Peanut Butter Happy Face

This only takes a few minutes to do, and your kids will love it. I used sprouted grain bread, Trader Joe's Organic Chunky Peanut Butter, and raisins.

You can mix it up and use whatever you want. Why shouldn't lunch be fun?

Honey, Lime, Mint and Basil Salad

The boy had seconds, and then thirds, and then fourths of this salad, which I think tells you all you need to know about how it tastes.

I used green and red leaf lettuce. The two heads I bought at the farmer's market 3 weeks ago are still crisp, yay for buying it fresh cut.

I tore it and added basil, and mint, and a spicy red and green mint variety that I picked up, but you could stick to regular mint if that's all you have.

Here is the dressing.

Equal parts honey, fresh lime juice, and olive oil. Add one or two twists of fresh ground pepper and shake it up before pouring on the salad and tossing together.

This is a variation on the dressing I usually use for bitter greens like cabbage, arugula, and kale.

What Real Food Means to Me

Since the title of this blog is the real food revolution, I obviously have a few opinions on the subject. I was asked to write a post describing what real food means to me by these people here.

Real food can be defined many ways. For some it may mean home grown and cooked from scratch. For others it may be something attached to a nostalgic memory or event that had food involved. Though I do tend to think of real food in those terms I think its gets a bit more basic for me in the end. Real food to me is mostly about ingredients, while to a lesser extent about process.

In my opinion brownies should only ever have chocolate, sugar, butter flour and baking powder in them, unless you want to throw in caramel or fudge chunks, chili peppers, or something else that adds flavor and interest to the basic recipe. We live in a culture were boxes of mass produced snack foods call to us from grocery store shelves and announce in big bold print with exclamation points "Made with REAL chocolate!" Only it's also got "Canola Oil, Palm Oil, Nonfat Milk, Soybean Oil, Corn Syrup, Fructose, Whey, Salt, Modified Cornstarch, Gellan Gum, Sodium Citrate, Soy Lecithin, Natural And Artificial Flavors, Guar Gum, Xanthan Gum, Propylene Glycol Monoesters, Mono- And Diglycerides, Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, and Potassium Sorbate (Preservative)." I don't even know what some of those things are.

It shocks me that people ever buy this stuff, it just doesn't taste the way brownies should taste. It tastes sickeningly sweet without any of the fine counterpoint that real butter and chocolate bring to each other and the lovely slightly crisp slightly chewy texture of a real brownie.

Real food is made from real ingredients, not manufactured additives. Real food uses fresh, delicious, simple ingredients and combines those to make something wonderful. Some of the best meals I have ever enjoyed are from the combination of 5 basic ingredients or less, but it is the freshness, the quality, and the treatment of those ingredients that creates a wonderful gastronomical experience. Simplicity in ingredients can be combined with simplicity of preparation, or elaborate and detailed preparations that create something truly special. Cake can be a flat sheet with delicious icing smoothed on top with a butter knife. It may not look like much, but it tastes delicious. That same cake can be arranged in layers and covered with elaborate icing and delicate sugar roses and become the center piece for an event, but what makes it real to me is the ingredients used to make it, not the way it looks.

A few shrimp can be arranged artfully on a skewer atop a carefully made risotto, or the same basic ingredient can be piled high on a plate with corn on the cob and French bread, drenched in buttery sauce. Both are experiences of real food, both memorable in their own way.

Real food is local, and unique, specialties made from the bounty of each region and passed on from generation to generation as an art that makes the act of survival in this place we find ourselves living pleasurable. It has the wisdom of our ancestors in it, and is our heritage.

Real food is made with pride, with an eye to quality and freshness. Real food is what we find the world over when people are in touch with their environment, their food sources, and their kitchens.

I started this blog because I was appalled at how little real food is available where I live. In the grocery stores and fast food chains that abound as I wander the aisles and look for nutritious and delicious things to feed my family, I am constantly disappointed by what I find. This has driven me to write about it, and learn more, to seek out local sources of produce, to start my own garden, and to even try to figure out how to make my own artisan sourdough. It is an exciting and fulfilling journey, and I'm glad that you all have joined me on it.

Thanks.

Stuff I've been doing

I hinted that I was working on something a while back and so I am ready to unveil my brand new project. It is very new and still needs some tweaking, but you can check out my food column for hubpages at http://hubpages.com/profile/carrien. I will be adding a lot of articles there over the next few months and getting a little more specific about some things than I do here, like Shopping for Strawberries and Storing Strawberries and an Easy Strawberry Dessert Recipe.

Here is a pick of my boy eating breakfast.


To find out How to Make Perfect Whole Wheat Blueberry Pancakes click on the link.

Trifle Inspired Fruit Salad

I made this pretty dish on the weekend and the whole time I was wishing I had a camera so that I could show it to you. But I didn't. We did however buy one today, so you can expect illustrated posts in the days to come.

Ingredients

cherries-pitted and sliced in half

nectarines-cut into pieces

green grapes-halved

red grapes-halved

Strawberries-sliced or quartered

Mango-cut into pieces

Blueberries

1 quart plain yogurt

cinnamon

In a clear glass trifle dish layer the fruit as follows.

Cherries then a scoop or two of yogurt. Sprinkle cinnamon on the yogurt.

Next the nectarines. Then more yogurt and cinnamon.

