Market Report

This is something I want to get in the habit of doing. Fresh produce markets probably won't be around much longer so I want to report in what we got and how it was.

At the Thursday market, there wasn't much of interest so we got 2lbs of stewing meat from King Limousin Farm and since we got there early, I was able to get 2 dozen farm fresh eggs. It was $6.50 for the beef and $6 for the eggs.

On Saturday, I got 4lbs of tomatoes ($0.50 a pound! I would of bought them all but I didn't want to be greedy), a bag of dried beans ($2), a bunch of swiss chard ($1) and a big bag of organic greens ($3). $8 is a great price for all that stuff! It would of been way more at the grocery store.

Let's see, it would of been at least $4 for the tomatoes (not local), $3 for the same beans, $2.49 for the swiss chard (not local or organic) and $6 for organic greens, again, not local. So nearly $16 at the grocery store for non local, mostly non-organic food.

So $22.50 spent at the farmers markets. Next post will be how good it was and/or what I've done with it!

Coconut Curry Squash Soup with Indian Fry Bread

Simple meals can be the yummiest and most comforting. To make this recipe, prepare the squash ahead of time by putting one in the oven while baking something else until it is fork tender (I usually cut out the bottom and scoop out the seeds so there is no hard cutting involved, but you can also cut it in half and roast with the halves down or microwave until soft. Make sure to roast the seeds as they are as good as pumpkin seeds!). I actually remembered to take a picture, which also includes a bowl of mincemeat, which was our desert and some black currant jelly, which was good on the bread. It was a very good, very filling meal!

Coconut Curry Squash Soup

1 medium squash, roasted or otherwise cooked

1 can coconut milk

2 teaspoons curry powder, store bought or homemade (I use a home blend but I don't have the recipe handy, will link it when I find)

Scoop out the cooked squash innards into a medium sized saucepan. Mash a bit and add water if it is a little dry. Add coconut milk and curry powder. Simmer for about 10-15 minutes to allow tastes to combine. Serve! You can process it in a blender if you want it smooth (I probably will next time).

Indian Fry Bread

1 cup flour

1tsp. salt

1.5 tsp. baking powder

Mix dry ingredients and add enough water to make a dough. Let sit 30 minutes then roll into small balls, flatten and fry on a very hot frying pan (preferably cast iron) on both sides until done.

Very quick and easy!

Green Tomato Mincemeat

Before I post this, I wanted to say that an angel came to our rescue! Dad, knowing we were financial trouble, helped us out of our mess. We have always been financially prudent but the lemon of a car we had depleted our savings and the new one was an adjustment, plus the huge insurance bill and some bad choices we have made. Sigh. I think we have learned our lesson and will be more careful with our money. I just need to get Mark on board with budgeting!

I am restarting my nest egg for a side of beef and am comitting to not shopping at grocery stores, unless I am using gift cards or it is an item that is cheaper anywhere else. I had a couple proud moments this week when I put back the 1kg tubs of candy which, while they were only $2.44, we certainly did not need them! I also put back some fruit cups that were made in CHINA! Ugh! I had already bought some so we'll keep them, but why buy fruit from China when we can pick our own?

Speaking of fruit, the green tomato mincemeat is divine! I canned some a couple of years ago but I decided this year I would just freeze it. I am still wary of canning after some lid incidents that made my canned goods go bad. I semi followed a recipe from southernfood.about.com, so I will post what I used as a base and add my additions.

Old fashioned green tomato mincemeat recipe.

Ingredients:

3 quarts chopped green tomatoes

1 1/2 quarts peeled, chopped tart apples

2 cups raisins

1 cup currants

1/2 cup diced candied citron, lemon or orange peel

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground allspice

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1 1/2 to 2 teaspoons salt

3 cups brown sugar, firmly packed

3/4 cup Vinegar

1/4 cup lemon juice

Preparation:

Combine all ingredients in a large heavy pan.

