Thoughts on food

Sometimes I forget that you don't all live in my back room and know the intimate details of my life. Probably for the best, no? But there are always so many things rambling around in my brain and coming and going on my to do lists, that I suddenly get tongue tied when it comes to filling in all the blanks in this space for all of you. Sorry about that.

One of the things up at the very top of my occupy-the-brain list lately is food. I feel like my life revolves around food. Before we moved to Blanding--where I was happily mostly just a consumer and not a fixer--I resolved that our move to Salt Lake would turn a new phase in my personal Healthy Eating for Life Campaign. We were going to eat healthy! Less meat! More vegetables! Whole grains! Homemade bread!

You get the picture.

I am happy to report that my efforts (and many successes) are going strong. Yes, I still probably make too many desserts. And somehow "tastey treats" make it to our pantry in abundance whether I plan on it or not, but by and large my vision of Healthy Eating for Life is being realized.

Whether Jeremy likes it or not. (Bless his heart, he tries to be optimistic about it. Even while eating wheat berries mixed into his sloppy joes. For realsies that was lunch today.)

Despite Jeremy's grimaces over added wheat berries or lentils to his meaty meals, I must say that by and large, this goal has opened our horizons when it comes to good foods out there. And so many of the foods I have made have received an enthusiastic thumbs up. Roasted Sweet Potato Soup for example. Healthy Corn Chowder was tasty too. And Vegetarian Burritos have gotten a repeated request for more.

I am also committed to whole grains. Don't get me wrong, I still use a handful of recipes that use half white, half wheat flour... but I'm starting to just put in all wheat anyway. Even in my birthday cupcakes I used whole wheat (cut the sugar, eliminated and egg, and replaced oil with applesauce) and thought they were oh so good. It's not just any whole wheat flour I'll use either. I am a true convert to freshly ground whole wheat. As in, I grind it myself. Seriously, the flour is so much lighter than anything you could buy in a store. Not to mention has both the bran and the germ still intact--making it indeed a whole grain (as opposed to wheat flour  in the store that has had parts taken out to preserve shelf life).

Tuesday night I decided to make wheat berries for the first time. Basically you cook wheat kernals in the crockpot with a lot of water and a little salt over night. I ate them for breakfast with milk (heavens, so much better than oatmeal--which I can't hardly even look at without wanting to gag). And I added them to my sloppy joe meat for lunch (which for the record, I thought was good, no matter how much Jeremy gritted his teeth about it!). And I plan to make some sort of salad with them this weekend (like this).

One of the key factors in making all this healthy eating happen, I should add, is our diligent purchasing of a bountiful basket each week. For those who don't know, it's a food co-op that for $16.50 a week provides us with enormous amounts of fruits and vegetables. Most people I talk to say they simply can't eat them all in a week. Somehow (!!) we manage to eat a whole basket by ourselves each week. It seriously makes for one happy mama.

I often make three meals a day and of our lunches and dinners we eat at least (at least) half meatless. Often more. Salads, soups, veggie burritos. The list goes one. Thank you bountiful baskets.

It's been a huge time commitment on my part to make this transition to more serious healthy eating. I am trying to cut way back on processed foods. Meaning I have to be the maker of our foods. I have learned to make tortillas, breads, and rouxes in abundance. I make my own pizza sauce. I make my own mac and cheese (although still keep the box stuff around for emergencies).  I knead my own bread.

I won't lie, it's a little intense sometimes. But at the end of the day, I usually feel so good about our eating choices. It makes me happy to see my kids lapping up fresh steamed broccoli. And I love knowing exactly what is in what we are eating. There are no fake ingredients. No high fructose corn syrup.

(Don't worry, we aren't perfect. We sure did eat candy corn the came in the mail today from Grandma. Plenty of high fructose in there.)

I tell you, I dream about someday having my own chickens for eggs and a great big garden with all my own fresh vegetables for canning, dehydrating, and eating, eating, eating.

Happy thoughts.