First catering job :)

A couple of months ago, a friend of mine from work asked me if I ever catered parties. I thought she was just making conversation. "Well, no, except for my brother's rehearsal dinner last year."

"Would you want to?"

She asked me if I would be interested in handling the food for a bachelorette party she was throwing for another coworker. I put the date in my calendar, said I would for sure at least help if not cook everything myself, and promptly put it out of my mind until Thanksgiving was over.

Suddenly Thanksgiving was over, we were swamped with parent-teacher conferences, dance class, and various pre-holiday social engagements, and it was time for the party! Eek!

My hostess friend has absolutely no interest in or knowledge about food/feeding large groups, so she told me that the bride-to-be likes brie, teriyaki wings, and these special chocolate nut goodie bars from a local grocery store. She'd handle picking up the alcohol and nut goodie bars; the rest was up to me. Twenty guests, five o'clock on a Saturday.

I decided we needed another dessert (after all, some silly people don't like chocolate!), which ended up being a good thing because the store only had one small tray of bars. I made mini strawberry swirl cheesecakes, based off of this recipe from Annie's Eats. I replaced the raspberries with strawberries in the puree and baked the cheesecakes in my mini muffin tin in little foil papers. (The minis baked for about 18 minutes.) I was a little disappointed that the cheesecakes sank slightly in the middle after they cooled, but they were still pretty cute and very delicious. Definitely a recipe to make again.

For our "main dishes," I used this recipe from Tracey for crockpot teriyaki chicken wings. I upped the wings to four pounds, but was still surprised by how few there were. I would double the recipe for a large party next time. I didn't get a report on how these turned out, but the crockpot came back empty.

I also made these turkey-spinach-boursin roll up sandwiches. I first made this recipe for a baby shower, and have made them for several road trips. They are delicious and so easy to eat. Apparently they were a hit and completely disappeared.

Because you never want to run out of food, I whipped up an easy cold pasta salad to fill things out: a pound of pasta, eight ounces of fresh mozzarella, a package of halved grape tomatoes, sliced basil, sliced black olives, and a simple vinaigrette.

For the brie, I made a golden raisin compote from Cooking Light. I didn't have time to try it, but one of the party guests said it was so good, she could've licked it out of the bowl. :) I made six baguette using Peter Reinhart's pain a l'ancienne recipe from Artisan Breads Everyday - always a winner.

Finally (although maybe they should've gone first), I made two dips: my favorite red pepper hummus and a black bean hummus (not an attractive color, by the way!). I served the dips with sliced bell peppers, carrot sticks, and pita chips. And I added some grapes because a meal isn't complete without a little fruit.


Hubby drove me to the hotel and was my faithful assistant, helping me set up. Apparently the party was a smashing success; as for us, we went Christmas shopping for the kiddos.

I'd agreed to do this catering job to help out a friend, because it sounded like fun, but mostly, just to see if I could do it...and I did! :)

Unprocessed with kids: Make-your-own ambrosia

The little guy's class has been having a visitor from our local co-op every couple of weeks. The guest teacher talks to the kids about real foods and healthy choices; she shares a recipe, and the kids get to make and eat a snack made with whole foods. I absolutely love that our messages about food are being re-affirmed in school.

Today, the little guy bounced out of school, gripping this paper in his fingers. He could not wait to tell me: they made ambrosia!

The guest teacher's topic today was long energy sweets and short energy sweets...foods that make you feel good for only a few minutes and foods that give you energy for the day. He compared the short energy sweets to our red foods. :) And then they made ambrosia. He read the recipe to me, and I assured him that we had all of the ingredients in our house. He explained that the pictures at the top were long energy treats: a pear, an apple, a banana, and a pea.

When we came home, the kids immediately washed their hands and got out their kitchen stools. We talked about the fact that we were low on plain yogurt (Mommy uses it in her oatmeal each morning), so we were going to "break the recipe into three," as the little guy put it.

Both kids put 1/2 cup plain yogurt into their bowls. We had a little incident when the little girl tried to add her "dashes" of cinnamon...the cinnamon dashed fairly explosively and I had to scrape a bunch of it out of her bowl. Then they both added a teaspoon of honey and a teaspoon of maple syrup. ("The grown-up has to pour it into the spoon because it's so sticky.")

The kids brought their snack to the table, stirred vigorously, and gobbled up the entire bowlful. This is especially exciting because, along with cereal, flavored yogurts are a favorite that I have found impossible to get out of our house. I was shocked when I first read that flavored yogurts are one of the biggest unprocessed offenders, with lots of added sugar and ingredients that I certainly wouldn't have in my kitchen. I've tried adding homemade fruit jams, vanilla, and honey to plain yogurt, but to no success. Apparently when they make it themselves, it's somehow different...they loved it!

Ending October Unprocessed in style

We fully intend to continue many of the habits formed in the last month: no cereal for the kids, minimal pop for the hubby, no candy for me (I made it through Halloween and the day after with no candy cravings!!). But we did miss going out to eat...and getting take-out from our favorite Chinese restaurant to celebrate November 1 has been our plan for quite a while. :-)

Last night of October Unprocessed

After a loooooong day at work and a quick trip to the grocery store, I came home to make Halloween dinner. We always like to fill our tummies with warm, healthy food before we go out to trick-or-treat.

