I just finished watching Food, Inc.  Great Movie! The take home message is to buy local, and in season food! If you haven’t seen the movie yet, did you know you can download and “rent” the movie to watch from Amazon for $2.99!  I just realized this!  Right under “Buy”, you click WATCH IT NOW, $2.99 to rent.  

Although I’ve mentioned them before, after watching the movie, I was so glad we buy our meat local (beef and pork at least).  If you live in Utah and are looking for a local meat supplier, you must check out The Christiansens farm for well fed, well treated, organic, and super awesome meat!  Hollie Christiansen is my neighbors- sister.. which is how I found out about their farm. 

Last night, I pulled out our bag of frozen Edamame to snack on while I prepared dinner.  The kids devoured it! I forgot how much they liked this great snack the first time I bought it.  It’s definitely coming out more often this week.

As always, head over to the side bar, or Menu Archives to print the menu!

Don’t forget…. Monday is the last day to enter for Crest Pro-Health supplies,

and FRIDAY is the last day for the V8-V Fusion Visa $100 Gift card!

Have you heard about the miracle fruit? My kids and I were watching the Science channel last night and they did a segment about this berry that literally changes the taste receptors on your tongue.  For an entire hour after eating a berry, everything tastes sweet… Including Tabasco sauce and broccoli!  This could literally make any child eat vegetables! Crazy huh.

Decided to mail my camera into Olympus for them to fix the lens.  I don’t need to ruin by taking it apart.

Come back on Monday for another giveaway. Do you like my rhyming hints to what the giveaway is?  Dreaming Fireflies!  You won’t want to miss it.

	Breakfast	Lunch	Snack	Dinner
Monday	Orange Creamsicle smoothie	Sweet potato Risotto	Cottage Cheese and peaches	Black eyed peas with brown rice
Tuesday	Bran Muffins and Bananas	Pita with sprouts, lettuce, tomato.	Mixed nuts with raisins	Sweet potato soup
Wednesday	Breakfast Burritos	Caesar salad and whole grain roll	Pumpkin hummus on sourdough	Pizza
Thursday	Oatmeal with craisins, vanilla and cinnamon	Noodles, broccoli and parmesan.	English muffin with peanut butter and banana slices	Chicken with wild rice and parmesan
Friday	Whole Grain cereal with soy milk and berries	Whole wheat sandwich, honey and almond butter	Veggie Tray	Chicken salad with creamy orange dressing, pecans and cranberries

Something is stuck UNDER my crappy camera lens.  I took the whole camera apart thinking I could somehow get access in between the lenses, but all I got was shocked!  And the lens never came off.   Anyone have ideas on how to fix this?

Every picture I take has a “soft focus” edge on the bottom of the picture. I don’t know what to do. I’d get a new camera for Christmas, but I already got this laptop for Christmas.  So, I’m out of luck until next year!

Anyway, I’m in some sort of root vegetable craze.  Not only do I love Russet Potatoes, and red potatoes, but I really love Sweet potatoes!  For any meal, they are so filling.  My kids really don’t need to eat anything else.  So here is a little potato 101.

Our grocery store sells two varieties of sweet potatoes.  Although BOTH are technically sweet potatoes, they call one a sweet potato, and the other a yam.

Have you ever noticed a difference?  Here is how we use each:

SWEET  POTATOES:  (with white flesh)

• Just like a baked potato (butter, salt etc.)
• As Sweet Potato salad.

YAMS: With the orange flesh

• Sweet potato fries
• In a casserole with brown sugar.
• As a baked potato with sweet stuff on it like cinnamon and brown sugar.

Is one healthier than the other?  YES! Yams, with its rich orange color has more vitamins.  The more colorful your fruits or vegetables are, the more nutrients they have.

Eating actual meals (rather than from the bag, or standing at the refrigerator) not only is better for you, but also keeps your house cleaner.

My kids will stand at the pantry, take a handful of Cheerios, and walk away, leaving a trail of Cheerios on the floor, and at the pantry door.  In literally makes me insane.  As soon as I step on Cereal on the kitchen floor, I know they’ve been eating from the bag.

In a span of 30 years, you will most likely eat 30,000 meals!  According to The Pleasure Trap, “anything you are likely to do 30,000 times cries out for efficiency and organization”

The following is our menu plan for next week.  Head over to my sidebar to find the printable version along with the shopping list.  Happy Cooking.