(Omit cloves if you plan to freeze mincemeat.)

Cook mixture slowly until it is tender and thick,

about 1 hour or more. Stir frequently to prevent sticking.

To can, pour boiling mixture into hot, sterile jars,

leaving 1/2-inch headspace; seal promptly.

Process in a boiling water bath for 20 minutes.

Store in a cool dry place.

To freeze, pack cold mincemeat into freezer jars or containers,

leaving about an inch headspace for expansion.

Seal and freeze promptly.

Makes about 5 to 6 quarts of green tomato mincemeat.

_________________________________________________________

So obviously I didn't can it. I also added tons of chopped apples,

probably at least twice as much as it called for,

and I didn't measure the tomatoes, but I used about 5lbs.

I mixed the ingredients in a huge bowl and had to divide

it between my two big pots to cook. I also didn't have

currants or allspice (but I added some mace; I was a

little heavy handed with the spices) and I used candied fruit.

I think it's very versatile, especially if you are freezing it.

I like that it doesn't freeze solid so you can use it right out of the freezer.

I plan to make more as I am sure we are going to be

using to use lots of it! Ps: I was having trouble formatting,

sorry this looks weird!

Back To School

I have been feeling really down lately because we're poor. I had hoped to make a big market trip to several markets today but when I checked the bank account and saw how low it was, I wanted to find a corner and cry. It has been hard with the kids in school, the extra expense of that, the extra expense of the car, the $625+ insurance bill that's overdue and other things. I didn't want to complain in my main blog because all my family reads it but I don't think this one is as well read. This at a time when I want to invest in healthy food, an investment of health and well being.

It was easy to fall into the trap of buying cheap snacky foods for the kids lunches. They don't take enough time to eat since they want to play so I want things that they can eat quickly. I have been sending thermoses filled with soup or pasta since I know how nice it is to have something hot at school. But I have also been sending snacky food that I want to replace with homemade, wholesome goodies.

I haven't been feeling like doing much this week so I haven't been making much good to eat. I want to start though. I sure can't complain I don't have time anymore.

I had a great farmers market week! We went to the Thursday market in Tusket. There I got two huge bunches of green onions (I am going to make salted onions with these), two bags of delicious organic tomatoes, some cucumbers, lettuce, a bag of carrots (little ones) and some other things we must have eaten and I spent less than $10! All organic, something I couldn't do at that price in a grocery store.

This morning, I got 11lbs of turnip, real turnip not rutabagas like they sell in the store, for $3! One of them was 5lbs! (I got three, $1 each) I also got a few heads of garlic, 2lbs of ground beef, swiss chard and a big bag of salad greens, all organic! This came to about $10 as well. Then we went to Wallace Brothers where we picked a huge basket of apples, which was about 35 or so lbs for only $7! They were soo good, so fresh and crisp, yumm! We ate a ton in the car, I"m surprised we don't all have belly aches, lol! Then we went to the Belliveaus Farmers Market but it was so cold there were hardly any vendors there. I did get to try some chicken fricot. I'll have to try to make it some day. At the Comeau's Farm Market, I got two big english cukes, a big bunch of bananas, a bag of parsnips, a half peck of pears ($1!), 3 packs of natural bacon, a package of Fox Hill Cheese and slushies for the three kids for about $18.

So we have a lot of food around the house, all local and natural. I love eating like this. I must admit it is not really easy for me. I want to eat bad but I know for the sake of our budget and health, I need to eat good food. I want my kids to grow up liking it and appreciating it. They are so picky that it's hard. I must find a way.

My struggles for this week will be:

- cutting down the junk in the kids lunches and replacing it with more nourishing food.

-cooking more from scratch.

-preserving some foods, probably with dehydrating and some fridge pickling

-using what we have on hand and eating down the freezer so we have room

-doing some baking/cooking for the freezer to have some stuff on hand when I don't feel like baking or cooking

-using food up before it goes bad (this is really hard; I had to throw out a lot of good food gone bad because it got shoved to the back of the fridge)

It will be a challenge but something that I need to work on.

