October Unprocessed-Week 1 Successes and Confessions

We are a full week into our October Unprocessed journey. Other than the cereal, it's really not too bad. Even my husband and stepson are managing. Our dinners haven't changed a whole lot, but we have learned a few things:

1. They are learning alternatives for syrup on their whole wheat pumpkin waffles such as natural peanut butter or honey. I don't like syrup, so I have just stuck with plain butter.

2. Nothing cures a salty snack craving like some fresh feta cheese!

3. My 16 year old stepson is fairly limited with his choices for lunch at school. I gave him the free pass on this one and told him he could eat as he thought was best. Most days, he is eating the regular lunch option, but is choosing fresh fruit as his sides. On the day they had hot dogs last week, he chose to only eat fruit, cheese and milk-skipping the hot dog completely.

4. After the first day, giving up my beloved Starbucks was much easier than I thought it would be. But, I did get a regular coffee from there today. I really can't see the point in a $3 cup of regular coffee, but I did it anyway because I needed the extra caffeine.

5. After a few days without artificial sweeteners, we really started noticing more natural sweet flavors. My husband and stepson both thought my regular homemade tomato sauce was sweet. It's the same recipe I've been using for years, but they just finally noticed how sweet the tomatoes are.

6. We found one brand of bacon that passes the kitchen test. Bacon makes the world a much happier place and it turns out I love BLTs! Who knew?

7. Chocolate chips-I read the ingredients on a bag of chocolate chips and realized they were out of the question. But, in my opinion, I could use unsweetened chocolate to make my own chocolate chips that would pass the "kitchen test". It was a tedious process, but it was worth it to have some chocolate chips to add in to whole wheat pumpkin bread. I should also mention that these were less "chip" and more "flake", but they served the purpose!

Chocolate "Chips"

1 bar unsweetened baking chocolate, broke into pieces
Honey
Vanilla
Dash of salt

Using a double boiler (or a glass bowl over a pan of boiling water because the second pan of your double boiler has mysteriously gone missing), slowly melt chocolate.

Stir in a dash of salt and honey to taste. I used about 2 heaping serving spoons full.

Remove from heat and stir in about a teaspoon of vanilla and spread on a silicone baking mat

I'm not sure why it looks lumpy in the picture-it was actually smooth. Anyway, refrigerate until set then cut into pieces, or break some pieces off as you need them.

I've used these in breads and snacks this past week and we really like them. My favorite way to use these is in greek yogurt with a drizzle of honey, a spoonful of peanut butter and topped with a few pieces of chocolate.

Now, time for my confessions

Over the weekend, I canned a ton of pears. I made pear sauce, pear butter and caramel pear jam. I ate a spoonful of the jam. It was delicious! I don't regret that decision.

While making ribs over the weekend, my barbecue sauce just didn't turn out quite right, so at the very end, I brushed some Sweet Baby Rays on them and stuck them under the broiler to get that sticky, sweet finish.

Our purpose in this journey is more about awareness than a strict 30 day change, so I don't mind a few stumbles along the way. My hope would be that on November 1, we don't dive into boxes of cereal and gallons of sweet tea, but we evaluate our choices every day and make smarter decisions going forward, focusing on whole, natural foods.

Pumpkin Donuts

Unprocessed October has started, and I'm already missing my Cheerios. But, these pumpkin donuts are coming close to making up for them!

I used the kids' Babycakes Donut Maker and their recipe. Instead of using canned pumpkin, I used some frozen, pureed squash leftover from last fall. It's a bit sweeter than canned pumpkin, but a great flavor. 

Since the donuts were a bit sweeter, I changed the topping a bit too. Instead of coating the whole thing with cinnamon and sugar, I brushed a little bit of melted butter on the tops and sprinkled a bit of cinnamon and sugar on the top of each one. That also keeps keep up with our goal of greatly reducing sugar. 

The donuts are so moist! It's kind of like a pudding cake. 

I can't eat donuts every morning for breakfast, but I could definitely stand to have these a few more times this month!

Crock Pot Oats

Yesterday was my first day of October Unprocessed. I was not looking forward to missing out on my cereal. One of my other favorite breakfasts is oatmeal-particularly steel cut oats. I never have time to make these in the morning, so I decided to pull out the small crock pot. I don't eat breakfast at home. I take it with me to work, so this was my chance to test out just how well my little thermos keeps foods warm. I opened these up 2 1/2 hours after I left the house and they were still steaming hot!

Ingredients

1 c steel cut oats

4 c water

1/2 c diced, frozen peaches

Combine all ingredients in small crock pot and cook on low for 8 hours. Yes, it really is that easy! I did have some issues with a thick layer of oats clumping up on the bottom of the crock pot, so if anyone knows how to prevent that, please let me know! Other than of course getting up in the middle of the night to stir them! 

I'm used to adding brown sugar to my oatmeal, but I decided to skip that this time. It's an adjustment, but the sweetness of the peaches really helps. 

October Unprocessed Challenge

While perusing the interwebs a couple of weeks ago, I stumbled upon a challenge for the month of October. Unprocessed October

At first, I didn't think it would be that much of a challenge since we do a lot of cooking at home and don't buy a whole lot of packaged foods. So I read their definition of "unprocessed" and signed up. Basically, if you can make it in your own kitchen with whole food, readily available ingredients, then it's unprocessed. (Not that you have to make it yourself, but the fact that you could). With that being said, we are allowing some exceptions.

1. Milk. Regular pasteurized milk and milk products. I don't buy into his organic, grass fed, raw milk thinking. I'm happy for him that he has that choice, but it's not going to happen in our house!