Next week I will post some pictures and recipes to a few items on this menu.

Do you love to plan your menu’s?  Traditionally on a quiet Sunday afternoon, I like to take cookbooks in my room and write our meals for the week.   So, for now on I’m going to start posting my menu plans for you all!

On Friday’s I’ll post a menu plan and shopping list, with a printable version on my sidebar, labeled with the date.  In the shopping list, if I know the best price for something, I will certainly list that too.

To kick off menu planning, I want to share a cookbook with you that I love!!

The Vegetarian Family Cookbook is having their 5th Anniversary Blog Tour!  I love this book!  I highly recommend this book!  Not only does it have great recipes, but tons of great ideas.

Right away I wanted to try the Homemade Nut Butter! I love peanut butter and almond butter, but the healthy versions can be super expensive!

This homemade version was sweet, salty, and so delicious, I had to stop myself from eating the entire bowl with a spoon.

And with permission, I get to share this  recipe. (with my photo’s embedded to show you how easy it was)

Honey/Vegan option

Homemade Nut Butter

Makes about 1 cup

Making fresh nut butter isn’t hard to do, and is a great kitchen project to do with young children, who actually enjoy the process of shelling peanuts. Ideally, use organic nuts. Conventional brands of peanut butter (far and away the most commonly consumed nut butter) almost always contain partially hydrogenated fats and high fructose corn syrup, two unhealthy ingredients. Some brands also contain cottonseed oil, which comes from one of the most heavily sprayed crops on earth. Natural-style nut butters contain the nuts only, and are obviously a better choice, but their flavor and texture are often too intense for younger children.

This homemade version is a perfect compromise, both for flavor and health. For another great peanut butter alternative, see Silken Peanut Spread, page 000).

1 cup shelled roasted peanuts, almonds, or cashews

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon honey, maple syrup, or brown rice syrup

1. Place the nuts in a food processor. Process until the nuts begin to hold together.

2. Add the oil, salt, and honey, and continue to process. Scrape the sides of the container from time to time, and continue to process until the nut butter is at the desired consistency.

3. Transfer the nut butter to a lidded container and keep refrigerated. For easier spreading, microwave for a few seconds before using.

Per tablespoon:

Calories: 64 Total fat: 5  g Protein: 2 g Fiber: .8 g

Carbohydrates: 3  g Cholesterol: 0 g Sodium: 35 mg

TIPS:

• For peanut butter, dry-roasted peanuts from a jar work just fine, but using freshly shelled roasted peanuts results in a more vivid flavor.

• If children other than your own will be partaking of this snack, make sure that none are allergic to peanuts—it’s a more common allergy than you’d think, and can be quite serious.

• This won’t work in a blender—a food processor is a must.

Isn’t that a great recipe!  All her recipes are easy and family friendly.  So, now the giveaway!

One reader will get their own copy of The Vegetarian Family Cookbook!  Leave a comment and I’ll choose a winner this weekend!

Since I generally buy canned beans, or beans in bulk, I hadn’t spent much time on the bean aisle.  But on my last shopping trip, I noticed this gorgeous little bag of mixed beans for $2.99!

An entire meal for three bucks. And it included a seasoning packet.

With so much trouble cooking beans from dry, I stopped reading the directions, I have adopted my own method.

1. Pour beans into large pot in the morning.
2. Boil for 15 minutes
3. Remove from heat.
4. Cover with lid until ready to prepare dinner.
5. At about 4:00, I rinse the beans.
6. Refill with water.
7. Boil until beans are tender.
8. Depending on the type of beans, this may take 2 hours!!  I like my beans soft.
9. Keep testing beans till desired softness.

I was a bit disappointed with the seasoning.  There wasn’t much flavor to it at all.  Next time I will season it myself.  But with a handful of saltine crackers, my family at it up!

I got an A on my last Organic Chemistry test! I can’t tell you what a relief it was. I was getting worried about this whole back to school thing, but now I’m feeling much more confident!

I love the days when my husband makes dinner.  He has been getting really creative lately.  His meals are always super fast, because he doesn’t think about dinner till 5:00pm.  His meals are always with ingredients we have (no last minute grocery store trips).  They are always inexpensive  And usually they include tomatoes and beans.