I pulled some beautiful chicken stock out of the crockpot, grabbed yesterday's crockpot chicken out of the fridge, mixed up some noodle dough, and made chicken noodle soup. Then chopped some apples and made some quick applesauce. Pulled out some broccoli slaw from a few nights ago. Unprocessed. Delicious.

The kiddos made it through about two blocks before wanting to turn around and come home. They happily passed out tiny lollipops, then picked out a few pieces of candy to eat and set the rest out for the Switch Witch. Wonder what she'll bring!

Happy Food Day, 2013

One of my favorite recent meals: turkey chili (made with dried beans), whole wheat skillet cornbread with corn kernels and served with local raw honey, broccoli slaw, green salad, and apple slices from the orchard.

So here's a funny little story for you.

On Wednesday, I had an absolutely horrible day. It started with a 20 minute temper tantrum from the little girl as we were trying to get out of the house (because she lost the race to see who could put on their shoes first). And my day at work made the temper tantrum seem fun.

By the time I got home, I told the hubby, "If ever there was a day for cheating on October Unprocessed, it would be today. I just want to go out to eat and have someone else make dinner and clean up." Hubby readily agreed. "Buuuuut," I continued, "today is national Food Day, and it is THE day to celebrate real food with a homemade meal. So I need to make dinner."

Hubby said, "Seriously, what is more important: your mental health or some made-up holiday that takes place on an arbitrary day?"

"Food Day, of course," I answered, and proceeded to get out all of the ingredients to make our Food Day soup: butternut squash, corn, carrots, kale, quinoa, homemade chicken broth, organic cage-free chicken (original recipe from Cooking Light). I didn't have the energy to make any fancy sides, but we had fresh fruit, crackers and cheese that pass the kitchen test, and organic yogurt. I was surprised by how delicious the soup was; even the picky little ones loved it. Yay me!


At bedtime, the little girl asked me what day it was. "Thursday, October 24," I answered. "No it's not," my hubby broke in; "it's October 23rd."

Whaaaaaaaat?!? But Food Day is October 24th!!! Argh...I banged my head against my daughter's bed until finally she said, "Don't worry, Mom; in my imaginary land, Food Day is October 23rd."


So for the real Food Day, I didn't have any fresh veggies or local foods. But we did enjoy a homemade unprocessed dinner: whole wheat pancakes with frozen fruit, grapes and apples, cage-free organic scrambled eggs, whole wheat biscuits, and sausage gravy. Not quite as impressive, but equally delicious.

And still, a homemade, unprocessed meal, cooked with love and eaten around our family table...and that's what celebrating real food is really all about, isn't it?

Unprocessed October party (and a new project)

The little girl greeted our halfway mark through October with, "I HATE unprocessed month!!"

It's easy to see why when you think about what unprocessed month means to the kiddos. Our dinners are basically unprocessed anyway, so there aren't a lot of changes there, at least not ones they notice. And they don't really notice the lack of unprocessed treats in their lunches (Annie's bunnies or a Simply Fruit fruit stick) because they appeared so rarely.

What unprocessed means to them is: no Oatmeal Squares for snacks (I'm doing pretty well managing the no cereal rule this time!), no going out for pizza or Chinese once a week, no stopping at the local frozen yogurt shop, and no special candy treats when Mommy is around (although the various grandparents have indulged a couple of times, and I didn't say no when they were given tootsie pops at the homecoming parade).

We had a talk about how this month didn't really mean that you couldn't have *any* treats -- it just means that we think a little more about the kinds of foods we choose to put in our bodies -- and really, that's not a bad thing, is it?

For myself, I'm being strict, trying not to "cheat" my own rules at all, but I don't want to micromanage the kids to the point where all they want is processed foods or to where they hate talking about food choices. And I'm not harassing hubby when he chooses to order a pizza when I'm not home or sneak a pop during parent/teacher conferences. Everyone has to make this work for him/herself.

Nevertheless, I decided we needed an unprocessed party today, so I made a cake: I used this recipe from KAF, but subbed in whole wheat pastry flour for the all-purpose. At some point, I'd like to try honey or maple syrup in my cake, but today, I just went with white. It was a party after all. I made a simple vanilla bean ice cream, opting not to use my normal recipe which calls for both cream cheese and corn syrup.

The cake also assisted me with my new baking goal -- at this point, I can comfortably follow a recipe to make just about any bread, cake, pie, cookie, pastry, etc. (Not that I'm an expert or anything, but I don't feel like I have soooo much to learn anymore.) But my cakes and cupcakes never *look* good. So I bought myself a little starter decorating set (I had been using an old one of my dad's with very little success), and have decided to work on decorating. So this cake fit multiple bills.




The little girl declared, "That looks magnificent, Mommy! This is the best unprocessed party ever!"

First week of school lunches

Not super impressive, but it's a start, and hey, we made it through the first week! :-)




Him: mixed berry-kefir smoothie, turkey roll ups, whole wheat blue berry muffin, fresh picked strawberries

Her: whole wheat chocolate chip muffin, turkey roll ups, pistachios, avocado

Leftover: avocado




Her: ww chocolate chip muffin, apple-pb sandwich, strawberries and a raspberry, pistachios

Him: mixed berry-kefir smoothie, apple-pb sandwich, ww blueberry muffin, strawberries

Leftover: her apple-pb sandwich (which she ate as an after-school snack) and a strawberry




Her: turkey roll ups, pistachios, strawberries, leftover chocolate chip pancakes

Him: mixed-berry-kefir smoothie, strawberries, leftover blueberry pancakes, apple-pb sandwich