Sunday Random Ramblings

I think I am finally wearing Mark down about getting a side or quarter beef. I showed him a visual and compared the price to other areas and it is a steal of a deal.

I have also been learning more about untraditional root cellaring. I have always had a vision of building a cold room in our basement. How I plan it is to build it out of cardboard and attach it to one of the basement windows, which would be open a little to let the cold air in during the winter. I would have a heavy flap over what would be the entrance so I could go in to get stuff out. I never tried because I wondered if I could actually get it to work. I will attempt it if I can find enough cardboard. I know real root cellars or cold rooms get their coolness from being inside the earth. Our basement gets pretty warm because the apartment heating/hot water pipes run through it (not just ours but our neighbors too since we're all on the same ones). I have read accounts of where some people would just dig a deep hole in the ground and cover it with straw and just reach in over winter to take things out if they couldn't build a proper cellar/cool room.

I am going to try the carrots in sawdust again, as well as turnip. From what I read, wrapping apples, potatoes and winter squash in newspaper is supposed to help their longevity (potatoes are cheap enough over winter I won't worry about long term storage unless I get a 50lbs bag). I worry about the newsprint though. I have metal racks I am going to put them on. When I tried wooden before, they rotted pretty quickly (but that too may of been because it was too warm down there). Trial and error. I need to learn so we can eat better and more locally. It is something I really feel I need to do!

I keep talking to Mark about how I want to get the junk out of our home but it's so hard. It really is an addiction. We are all losing because we are all gaining more weight, even my skin and bones son is getting quite pudgy. Convenience food is easy but it adds up in cost, not just the price on the shelf. I could easily nourish my family for less as long as I put the time into it. When school starts, I will have more time. I hate that I found it so hard when the kids were around but I just have no focus. When they're around, I find it hard to get things done. Don't know why. Plus it's easier to just throw something quick on because we get busy and forget about making meals.

This is going to change! I have been trying but it really is hard for me.

Hurricane Earl passed through over the weekend. It didn't hit us hard. The only thing I didn't like about it was that they didn't have the farmer's market this weekend. I was planning on getting some things too. Hopefully this coming week! We did go to the Tusket market on Thursday. We didn't buy anything except soap. It was very busy and I am always shy about asking how much things are since most don't price things. I need to get over that.

Last night I got a few packs of fresh haddock and can't wait to enjoy them! We'll have one today and the rest I wrapped in foil for the freezer.

Well, enough ramblings for now. I will update soon about our Eat Atlantic Challenge day :)

Eat Atlantic Day

If you live in the Maritimes, please consider participating in Eat Atlantic Day challenge on September 2nd. It is a day where you pledge to eat only Atlantic produced foods on that day. It is a great way to think about what you are eating and a jumping point to eating more local food all of the time.

I have been coming up with our menu for the day.

Breakfast: Sunshine Pancakes from Speerville Mill in New Brunswick made with local milk and eggs and NS butter. This will be topped with maple syrup and/or wild blueberry syrup, maybe sprinkled with maple sugar, all from Atlantic Maple.

Lunch: Cavendish french fries from PEI with ketchup I will make from Fred Kingsbury tomatoes with all local ingredients.

Supper: Valley chicken, valley squash, valley carrots with valley honey, mashed potatoes from the valley and baked valley apples (yes, the valley has the best produce, lol!).

Snacks may be Scotsburn ice cream (Pictou county), dulse (Digby co) valley apples or baby carrots from Berwick.

That sounds pretty good to me!

Healthy Cookies

I have mentioned I am on the look out for recipes I can make that are good for the kids lunches when they go to school. I came across a recipe that is a winner! I found it here. They are called healthy cookies and they appear to be very versatile. They were very easy to make and we love them! They are egg free, dairy free and can be gluten free. They are also added sugar free but I put some honey in them. If I take a picture, I will add it here.