Here was the most recent meal he’s made for us:

• Tomatoes
• peppers
• can of black beans
• frozen corn

He grilled a tortilla, cheese, and the veggie mixture and called it taco pizza.

The kids liked it, I loved it. But I already made something called Taco pizza a few months ago. His was faster though.  Mine included making whole wheat pizza dough, etc.

My husband wanted me to let my blog  readers know, he’s there for you!  When I am too busy studying chemistry to take pictures of meals.. when I’m preoccuppied with the PTA that I’m not thinking  of ideas to help y’all get more fruits and veggies into your kids,  he’ll step up and do it for me!  He really is great!

It’s shocking how many varieties of rice I have to choose from, yet I choose the same kind over and over.  It used to be Calrose or California rice, then Sweet Brown Rice.  But I’ve been eyeing the wild rice for some time, and decided to dive in.

What I found out was, wild rice, isn’t truly rice at all.  All though many varieties in the grocery store has mixed it with other rice’s (the Wild rice is the black grains you see),  it is actually the seed of a grass. It’s extremely high in protein, fiber, vitamins, minerals, folic acid, and fiber.

Did my kids like it?  They didn’t hate it. They tried it.  With some foods I have found its best to NOT to say, “It’s just like the rice you always eat!” Cause its not.  Just like I told them not to compare my Macaroni and Cheese with the kind they have tried from the grocery store, but simply we are having “Elbow noodles with a cheese on top”. 

The wild rice took much longer to cook, so start early.  It had a nutty, savory flavor to it.  Even I only needed a small portion of this rice, whereas white rice, we could literally eat a whole cup, EACH OF US!

Its a great idea to expose your kids to different varieties of similar foods.  Not only do some varieties have more nutrients than the traditional ones we eat (such as in this case) but this movie, The Future of Food, discusses the dangers of eating and growing only one variety of corn.  In other countries, they are still eating hundreds of varieties of corn.  So if one variety gets diseased, they still have 99 other varieties to consume.  Pretty fascinating.

The best thing about the raw food movement, is the simpleness of food prep! If you can use a knife or a blender, you can do raw food.

I went to a raw foods class at my local health food store last week, and they made for us some Jicama fries.  I thought they were pretty tasty.  I was excited for my kids to try them, but I guess they weren’t as excited as I was.  They were actually pretty stubborn.

“I want my fries cooked!”

“They aren’t french fries! They are different.  Its from a Jicama, not a potato”.

“I only like fries from potatoes”. 

You know the drill.  So maybe call them something other than fries, so they are judged on their own goodness, and not by comparison to the familiar.

But once again, I like to share anyway, for all you RAW-some parents out there who have kids a little more compliant than mine.

The raw food teachers used a fry slicer to cut their jicama up, but mine just must not be sharp enough. It was so much easier to just use a knife.

After Jicama was sliced we added to a bowl and mixed with

• olive oil
• salt
• garlic powder

 and wa-la!  No cooking, just coated with seasonings and done.  We ate our fries with some black bean burgers.  The friends I went to the class with thought they were great.  You can decide!  Let me know if you OR your kids like them.

Don’t forget to enter to win the Amazing Grass Kidz Line of smoothie mix-ins.

TUESDAY: Whole Grains

Ever since making Crystal’s Wheat Berry Salad, I love cooked or soaked wheat.  (which is helpful considering we have 400lbs of it). 

So, last night for dinner, I prepared the wheat like I would rice.  I used 1 cup of wheat berries (Also known as the entire kernel of wheat) in a  pot.  Covered the wheat with water and brought it to a boil.  Simmered on the stove for a little over an hour.  Then drained the water. Added a little salt and pepper.   The kids literally DEVOURED it.  I told them it was similar to rice, but chewier and nuttier…. so they shouldn’t be comparing it to rice. Just judging it on its own.  Not only did they have seconds, they were asking for more.  My only regret is that I did not make more.  I’m so glad they liked it.  Simple, delicious, healthy, and easy! My favorite.

We buy our wheat at Lehi Roller Mills.  I have seen wheat also at Costco or in the bulk section of our health food store.  Wheat can be stored for a long time.  Once ground into flour it begins to go bad however.