Continue in this fashion with an eye to alternating colors until all the fruit and yogurt is in the bowl. I served this for dinner one night with cheese toast. (Cheddar and Jack on sourdough.) This would be great for a brunch with French toast, or a light lunch, or even dessert.

Variations: You can use whatever fruit you want that is in season, except for citrus which will cause the yogurt to curdle.

Light summer meal, sweet salad, bread, and cheese

Several leaves of organic red leaf lettuce and green leaf lettuce-torn into medium sized pieces $0.25

2/3 cup of finely sliced organic purple cabbage. $0.05

1/2 organic cucumber quartered and sliced. $0.25

2 sprigs organic flat leaf parsley from patio herb garden-only the leaves. Free

One large nectarine cut into chunks $0.75

1/2 cup almonds-toasted thanks to Genoa's comment

less than 1/4 cup of Annie's Low-Fat Raspberry Vinaigrette $0.30

Combine in a salad bowl. Total cost $1.60

Serve with slices of crusty artisan sourdough made with whole wheat organic flour $1.00

Add some slices of cheese $0.50

Cold water with a twist of lime $0.10

And some grapes for dessert. $0.40

Cost for entire meal $3.60

That's what we had for dinner tonight after walking all the way to and from the farmer's market yesterday.

Foraging, Seed Collecting, Bulk buying and Dollar Store Bargains

Here are a few inexpensive and somewhat unconventional methods of getting real food on the table.

The first is foraging. That is going for walks and picking up for free what nature provides. The most obvious is wild berry picking, almost every green area in north has some form of
native edible species. Rose hips, saskatoons, black berries, fiddle heads, mushrooms (Be careful), dandelion greens (Still considered a delicacy in many places. The first time I ate them was at a fancy restaurant in a salad.) and everyone who has a lawn has those growing, they are good for you and free as a bonus. Here in CA we have avocado groves and oranges and lemons and limes and pomegranates. It's criminal to take fruit from someones trees, but ground fall is legally fair game. My father in law takes an empty backpack with him when he goes for walks near his home and comes back with avocados, oranges, and loquats that he spotted while walking. He's also made friends with some other neighbors and gets himself lettuce and picking privileges on some of their trees. When I lived in Kelowna I would wander through the orchards and take home fallen apples and those were the best tasting apples I've ever had.
I found this handy list a while back when my children found mushrooms and wanted to know if they were edible. It's a list of dozens of foraging and ethnobotany sites.

Second is the fact that bulk buying is cheaper and that whole grains are healthier. Ordering in bulk on line and getting your own grain grinder to make flour can save you a lot of money in the long run, and you never run out of flour. Or if you live in the grain belt take a short trip to your local farmer or grain elevator and find out if you can purchase it there. Let your fingers do the walking. My in-laws, when Y2K was in the air even got an electric grinder that could be converted to run off of a bicycle in case they ever didn't have electricity. There are also several things that don't require a mill that are cheaper in bulk. Information on storage, use, and sources of bulk foods is readily available. I liked this place the rest of the site was fun to read as well, and this.

I forgot to mention community gardens last time. There are several cities that allow public land, to be used as garden for urban dwellers. You usually have to apply for a plot and wait for one to be assigned. Also, when gardening in colder climates with shorter growing seasons you can start your seeds inside which is cheaper than buying bedding plants. Also learning how to harvest seeds in the fall keeps you from needing to purchase seeds more than once, and you can trade them for other varieties as well. This is also very political as big seed companies are making seeds that only produce one season so that growers need to buy seeds every year and are lobbying governments to make seed harvesting and exchanging illegal in an attempt to make the world dependent on them for food and drive prices up. Harvesting and trading seeds these days amounts to a political protest.

The last thing that I'd like to mention today for those who can't afford to buy fresh produce is to check the clearance bins at your local Whole Foods type store or fruit stand. You will usually find things that are about to turn and haven't yet, they'll be organic and good quality but overripe or soft and need to be used right away and so they'll be deeply discounted. My children love it when I find strawberries on clearance, they almost always become popsicles and smoothies. Bags of tomatoes become homemade tomato sauce and soup, apples turn into pie and sauce, peaches can be eaten write away and then cut and frozen or canned. Mushy peppers are roasted peeled and pureed for adding to soups and sauces. Potatoes become soup, Much can also be done with a food dehydrator, and one that works without heat is better because more nutrients are left alive.

I thought I was done and then I remembered that I have whole wheat egg noodles in my cupboard that I paid $0.40 for at family sized bag Big Lots. Most of the stuff at the dollar store and Big Lots is crap, but not all of it so it's worth stopping by to look for things. Take your label reading skills with you and practice saying no firmly before taking your children along. Explain to them what you are looking for and why. They can turn out to be good at spotting things worth getting and you are teaching them valuable skills as well. And no matter how cheap it is don't buy Kool-Aide unless you need an inexpensive die for yarn or crafts.

For more ideas on life on a budget including meals here are a couple of places I visit often. Meridith at Like Merchant Ships had a cooking contest a while ago with another blogger on how cheaply they could make dinner. They called it the Iron Chef Mom. She also has a frugal blogroll that links to several others doing the same. The New Homemaker has articles covering every home related subject including gardening, cooking, and making ends meet. They have just published a recipe book of crock pot cookery as well for only $7.95.