2. Sugar. But, I do plan on reducing sugar as much as possible, and substituting honey or sorghum syrup where I can. But there are some things that just really have to have the sugar.

3. White flour. But, I plan to be at least 75% whole wheat flour.

4. Rice and other grains. I'm pushing for as unprocessed as possible, but I'm not going to be super picky.

5. Chocolate. I'm avoiding all sweetened chocolate, but cocoa is going to be ok.

 Then I started thinking about things I was going to have to fully give up.

1. My beloved Starbucks. It's fall, which means my two favorites are on the menu again-Pumpkin Spice Latte and Salted Caramel Mocha. I know I could make my own PSL-I've seen the pins on Pinterest. But, it's not the same. I've tried it and was horribly disappointed. On the bright side, I'll be saving $5 a day!

2. Cheerios. It's my favorite cereal-just the plain Cheerios. I eat breakfast every morning and I usually try to switch things up and rotate in some oatmeal or leftover french toast or muffins from the weekend, but it looks like the month of October is going to be cereal free.

3. Kraft Mac and Cheese. Yes, the powdered cheese-ish stuff. It's one of my guilty pleasures, especially with some hot dogs added in. I know I could buy some all natural version of it, but it wouldn't be the same without all the artificial dyes and flavors.

4. Caramel Machiatto Coffee Mate-I guess I will have to switch to the Natural Bliss line again. Although, I'm not 100% sure what they mean by "Natural Flavors" listed in the ingredients. For my sanity, we're going to say the natural bliss line counts.

5. Green Box Pasta. That's not the actual name of it. It's one of the Pasta Roni varieties. I think it's angel hair pasta with herbs-but it comes in a green box, so we just call it green box pasta. Whatever it is, it's delicious. I think the kids may be more disappointed than me on this one though.


I'm sure I'll stumble across more processed foods throughout the month that I won't want to give up, but that's what makes it a challenge, right?

Menu Planning

A few weeks ago, we decided to try to plan our dinners in advance. It seems like everything went crazy around the end of summer and I needed some help!

In June, my husband got custody of his son, which means we have a 16 year old living with us full time, instead of just weekends. In July, I started a new job. In August said 16 year old started his sophomore year of high school and joined FFA. In September, drivers' ed started. Life has just been crazy and honestly, the simple task of deciding what was for dinner was the tipping point. So, my step son and I decided to sit down and create a few weeks worth of menus. One of his weekly chores is cooking dinner one night a week. I let him pick what he cooks, but that's just me transferring that decision on him. It's not any easier for him to decide. With our meals planned in advance, neither of us has to deal with that decision on a daily basis and we have less food waste.

Coming up on week 5, we have learned some lessons. For the most part, it has worked out well. We have had a couple of substitutions and one night where we scrapped it all together and picked up take out. But we had some successes as well. Our best week was the week of Labor Day.

Monday: Chicken wings, potato skins with bacon, green onions, and cheese, broccoli
Leftovers saved: inside of potatoes, bacon crumbles, green onions
Tuesday: Loaded potato soup (using the scooped out insides of the potato skins and the bacon crumbles)
Wednesday: Chicken leg quarters, steamed carrots, egg noodles
Leftovers saved: Chicken, carrots
Thursday: Roasted Turkey Thighs, corn on the cob, green beans
Leftovers saved: Turkey, corn, green beans
Friday: Chicken/Turkey Pot Pie using the leftover chicken, turkey, carrots, green beans and corn

This worked for us because it was a very simple grocery list and ingredients were used in multiple meals. It also allowed us to re-purpose leftovers and make them more interesting.

Other weeks were less successful, but this was a learning experience for us and now we're looking at planning the next six weeks. I'm also going to teach my stepson the miracles of the crock pot! I see meals of beef roasts in our future, and using leftovers for Beef Manhattans the next day.

Garden 2014

Now that this year's garden is wrapping up, I can look back on the good and the bad from this year.

We really expanded our growing area this year, easily doubling what we've done in the past.

Things really took off and we had lots of veggies!

As it turns out, my husband really likes fresh peas! 

And even though I swore I would keep up on the weeds this year, I didn't. 

We still got a good harvest and learned that carrots are not one of our favorite things to dig up. 

I canned, froze and dehydrated a lot! I also picked up new recipes along the way.

I already miss the flourishing garden, but I'm ready to start planning for next year!

Chicken Math is Real

Shortly after we moved last year, we decided to get chickens. We started out with five and a small coop. I had heard about this theory of "Chicken Math" that basically says you may think you're going to only have 5, then it becomes a little bit of an obsession and next thing you know, you have 20 running around, but I didn't really buy into it. I mean, why would I need more than 5 chickens?

I don't know if it's the fresh eggs or the hours of joy watching them run around, but somehow, chickens seem to just appear. Usually at our house, this happens during an innocent trip to Rural King. We go to buy feed, or fencing, or a new pair of boots, and we end up leaving with chicks because someone (usually me) decides life just can't go on without 5 more baby chicks in our flock, or our flock isn't complete without buff orpingtons, and sometimes, you get this crazy idea that it would be good to learn how to raise and butcher some cornish crosses.

We've learned a lot this past year and a half. Like some birds are attention hogs and like to photo-bomb their coop mates.

 And sometimes the antics of said photo bomber confuse the autofocus on your camera

And even though you envision all of the chickens happily frolicking around, there's always one group that refuses to play along.

Then you find yourself building a chicken mansion and you finally accept that Chicken Math is real

Then you look around and realize the original run intended for just a handful of chickens isn't big enough anymore.

So you take down the fences and decide to give them the entire backyard.

And you wonder how life was ever complete without this view from your dining room window!