church at least once a month-or 12 times throughout the year-not including holidays.
19.  Visit a friend/family member that I haven't seen in at least six months.  I would like to do this twice (two different people :).
20.  Join a bible study group-even if it is online.
21.  Finish transferring blog posts from previous blog to this one.
22.  Do a "Whole 30" or the "10 days of Real Food" or some variation of the sort.  I have done well ridding our house of artificial sweeteners but would love to get rid of LOTS of other junk in our food.
23.  Family Vacation to Duluth
24.  *Set a monthly budget and stick to it.
25.  Upload pictures to blog/shutterfly on a monthly basis
26.  Although I don't drink a lot of soda I would like to eliminate it out of my diet completely.  Maybe drink it for a very special occasion once a month or so but definitely not on a weekly basis like I do now.  
27.  Now that Elsie is getting bigger I would like to do more craft projects with her.  Let's shoot for one a week.
28.  Although I am not super crafty and most of my projects don't turn out exceptionally well I enjoy doing them.  I would like to set a goal for one each month.
29.  Take Ballroom dancing lessons (With John)
30.  Paint and decorate our bedroom.  We have been in our house (for the second time) since March 2011-so almost three years and we have NOTHING on our walls or any decorations...its about time.
31.  Begin remodeling the basement and turning it into and official Family/Play room.  I can't wait!!