Leftover: her berries




Her: turkey roll ups, grapes and strawberries, ww chocolate chip muffin (from freezer), almond crackers, pistachios

Him: mixed berry-kefir smoothie, turkey roll ups, ww blueberry muffin (from freezer), strawberries




Her: almond crackers, apple slices, pistachios, homemade uncrustable (from freezer)

Him: ww blueberry muffin (from freezer), homemade uncrustable (from freezer), apple slices, mixed berry-kefir smoothie

Leftover: two of her apple slices

Note: The repeating smoothies and pistachios are requirements for each kid...not lack of creativity from me. ;-) And the little girl is very fruit-resistant, thus the almost daily fruit leftovers. Still, we keep trying! One thing I really like about our lunch system is that the kids return everything to their lunch bags/boxes so I can see what they ate each day. It took the little guy about half the year last year to figure out how to eat in their short lunch period, but now he finishes everything almost every day...especially because they don't have snack time in first grade.

Wordless Wednesday: Farmers Market Fabulous

Farmers market fresh-picked corn, the first local blueberries of the season, grilled fresh zucchini and peppers, and local free-range farm fresh burgers

Nurse Rachel's Ice Cream Celebration Cake

Well, hello, little blog. Long time, no see!

We just returned from nearly a month out West, staying with my in-laws and cooking in my mother-in-law's gorgeous new kitchen. I'd assumed that I would spend much of my time there cooking, baking, and catching up on my blog. Instead, I spent my time cooking, baking, and catching up on my very-neglected old-favorite past time: reading! Ever since I discovered food blogs, I have spent my precious little reading time on the web: reading new recipes, studying new techniques, following my friends' kitchen stories. This trip, I never even pulled out my computer, spending every non-family minute plowing through book after book. It was marvelous.


But it also meant that I never told you about my sister's super amazing celebration ice cream cake that I made a full month ago. My baby sister (I'm sure she won't mind if I tell you...) struggled in school. There was a time when we were worried she wouldn't graduate high school. So we were especially proud when she discovered her passion and decided to go back to school to become a nurse; this June all of her hard work paid off, and she graduated from nursing school with honors.

We hosted a family graduation party for her, and I wanted to make an especially special dessert. I thought of these ice cream sandwiches that I'd made last year, but we were hosting 20 people.... What could be better than an ice cream cake?!

As with the ice cream sandwiches, I started with Dorie's devil's food cake, splitting a full recipe between two half-sheet pans. After baking and cooling, I wrapped the cakes and placed them in the freezer. Then I made a batch of Jeni's vanilla ice cream and, after churning, dolloped it onto one of the layers. I wanted the traditional ice cream cake crunch, so I also made a batch of Dorie's cocoa crumbs. I sprinkled these on the layer of ice cream and pressed them in gently. Then I placed the other cake on top, and returned the whole thing to the freezer.

I debated a lot about the frosting: traditional ice cream cakes seemed to be covered in something almost like buttercream. But many of the recipes I found actually used more ice cream, or ice cream combined with cool whip. I decided to go with a simple sweetened whipped cream.


I am no good at fancy frosting and decorating, so to make the letters, I used some of Jeni's magic shell. I cut out a sheet of parchment paper and put the magic shell in a baggie, cut off the corner, and wrote letters on the parchment until I was happy with them. Then I stuck them in the freezer until they hardened and placed them on the top of the cake.

The cake was such a hit. The kids had a great time picking out which letters they wanted to eat, and everyone gobbled up every last bite. Because the cocoa crumbs made the layers a bit slippery during cutting, I thought I might leave them out next time; one bite convinced me that they were a necessary, crunchy, and delicious component. My only other complaint was that the cake was too thin; I think I would make a double recipe next time, so each cake would be a full layer tall.

Wouldn't you know it, today Deb posted a fantastic-looking ice cream cake recipe on Smitten Kitchen, and I am eager to try some of her additions: adding a layer of chocolate ice cream, as well as hot fudge. The second flavor of ice cream may mean that I could get away with only one recipe of cake (she didn't use cake at all). I'm also curious to try her homemade oreos and compare them to the cocoa crumbs.

Regardless, you can't go wrong with ice cream cake: such a fun-to-make, amazing-to-eat treat!

Slaying the dragon

I'm not sure how it's possible (parents always start birthday posts that way, don't they?), but my baby girl turned five this weekend. My little girl is a warrior princess: she loves everything princessy, pink, and sparkly, but her favorite princesses are Eowyn (Lord of the Rings), Leia (Star Wars), and Merida (Brave). While dressed in fancy princess dresses, she climbs trees, shoots bows and arrows, and runs from Darth Vader.

When I asked her what kind of cake she wanted, she first said princesses (she loves looking at the Disney princess cakes at the big grocery stores). Then she wanted a castle. And finally, she settled on a red dragon. (Smaug - from the Hobbit - is her favorite and has been her Halloween costume for the past two years.)

There are many pictures of dragon cakes out there, and many seem to follow the same basic pattern. I followed this set of instructions. The birthday girl requested "vanilla cake," which I took to mean yellow. I asked on Twitter for a good, sturdy, yummy yellow cake, and my friend Rebecca recommended Rosie's golden cake (recipe can be found here). I used my 9" rounds, and although the recipe said to bake them for 35 minutes, by 32 minutes, they were already very done. Didn't matter; the cake was moist and delicious. And (most importantly for me!) very sturdy.