So here is the recipe:

Nikki's Healthy Cookie Recipe

3 large, ripe bananas, well mashed (about 1 1/2 cups)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup coconut oil, barely warm - so it isn't solid (or alternately, olive oil)
2 cups rolled oats
2/3 cup almond meal
1/3 cup coconut, finely shredded & unsweetened
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon fine grain sea salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
6 - 7 ounces chocolate chips or dark chocolate bar chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, racks in the top third.

In a large bowl combine the bananas, vanilla extract, and coconut oil. Set aside. In another bowl whisk together the oats, almond meal, shredded coconut, cinnamon, salt, and baking powder. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir until combined. Fold in the chocolate chunks/chips.The dough is a bit looser than a standard cookie dough, don't worry about it. Drop dollops of the dough, each about 2 teaspoons in size, an inch apart, onto a parchment (or Silpat) lined baking sheet. Bake for 12 - 14 minutes. I baked these as long as possible without burning the bottoms and they were perfect - just shy of 15 minutes seems to be about right in my oven.

Makes about 3 dozen bite-sized cookies.

Indian Eggplant Recipe from Sonia (Baingan Bhurtha) – A Vegetarian Recipe You Will Love! | Kelly the Kitchen Kop

Indian Eggplant Recipe from Sonia (Baingan Bhurtha) – A Vegetarian Recipe You Will Love! | Kelly the Kitchen Kop (click link for recipe)

Ok I am totally stealing this picture from Kelly The Kitchen Kop because otherwise I may forget where it is and this looks very yummy!! I will be trying this soon because I have an eggplant in the fridge that I need to use ASAP!

I will be back soon to write about our trip and our food adventures with that.

Want to Change

I really want to change what we eat. I want to change how we eat. I think about it a lot. Then there is the issue of the food that we store and the amount of money we have to spend.

Catch 22.

With the kids going to school in the fall, I will have more time on my hands to cook and prepare foods. My question is, will I want to? I love reading real food and nourishing food blogs. They make it sound so easy. I could do it for me but I also want to do it for my family. Mark is the hardest sell. The kids are the pickiest. I would hate to spend a lot of money on nourishing food only to fall back on junk again. I have been restraining myself from buying but it can be just so cheap, easy and I hate to say it...good!

So I am still working out in my mind what I want to do about food in our family. I will still share recipes here that may not be so nourishing or even healthy but I hope the trend will swing towards what my core food beliefs are.

I asked the people in charge of the farmer's market is there was any talk of a WAP chapter in Yarmouth. I haven't heard back but I would volunteer help. I couldn't afford a $50 membership right now but maybe in a few months or after Christmas. I hate that money is what holds us back in so many things.

As of right now, I'm planning on getting a half share in the CSA, a quarter beef (not sure from whom yet) and half a pig, pastured if I can sell DH on it. I am trying to find egg sources but they get snapped up so fast. Raw milk is illegal, although I know some places who sell organic raw milk cheese and yogurt (2 hours away though). I can't find shares.

I am running through it in my mind but money is especially tight right now because we just bought the car, we took a big vacation and Mark got a speeding ticket. Tomorrow we are going on our 10th anniversary overnight temple trip and I plan on making a lot of farm market stops :).

I am sure it will all come together.

Donut Muffins? Yum!

I was looking around for recipes that I thought would be good to make for the kids lunches and came across this recipe . Sure sounded like a winner to me! Note to self, learn to take better food pictures!

It took a while for me to get around to making it. When the kids saw it, they knew they would love it. So last night while making supper, I whipped up a batch. They are very easy to make. Shaylee did a lot of the work. They were done by the time we finished supper. I finished them up and tried them. MMmmmmmm!! Very good! Yummy, donut texture, sweet but not too sweet but it had a different taste that I could not put my finger on....kind of spicy but I thought it was just the nutmeg and cinnamon.