I used the same ATK 7-minute frosting that I used for the little guy. It makes a ton and the kids love the marshmallowy flavor. Despite a lot of red gel food coloring, the frosting never got darker than a deep pink. It's okay; the little girl loves pink, and she easily adjusted her expectations.

The girl and her daddy were in charge of decorating design. She picked the colors for all of the pieces, and she helped Daddy design the flames and wings. Given our recent unprocessed journey, I was quite distressed to spend so much time in the snack aisle looking for decorations: luckily, I didn't have to buy too much. I found a multi-colored fruit slice pack, which I used for the claws, eyes, and eye brows. The chocolate-covered graham cookies were perfect for the spikes. And I found a multi-pack of fruit roll-ups and fruit-by-the-foot, which became the wings and flames. We already had chocolate chips (eye balls) and kisses (nostrils).

The cake was a huge hit; it was definitely my biggest cake-decorating success. The guests all loved the dragon, and the kids had fun requesting body parts, starting with the birthday girl, who wanted the head. And I'm happy to have a new no-fail cake-building yellow cake to add to my chocolate cake and frosting. Happy birthday, sweet girl!

An unprocessed month: goal assessment

Goals:

1. Completely eliminate our demon foods: candy for me, pop and chips for hubby. SUCCESS!
2. Cut down or eliminate snacking and desserts (especially the unhealthy ones). SUCCESS! Much less snacking, many fewer desserts, and all of them have been unprocessed: popcorn, homemade crackers, 100% whole wheat cookies.
3. Bake all of our bread products (buns, loaves, crackers, pizza crusts, etc.). Of course! :-)
4. Switch back to lean meats; attempt to buy some from the farmer's market. (Although, I know we'll probably still use mostly grocery store meats, even with their added ingredients.) --> Sort of. A lot more chicken, no sausage or bacon.
5. Focus more on fruits and veggies; more salads. --> Pretty much.
6. Make all cookies, crackers, etc, from scratch with real ingredients. SUCCESS!
7. Use more whole grains (sub brown rice for white; whole wheat flour for white flour). Super big SUCCESS! Maybe the one I'm most proud of.....
8. Grate cheeses ourselves to avoid stablizers added to shredded cheeses. YES!
9. Cut back on eating out (not that we do that much anyway); be more conscious and careful when we eat out. YES! I think we ate out maybe two or three times. I stuck to salads; hubby cheated a bit. Events at the kids' school were the hardest, where the only options are pizza and (very processed) popcorn.
10. Cut back on our reliance on meat; one vegetarian dinner per week? --> Sort of. Veggie burritos, cannelloni

Other thoughts, ideas, and plans:

1. We'd initially talked about doing only two weeks, but after reflecting, we realized that it needs to be longer to actually have a chance of changing our patterns. So we're going to do a month. --> Four weeks, Sunday to Sunday
2. We wanted to wait until after the Easter candy was out of the house, and I know you're not supposed to start changing things on a Monday, so we agreed to start on April 7. --> Yep!
3. I am willing to cut back, but not totally eliminate sugars. --> Yep!
4. I am going to attempt to make all of our sauces: ketchup, mustard, salad dressings, mayo, but I'm not going to beat myself up if I don't have time. If we have to purchase, I will read the labels carefully and select the most unprocessed I can find. --> Made mayo and dressings; used purchased "simple" ketchup
5. I will attempt to make all pasta from scratch, but if necessary, will buy the most unprocessed I can. --> BIG SUCCESS! NO store-bought pasta!
6. I did not realize the extent of added ingredients to our canned beans and tomatoes; I will try to start using more dried beans and frozen veggies. --> Yes, dried beans and frozen veggies; still used canned tomatoes
7. I would love to go back to making my own yogurt, but I'm not sure I'll have the time. If I don't, my usual plain yogurt already fits the kitchen test. --> Didn't have time; just used plain yogurt
8. For the most part, our cheeses, butters, milk, cream, peanut butter, maple syrup, and honey already pass the kitchen test. --> Yep, still true
9. We will continue to use/cook with vital wheat gluten, wine, table salt, olive oil, safflower oil, corn starch, and some seasonings (sriacha, soy sauce, etc.). --> Yep, although we did start choosing our oils more carefully, and I did manage to stay away from corn starch and bottled seasonings; I did use regular chocolate chips in one recipe

Colorful parenting

In the car last week, the kids were asking about going out for ice cream this week (after our unprocessed month was over). That was one of the hardest things of this month for them: our favorite little corner ice cream shop opened this month, and we couldn't go get our first cones. Anyway, I asked them, "Once our unprocessed month is over, does that mean we should go back to eating whatever we want, lots of processed foods?" They both said, "No!! We'll still eat mostly green foods, but we can have red foods sometimes as special treats."

A couple of weeks ago, on 100 Days of Real Food, they posted a guide on how to talk to kids about food. They provide a great conversation starter, using the analogy of race cars needing the right kinds of fuel. The article ends with this idea of thinking of foods in terms of a traffic light: GREEN foods are those that are the best for our body, whole foods, unprocessed, make your body feel and work the best. YELLOW foods are those that are okay to eat sometimes, but you don't want to eat too much or too many. RED foods are those you want to avoid as much as possible (I like that they don't say that you can NEVER have them, since never never works). Red foods have bad ingredients like artificial food
dyes, hydrogenated oils, high fructose corn syrup, and things you can't even pronounce.