Later when I was putting everything away, I realized I put CUMIN in instead of cinnamon, lol! Yeah, that would account for that spicy taste. I used my cinnamon sugar shaker to coat the tops so it still had that cinnamon taste but despite the mix up in spices, they were still good. It was a good reminder to relabel my spices as the letters were wearing off which resulted in the mix up and I was so harried making supper and helping Shaylee get the muffins put together that I didn't even think to smell or double check before tossing it in.

So I linked the site but here is a text copy of the recipe with a couple of my notes added in.

Muffins that Taste Like Donuts
from lemanda on Tasty Kitchen

for the muffins:

1 3/4 cup All-Purpose Flour
1 1/2 teaspoon Baking Powder
1/2 teaspoon Salt
1/2 teaspoon Nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon Cinnamon (NOT cumin, lol!)
1/3 cup Oil (I used olive oil)
3/4 cup White Sugar
1 whole Egg
3/4 cup Milk

for the topping:

1/4 cup Butter
1/3 cup White Sugar
1 Tablespoon Cinnamon

Grease one standard size muffin pan.

Combine flour, baking powder, salt, nutmeg and cinnamon. Combine oil, sugar, egg and milk. Add dry ingredients and stir only to combine. Fill standard sized muffin tin with the batter, using a scant 1/4 cup per muffin (note from Carla: I used a silicone muffin pan so they would pop right out after)

Bake at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes. Meanwhile, melt the butter in a bowl. Combine the white sugar with the cinnamon in another bowl. Shake muffins out while still hot. Dip muffins in butter, then into the sugar/cinnamon mix (note from Carla: I just spread the butter on top and sprinkled my cinnamon sugar on top). Let cool. Enjoy!

Makes 1 dozen.

Loving this time of the year

I feel bad that I have no pictures to post. I am really loving this time of the year. Lots of cheap local food and lots of free veggies from the gardens of our families. I have bags of string beans in the freezer, along with all our blueberries. I have a pile of cukes that I plan to make into pickles.

I found some very yummy grass fed beef at the farmer's market that is only $2.50 a pound! It was so lean, it had no fat at all on it. I made it into hamburger and gravy and 1 pound was enough for two and a half meals (half because I made a sandwich for a snack; the kids don't like hamburger and gravy but Mark and I ate enough for two). I had to add lots of water to be able to make gravy and it was delish!! On Saturday I am going to ask if they sell beef by the side or quarter.

They are starting CSA's in our town! Community Supported Agriculture is something I have been wanting to support, unfortunately right now, it will still have to be a dream as it's kind of expensive. I may look into a half share though. From the news article :"One full share (vegetables only) will provide a family of four and cost $680 for 17 weeks. Meats and eggs can be selected in their premium full shares packages at a cost of $1,400 for 17 weeks. Half shares are also available for both."

Tonight for supper, we had a beef roast cooked all day in the slow cooker with some montreal steak seasoning on top and onions (Red and White claims their beef is local but I'm not 100% sure). It was served with garden fresh green beans and the driest squash I've had in ages. I love squash! If someone in my family says it's "Good and dry" you know it's the best! Fred Kingsbury usually has the best squash so it was a welcome treat, especially slathered with butter.

I am going back on a lower carb diet but I am not going to hold back on fresh fruits and veggies. They are just too good when they are so fresh. It would be a shame not to enjoy them while they are at their peak of goodness since through the winter veggies can be a bit boring and I am trying to be more seasonal in my eating. I hope to preserve a lot this summer/fall through alternative methods. I definitely could use a bigger freezer (although I don't regret giving our other one away).