The kids jumped on board. We grabbed a sheet of white paper and three crayons and started brainstorming foods from each category. Of course water and vegetables and fruits went into green. The little girl was thrilled that milk was a green food. Then we moved on to yellow, things that aren't the best for us, but it's okay to enjoy sometimes: mommy-made cookies and cakes, ice cream, packaged crackers. We actually pulled a few boxes out of the cupboards to check ingredient lists. Finally, we listed red foods...the kids were sad to see their favorite icee-pops, fruit snacks, gummy bears on this list, but they had fun thinking of things to add. They were more excited by how many of their favorites made the green and yellow lists.

I suggested hanging the sign in the kitchen, but my little guy grabbed it out of my hands: "No! I need to hang it in our room so we can look at it all the time and remember!"

The kids ask all the time now what color foods are. We've even made up some variations...the little girl's favorite almond crackers, for example, we called yellowish green, because they have more than five ingredients on the package, but they're all healthy. On the other side are mommy-made brownies, made with white flour...they're closer to yellowy-red (or orange). This has been such a great teaching tool for us.

Reflections on an unprocessed month

I'm sitting here, eating leftover (restaurant) pizza, reflecting on our month of unprocessed eating. We set the goal of a month: April 7 - May 7, but ended up with a month defined by four weeks (Sunday to Sunday). Hubby's sister and her family were in town this weekend, we all wanted to go out to dinner together, her kids really wanted pizza, we had settled on our favorite pizza place as our celebratory end-of-the-month dinner...so hubby and I looked at each other, and decided to call it.

We didn't call it the end of unprocessed, though. We called it the start of "our new way of life."

Hubby and I are both feeling better physically and we've both dropped a few pounds. I feel like my system is cleaner. I feel better thinking about the food we're eating; looking at our shopping cart this past weekend, I said to the kids, "There are only two processed foods in this whole cart!" The kids had fun looking through and identifying...the little girl's favorite cereal and a package of whole wheat tortillas. (I've loved making my own tortillas, and they're delicious; perfect for tacos and fajitas. But I cannot get them uniformly large and round, which makes them really hard for our favorite veggie burritos.) It makes me feel so good to make these choices for my family.

The month has made me reflect on some of our non-cooking food choices. I've finally purchased reusable produce bags, which I've been looking at for a long while (we already use reusable grocery bags). I bought a new set of cleaning cloths to help reduce our use of paper towels (not that we use many anyway; we already use cloth napkins) and chemical cleaners (again, not that we use many).

We've learned that just about everything is processed. It was impossible (at least in terms of the effort we were willing to give) for us to go totally unprocessed. But we got really used to reading ingredient lists, looking for organic (but still reading the ingredient lists since not all organic foods pass the kitchen test!). And if we picked a food that was technically processed (some of the canned tomatoes, for example), we were making a conscious choice, and the foods were as close to unprocessed as we could find, with just the addition of "natural flavors" or "citric acid" (two ingredients which sound innocuous, and which I was surprised to read weren't as good as they sound).

I've become a(n even more) compulsive label-reader, and having read as much as I have, it's impossible for me to buy an item with ingredients I've never heard of when there's a better choice right next to it. And I've gotten familiar with which brands to pick, so shopping isn't taking me quite as long. I have finally jumped on the organic bandwagon, studying the dirty dozen list and being willing to pay more for organic produce. (And feeling very grateful that we are privileged enough to be able to afford to do this!)

This lifestyle takes a lot of planning: not just the meal planning which I was doing already, but the inability to cop out and go out to eat after a long day...needing to have unprocessed meals ready in the freezer for those emergencies. We also noticed the necessity of going to more stores: Costco and Trader Joes for great prices on organic produce, Whole Foods for specialty ingredients, unrefined oils, bulk bins. Plus our normal big grocery store for reasonable prices on anything we can find there. Now that the weather's nice, we'll add the farmer's market to the mix, too.

This is getting more natural...we've gradually added more to the list of unprocessed foods we're buying. Hubby hadn't even considered the processed nature of the flavored coffees he drinks, but when he ran out, he instinctively reached for the plain, fair trade stuff.

The kids have also become good label readers - counting ingredients, asking their grandparents if certain foods are processed, making an informed decision that they want a little processed cereal. The little guy has completely bought into mommy-muffins and mommy-Popsicles again.

We are excited to be able to go out to eat again...it's one of our favorite special treats. But I think we'll be more conscious about what we order. Last night at the pizza place, we ordered a big salad and ate that before the pizza arrived, in the hopes that we'd fill up more on green food. I'm excited to make some goodies with white flour, even though I'm very happy with how adjusted we've gotten to 100% whole wheat tortillas, pizza crusts, rolls, muffins.

Overall, this month has been great. I'm proud of how well we did, even with challenges like the stomach flu, injuries, conferences, and long days. And I'm really hopeful that we can continue to live by the lessons we've learned.

A new way to grocery shop

Although I made a meal plan and went grocery shopping before we began this challenge a week and a half ago, I feel like I had my first *real* unprocessed grocery trip this past weekend. During the week, I did a lot more research on this whole real food/unprocessed thing (shocking, I know), and I discovered that many things that I assumed were fine, really weren't: dairy products, oils, canned beans.

This week's grocery trip took the same amount of time and we spent about the same amount of money, but we bought less food and were so much more thoughtful about what we put in the cart.