Orange Blossom Honey Cake with Fresh Blueberries — Zoe Bakes

Orange Blossom Honey Cake with Fresh Blueberries — Zoe Bakes

Yummm...I made this cake yesterday and it is very yummy! Actually, I made the cake to bring to a potluck today and a cupcake so I could taste it. It was very good! I never used mace before and it had a nice taste to it so I imagine I'll be using more of it. I did make a couple of changes; I used all whole wheat. It didn't even occur to me until after I made it. I also tried using half olive oil instead of butter since I only had half a cup out. Won't make that mistake again! It overpowered the honey but it was still good. I also used a 9x13 baking dish since my recent bundt cakes haven't turned out so well and I couldn't afford for this not to turn out. I ended up baking it at a lower temperature the second half.

The kids and I picked 14lbs of blueberries the other day and on our vacation, we picked up a gallon of honey even though we have 3/4 of a 7lbs bucket left. Yumminess! Plus these two things go very well together :)

I haven't said anything in my main family blog yet, but my Facebook friends already know this. The kids are going to public school in the fall. The reasons are many. It will be hard to afford lunch and snack foods (their school doesn't have a cafeteria) so I plan to be making a lot more by scratch.

I will be posting more recipes here so I don't lose them, both successes and failures. I also want to try harder to eat more local food. I will be working on alternative food preservation (other than canning) since a lot of my past canning efforts were ruined plus from what I have read, there is a lot of nutrition loss with canning due to the heat processing. I am looking forward to having more free time to do this.

I am bound and determined to at least get a quarter of an organically raised local beef (they're still $2.50 a pound but will probably go up soon since they have finally been certified organic. I am debating between a local side of pork or a local pastured side of pork (as in advertised as pastured), the difference in price being $100. Maybe I should try to contact the farmer of the one not claiming to be pastured to see how his pigs are raised. I once read of how some cities fix their garbage problems by getting pigs to eat it. Gross! I was pretty turned off by pork for a while after reading that.

So we will need to eat down our freezer to have room for this. I want to stop buying convenience foods, which take up a lot of room. One of the blessings of having the kids in school is I will have a lot of free time to do the cooking I have always wanted to do.

Off Track

I kind of fell off track with this blog again. It's too bad. It has been a delicious time of year. I take the kids weekly to the Farmer's Market . There are always lots of goodies there. I let the kids get a treat and they always go to this one lady who is selling cupcakes and donuts. Last week, Shaylee dropped her donut and the lady gave her another one for free. Everyone is so nice there :)

I lucked into a dozen eggs last week. Someone was dropping off a load just as we got there. They go so fast and we never get there early. If you look at the carton, one was a monster egg in comparison to the others. The carton would hardly close, lol! Ethan got to eat it for supper tonight :). My yolks were the darkest, but honestly, they weren't much darker than the eggs we get in the store. They were yummy though.

Last week we went to the Valley for an overnight trip. I think I hit every single farmers market there was, lol! Forsythe's, a couple Averys, Stirlings, Noggins Corner, Hennigars and a bunch that I can't even remember. We got lots of good food. It tastes so good when it's farm fresh. I am really appreciating fresh food this year.

Something good I made last night was I sliced a couple of little zucchini and the greens off a bunch of onions plus a handful of garlic scrapes. I sautéed it in butter and it smelled so creamy. I was going to add a can of tomatoes but it smelled so creamy that I just topped it with cheese and let it melt. It was so yummy and gooey good!

I bought some more beets with the greens and onions with the greens. I'll have to think of something creative to do with them :)

Monday Market Report

I am still hoping to do the Monday Meal Plan but I thought it would be a step in the right direction to have a Monday Market report. If I do my marketing on Monday morning, then it will start my week off with a full larder. Then in the summer, I can do the Farmers Markets on Saturday and that will be less to buy when I do my Monday Marketing (or I will be less tempted to buy in the store when I've already bought locally at the market).