In the dairy section, I read the labels of every mini-yogurt container for the kiddos, finally choosing Stonyfield baby (the little girl likes vanilla best) and a Chobani for the little guy (he likes strawberry). I checked out all of the cream cheeses, realizing that I couldn't buy any. I made sure that our cheddar only included milk and cheese culture (and annato for coloring, which stresses some people out, but it's a spice that I have in my cupboard and use so I have no problem with cheeses that use it). Hubby's usual half-and-half has some added stuff, but I found an organic brand with nothing but milk and cream; same thing with sour cream.

Unfortunately, there were no unrefined oils in the baking aisle, but I did find cold pressed EVOO. After my discovery that the canned beans have added crap, I bypassed them and picked up a couple of bags of dried.

The meats I chose (ground chicken, ground turkey, and boneless chicken breast) were minimally processed and had no added preservatives, the best I could do at the grocery store.

We spent the most amount of time in the produce aisles, and it's nice to put all of those fruits and veggies in the cart without reading ingredient labels; we bought organic where we could.
There wasn't a thing in the cart that didn't meet the kitchen test, and it was nice to feel good about the conveyer belt full of healthy food for my family. I'm looking forward to an improved weather forecast so we can go to the Farmer's Market and see what they have to offer.

Unprocessed parenting, week one reflections

We decided to tackle the unprocessed/real food challenge to improve our family's health, but to be honest, it was mainly about refocusing our (the grownups') crappy eating habits. But the more I read, the more I become convinced that eating this way is better for all of us. We are not being super strict with the kids: obviously their dinners are unprocessed because they're eating with us (with the exception of their mini-yogurts), and they're eating more unprocessed snacks and breakfasts at home. The little guy's lunch box has been mostly unprocessed, with the exception of an occasional "jammy sammy" to round out his lunch. But during the week, when they're at their grandpa's or at preschool or kindergarten, they're still eating the way they always have. It has been interesting to watch their response to these conversations.

My friend Rebecca pointed out this article to me; in it, Mark Bittman writes about the excessively over-processed nature of most of the foods we eat. One of the biggest processed foods is store-bought cereal; it made me feel guilty that my kids eat so much of it. We use cereal for breakfast, for after-school snacks, and even for after-dinner snacks. I mentioned it at dinner the other day, and my kids both got a panicked look on their faces: Was I going to take away their cereal?! But I reminded them that their daddy and I were not going to *make* them do anything...I just wanted them to be aware of what they were eating. I'm trying to figure out other, more "real," snacks that I can offer instead of cereal.

Another of the kids' favorite foods, mini Yoplait or Dannon yogurts, were on a list of the least healthy/most added crap children's food. Again, the kids looked panicked when I brought it up. Instead of replacing their mini-yogurts with the suggested plain yogurt flavored with fruit syrup (we've tried in the past, and it hasn't gone over well), we purchased a couple of the "best" versions (most healthy/least added crap) for them to try: they both responded positively to the new brands.

Some of the unprocessed versions of food are taking some getting used to. My little girl, whose favorite dinner food in the whole world is noodles, decided that she didn't like Mommy-made noodles the first time we had them. I explained that that was fine, but that those were the only noodles we were going to have this month. She finally started to eat them. The next time they were on the menu, she pitched a complete fit; then she headed to the table, where she took one bite and said, "I LOVE these!" and has since requested Mommy-made noodles twice. The same could not be said of Mommy-made tortillas, which neither kid liked, although they both did give it a good try.

At the grocery store, the kids asked for their usual kids'-cookie that many stores now give out to make the shopping experience more pleasant for kids and parents. When I explained that the store-bought cookies weren't unprocessed, we had two very upset kiddos on our hands. I comforted them with the idea of a mommy-made treat when we got home, and they were super excited to have some of the birthday cake and whipped cream that I was making for a friend. Not exactly a healthy treat, but at least one where I knew what all of the ingredients were.

Even after a week, eating real, unprocessed foods has definitely become the norm. On Sunday night, we had chili, and the little guy asked if there were any tortilla chips. I explained that no, store-bought chips were some of the worst foods for our bodies. Without skipping a beat, he said, "Well, Mom, can't you go make us some tortilla chips?!" I'm working on it.....

A final sign that this has become the new norm for the kids: While walking to the car after kindergarten the other day, the little guy said, "Let's catch rain drops on our tongues...they're unprocessed!" :)

Unprocessed: Week one reflections

We made it through week one! Here are some reflections, challenges and positives:

Challenges:

• Illness: A stomach virus hit our house last Monday (the second day of our unprocessed challenge)...of course that throws a wrench in everything. Meal plans had to get adjusted, the little guy wasn't eating anything, everyone was exhausted. But we still stuck to it, rearranging our meal plan, but not falling back on any processed foods.
• Snacks: This was an expected challenge: lunches for school when we ran out of leftovers, lunches for the weekends, after-school snacks, dinners when I had parent-teacher conferences late at school. I've come to rely on egg salad on homemade bread with fruit and veggies. The hubby's lunch on Friday was pretty scant: homemade wheat thins with cheese and fruit. We've been doing well with skipping our after school snacks, and when we were desperate, I've made kettle corn. We definitely need to continue to work on this area.
• Related to my egg salad sandwiches...I used my homemade mayo, but wasn't a huge fan, so by the end of the week, I did use a tiny bit of store-bought mayo and mustard. I need to try another mayo recipe this week.
• Canned foods: Wow, I really had not realized all of the crap they put into canned foods. I think of our meals as healthy when they use canned beans. Checking out the can this weekend, I saw corn syrup (why?!), salt, chemical preservatives, and other stuff. Ew. Luckily, my canned tomatoes, while including salt, don't include anything else except tomatoes.
• Weekend events: We had some fun activities planned for this weekend, and weren't sure how we'd handle the whole unprocessed thing. On Friday night, the little guy's school hosted a family pizza/popcorn/movie night in the gym. We weren't sure what to do about dinner. In the end, the hubby decided to "cheat," and he and the kids ate the pizza; I brought some plain yogurt, fruit, and homemade granola. Worked pretty well. On Saturday, we went to a pow wow. We all ate a little lunch before we left so we wouldn't be starving when we got there. But we couldn't pass up the fry bread food truck, so hubby and I hoped/pretended that the fry bread was made with all unprocessed ingredients. ;-)
• Snow! We timed this challenge with the spring so we would have more energy and also could rely on grilling. Instead, winter came back with a vengeance. So much for our meal plans of grilling chicken (Wednesday) and chef salad (Tuesday). These were replaced by pancakes and a spaghetti freezer meal. This upcoming week, too, is going to be too cold and snowy for grilling or spring-time food.

Happy news:

• In many ways, this hasn't been nearly as challenging as I feared. I've realized that our dinners were already pretty unprocessed, so there haven't been that many adjustments. In our soup dinner, the only thing I had to make that I haven't always made was the noodles; in our spaghetti meal, it was the noodles and the salad dressing. But I'm in the habit of making so many other things from scratch, so it wasn't that bad.
• I am so glad that I keep back-ups and make extras for the freezer. Some things have really caught me off-guard: on Sunday, I was making chili. I had already purchased dried beans to replace the canned, but had completely forgotten that the recipe calls for two cups of chicken broth. I always use the jarred stuff. Luckily I had a baggie with two cups of stock in the freezer!
• I have been so impressed by my hubby's commitment. This has been my project from the beginning: my idea, my planning, my organization. But on Monday morning when the little guy was sick, and I was staying home, and no one was really up for making a meal, my hubby could have easily decided to cheat and grab a bowl of processed cereal; instead, I looked up, and there he was, pulling out the frying pan and making some scrambled eggs for himself.
• So far, I've had two Sundays of being at home, which I think is completely necessary to working full-time and being successful at this challenge. Yesterday, after grocery shopping, I made a huge batch of noodles and whole wheat rolls for the week, in addition to our chili dinner and a birthday cake for my friend. I was in the kitchen for most of the day. Not sure I could do this otherwise.
• My first several experiences making homemade pasta were not good, and I kind of regretted asking the hubby to buy me a pasta maker for Christmas several years ago; it felt like a waste of money. But happily, I have found a great egg noodle recipe, easily adapted to whole wheat flour, and it only took me 50 minutes to roll out, cut, and freeze a pound and a half of pasta for the week (not including the 5 minutes to mix up the dough and the 30 minute rest time).
• Giving up candy has not been nearly as traumatic as I expected. I actually started a week early, so I wouldn't be trying to keep the family on track while battling my own food demon. But I haven't really had any cravings.
• My hubby seems to have had an easy transition to giving up pop, too; he's been having a cup of coffee during his normal afternoon pop time, and he hasn't complained at all or been crabby.
• I was worried about losing desserts because we're accustomed to having it almost every night, but we've just kind of naturally drifted out of the habit.
• I'm glad that we're having conversations about food as a family: where food comes from, what companies do to it, what's healthy for our bodies, why companies use things that aren't good for us to make food taste "better." More about the kids in tomorrow's post.
• Finally, I have found a lot of resources to give me ideas about adapting recipes and making things from scratch. In addition to Eating Rules, I have found 100 days of real food, and I've also found that just searching for a recipe plus "unprocessed October" gives me a lot of links to other people who have tried to do this same thing.

Well, there you have it: far more happy things than challenges. In general, week one went really well, and hubby and I are already talking about which changes we want to make permanent....On to week two!

Practicing unprocessed

Even though our official start date isn't until this weekend, I have started making a few changes in the past week or so. Separate from our other motivations, I have felt pretty crappy lately, and I know that one of the main things to blame is my eating habits. Way too much candy, too much snacking, too many "Oh, what the heck; what's one more?"s.

To be truly unprocessed, you need to eliminate sugars, both white and brown. I looooooove sugar. My favorite breakfast is oatmeal ~ either with white sugar, banana, almonds, and plain yogurt, or with brown sugar, apples, raisins, and milk. I was nervous about losing my sugar, but a few days ago, I took a deep breath and tried maple syrup, one of the unprocessed sugars (pure maple syrup, of course). And guess what? I loved it!

I've also been checking our dinners each night, to see how they'd do against unprocessed expectations. (In part just to reassure myself that this is possible and won't be that challenging.)


Here, we have this slow cooker honey chicken via Tracey's site (processed ingredients: sriracha, corn starch, canned tomato paste) over brown rice, roasted asparagus with this recipe from Cooking Light, and grapes. I remember trying brown rice some time years ago, and we thought it was really gross, so I was nervous about trying it again. But I know how much healthier it is and that we need to give up white rice, so I tried it in this recipe where I knew it would be buried under flavorful chicken. And it was delicious! I'm not sure what I did wrong last time, but no one could tell the difference; the little girl who loves white rice more than just about anything gobbled up her plateful just as quickly as usual. What a relief!