I made three stops this morning. First was Dayton Fruit and Vegetable. There I picked up the following:

Spinach: $2.00

10lbs bag potatoes: $1.99

10lbs bags onions: $2.97

cabbage: $0.67

sweet potatoes: $3.28 ($0.79/lbs)

garlic: $0.48

2 small english cukes: $1.50

Bananas: $1.30

Total: $14.17

Then I went to Sobeys. There I got:
1.5kg bag of blueberries (craving!): $8.49

1 container natural yogurt (need for the cultures): $2.49

8 cans coconut milk: $5.25!! (it was signed wrong so I got one free. It was regular $3.29, ringing in at $2.50 but it was signed 2/$1.50)

Total: $16.23

I went to Superstore next. I wasn't going to but I knew they had some things I wanted:

2L Mac Nut Frozen yogurt (I told the kids I'd get it for them to try): $4.00

2lbs mussels: $3.00

small carton sauerkraut: $1.59

900g bag brown rice: $2.39

pack "natural" cheese strings: $3.00 (with coupon)

3pack large english cukes: $3.00

omega eggs: $1.99 (half off)
free range, farm eggs: $2.39 (half off)

4L Cooks milk: $6.93

Total (including cents off for using cloth bags): $28. 14

So $58.54 isn't too bad. We have a lot on hand and a lot of this will last longer than one week. I got mostly whole foods so it was a good trip in my opinion. I am seeing some stew in my very near future as well as some blueberry smoothies. I have really been craving veggies lately and need to get some more greens growing.

I hope to later get a meal plan up. I have a lot to do from our trip including lots of laundry and dishes, plus even though we left with the apartment clean, it seemed to spawn filth overnight.

Aw, Honey, Honey

I was up early and thought I would write. We are in Dartmouth right now and I've been up for a while. We had an interesting day yesterday on our way up. It was raining buckets and often dark. We made a few stops. I got a couple of big bags of apples (one red delicious and the other crispin) and parsnips from Noggin's Corner. We got lost looking for honey. Mmmmm, yummy raw honey. I wanted to get our bucket filled since it was cheaper but the man there seemed kind of rushed to get lunch so we just bought a bucket off the table at Foote Family Farm. I guess the kids explored a little bit outside and saw the hives and other farm stuff but I didn't (otherwise I would of got some pictures). Since we felt like we were intruding, we kind of hurried along. The kids were so fascinated with the honey they wanted to play with it. Not the honey, but the bucket to pretend they had a honey store. While I was out, Ethan managed to accidentally pour out about 1.5 or so cups of honey. I wasn't too impressed by that.

In the city, we stopped at the Real Canadian Wholesalers on Connaught Street in Halifax. Wow, I can see why metro saints can build their storage on the cheap! There was so much stuff but we contained ourselves, lol! Dad's car has a much smaller trunk than ours. I could not believe milk was only $5.29! That's about $2+ cheaper than the price at Sobeys home (I never pay that price though). If we had a portable cooler with us, we would of been stocking up on a lot of stuff but it's probably a good thing we didn't. We did buy a 20kg bag of whole wheat flour and managed to only pay $7.50! (there was a tiny hole in the bag so half off). I also stocked up on coconut milk and some other things. I wanted to get more flour but the 20kg bags of regular Robin Hood weren't much cheaper than what we have home and as I mentioned, we have limited trunk space.

Last night Mark took the kids out for supper while I was at the temple. When I was done, I was starving and was craving veggies. I went to Sobeys and man the salads and fresh to go foods were awfully expensive. I went looking at the frozen foods and it took about three passes through the frozen dinners to find any that had even a minute amount of veggies. I ended up getting a General Tao Chicken entree and a small sweet potato to cook in the microwave. I really wanted asparagus but I didn't have anything to put it on to heat up (although I after thought I could of used the empty food tray).

Today, among other things, we are planning to go to the Halifax Farmer's Market. I have heard that is an awesome experience and can't wait. I know there is local spinach growing and I am regretting not getting some in the valley. I am craving greens! Must be spring, lol!

How Much We'd Need For A Year

I deleted the original post because it wasn't formatting correctly. Visit http://lds.about.com/library/bl/faq/blcalculator.htm to find out how much food storage you would need to sustain life for a year (we are a family of 4, entered all as 7+ years old). It is rather eye opening thinking of so much food at once. I know it would be bad for us. Since we can't can our dry goods at a cannery, most of that would go bad before it got used. Trust me, I'm in a situation where I got too much of what we never used simply to have storage and now I will be giving most of it away.