Last night, we had homemade chicken noodle soup (ingredients: safflower oil, chicken breasts and thighs, onions, celery, carrots, peas, corn, thyme, salt, and pepper; processed ingredient: egg noodles), homemade breadsticks (an ATK roll recipe with white whole wheat flour), grapes, pear, homemade applesauce (ingredients: apples, water, cinnamon; processed ingredient: sprinkling of white sugar), and cheddar cheese.

All of the processed ingredients from these meals are things we probably won't be giving up anyway, although I'll probably try to make my own noodles and I may try subbing in honey for the sugar in the applesauce. I've got a notebook with a lot of notes, and I've started recording meal and snack ideas. Both of these dinners will go on the list.

Unprocessed: Setting goals

As I said the other day, to truly go unprocessed, you need to cut out more than we bargained for. Most meats and dairy foods have some sort of stabilizer or preservative or something added. You can't use any sugar (brown or white) in baking. Technically no vital wheat gluten in bread-making. No corn starch to help thicken ice cream or stews. No wines to flavor cooking.

After discussion, hubby and I agreed that this wasn't really what we had in mind when we decided to attempt this challenge. And, even if it was, there is no way I can devote that much time to this project in the middle of the school year. Our primary goals are to reset: to eat more healthfully, be more conscious of what we put in our bodies, read ingredient labels, cut out our demon-foods, fix our snack habits, and try to cut out as many chemicals as possible. Here is the list of goals we came up with, in order of importance:

1. Completely eliminate our demon foods: candy for me, pop and chips for hubby.


2. Cut down or eliminate snacking and desserts (especially the unhealthy ones).


3. Bake all of our bread products (buns, loaves, crackers, pizza crusts, etc.).


4. Switch back to lean meats; attempt to buy some from the farmer's market. (Although, I know we'll probably still use mostly grocery store meats, even with their added ingredients.)


5. Focus more on fruits and veggies; more salads.


6. Make all cookies, crackers, etc, from scratch with real ingredients.


7. Use more whole grains (sub brown rice for white; whole wheat flour for white flour).


8. Grate cheeses ourselves to avoid stablizers added to shredded cheeses.


9. Cut back on eating out (not that we do that much anyway); be more conscious and careful when we eat out.


10. Cut back on our reliance on meat; one vegetarian dinner per week?

Some other thoughts, ideas, and plans:

1. We'd initially talked about doing only two weeks, but after reflecting, we realized that it needs to be longer to actually have a chance of changing our patterns. So we're going to do a month.


2. We wanted to wait until after the Easter candy was out of the house, and I know you're not supposed to start changing things on a Monday, so we agreed to start on April 7.


3. I am willing to cut back, but not totally eliminate sugars.


4. I am going to attempt to make all of our sauces: ketchup, mustard, salad dressings, mayo, but I'm not going to beat myself up if I don't have time. If we have to purchase, I will read the labels carefully and select the most unprocessed I can find.


5. I will attempt to make all pasta from scratch, but if necessary, will buy the most unprocessed I can.


6. I did not realize the extent of added ingredients to our canned beans and tomatoes; I will try to start using more dried beans and frozen veggies.


7. I would love to go back to making my own yogurt, but I'm not sure I'll have the time. If I don't, my usual plain yogurt already fits the kitchen test.


8. For the most part, our cheeses, butters, milk, cream, peanut butter, maple syrup, and honey already pass the kitchen test.


9. We will continue to use/cook with vital wheat gluten, wine, table salt, olive oil, safflower oil, corn starch, and some seasonings (sriacha, soy sauce, etc.).

So...let's see what happens!

Unprocessed: Rules and reflections

I have been doing a lot of research on the whole unprocessed thing lately, and wow, it is more than I bargained for! The official October Unprocessed website has a ton of great resources, including this official guide, which I downloaded and read cover-to-cover.

What I discovered is that everything is processed. Well, okay, not really...but if you're going whole-hog, so to speak, a lot more things are forbidden than I'd thought about: white sugar, brown sugar, corn syrup (okay, I knew all of those), anything with "natural flavors" on the label, or soy lecithin, or carageenan. No corn starch (eek! but my favorite ice cream recipe uses corn starch!). No dutch processed cocoa, no chocolate bars (kinda figured that one). The only "allowed" oils are evoo, unrefined coconut, butter, and peanut. No table salt. You have to check the labels on cheese, butter, yogurt...even milk, because sometimes they add things in. Meat: check the label; most of it has stuff added to it.

One thing I really liked about the guide is that they give really clear reasons and explanations for why things pass or don't pass the "kitchen test" -- they define "unprocessed" as anything a normal person with some cooking skill could make in a home kitchen with whole ingredients.

The other thing I really like is that they make it clear that you need to make the unprocessed goal work for you. So they suggest setting an intention: being clear about what your goals are and striving to meet those, and/or making deliberate exceptions before you even start, so that if you have something that's processed, you're not "cheating" and you don't have to rely on your willpower in a tough moment.

Armed with all of this knowledge, hubby and I had a big discussion about our goals for this challenge. I am so glad he is on board; I do not have faith that I could do this all on my own. More on our specific goals later........ (Oh, and in case you haven't noticed, I've decided to document our work on this challenge here. I have been in a blogging funk lately, and I'm hoping this will not only help us on our unprocessed journey, but also get me back in the habit of daily writing.)

Wordless Wednesday: Road Trip

Road trip = The opposite of unprocessed