I love how the church emphesizes store what you eat and eat what you store. They focus more on just having storage and not so much wheat, wheat, wheat now. Everyone is at a different place with their storage. 1200lbs of grains, yeesh! What are we, cattle? lol! It is hard building storage when most of what you eat is fresh (or try to). That is why gardening and preserving skills are very important to home and food storage. I hope to sharpen my skills a little more this summer :)

Traditional Foods in a Nutshell

Traditional Foods in a Nutshell

Great link, I had to share it. I am already struggling with eating clean being Easter weekend and all the treats. Why does every holiday have to become an excuse to eat?? Baby steps is what I keep telling myself. We can't fully expect ourselves to fully delve into a new way of anything without priming ourselves a bit first. I have been preparing but I've had a very hard week and am coming into this with low mental and emotional reserves. Sadly, sometimes a bit of chocolate does make me feel a bit better, but only temporarily.

Then last night I made the family a pepperoni and a donair pizza. I could not resist having some donair pizza and it was soooo good (but such a bad idea for someone who is supposed to be avoiding wheat!). I need to learn to make my own donair meat as all my attempts have been flops. The last time I used very lean fresh from the pastured cow ground beef so I think it was simply too lean. You need good fatty meat for donair meat. Yum!

Pickles, I love Pickles

Real Food, My Way: Pickle FAQ

Yes, I love pickles but I have never been able to make them. I just wanted to mark my spot for when cucumbers are in season and I can attempt to make some using traditional methods. I also found the following sweet pickle recipe from the link above and I want to make sure I know where it is. How great to make pickles with honey instead of sugar! (note, these would not be probiotic, just yummy :) ).

Canned Sweet Pickle Slices, Sweetened with Honey

As noted, I haven't made these yet. I have bought the Strubbs lacto-fermented pickles. I thought they were good but Mark thought they tasted like an outhouse, lol! I guess when you're used to vinegar pickles, it is a bit of a taste adjustment. I am just trying to come up with more probiotic ideas that I like to help my gut heal.

Silly Me!

I thought the challenge started today but I guess it's tomorrow. I still haven't received a confirmation.

I made the bacon egg and avocado salad for lunch and it was pretty good. I made homemade dessing and didn't care for that but the rest was scrumptious! I may make it again soon as I have 3 ripe avocados.

I took a pack of chicken breasts out for supper. Not sure how I'm making them, probably just baked with some seasoning. I like mine spicy. I also have some asparagus that is calling my name. I'll make some baby potatoes for the rest of the family but I won't have any.

Day One

Today is day one of the big 28 day Real Food Challenge. It didn't start out well, lol! I was up early and hungry and for some odd reason, I was craving a hot dog. So I had an angus beef weiner (PC brand) and all was well. Except I remembered after I ate it what day it was. Ooops! I don't think processed weiners are acceptable in the real food realm. Oh well, learn from mistakes.

I boiled a bunch of eggs and am trying to think of what to have for the rest of the day. My stomach is feeling kind of dodgy now. I hope I'm not getting the stomach flu like everyone else seemed to had and is still making rounds. Still, I think I will make this bacon egg and avocado salad and if we don't eat it today, it will keep until tomorrow :).

I did clean out the fridge a bit. I got rid of some old stuff, artificially sweetened stuff and some things that I wasn't quite sure what of what they were. It made a lot more room. I have a big can of ketchup in there I need to put in smaller jars (I know, not nourishing food, but the kids don't want to give up their ketchup and I don't get the kind that has glucose/fructose).

I'll probably update more soon, frequently, lol! I haven't gotten the challenge of the day yet and I plan to write a lot. Part of the challenge is writing about it and I plan to do lots!