Changing Habits - What's in our Food...really

My husband and I are on a journey to change our food habits, for ourselves, for our children and hopefully instill lifelong changes in our children that they can carry to their own children some day.

It started with our move out of state and then it went to the idea of starting a garden which moved to wanting to provide for ourselves and be sustainable, live off the land and has now become us researching and digging deeper, getting more information from books, documentaries and finding more and more out about where our current food supply comes from and really how tainted it is for us.

Nothing can be changed over night. Change is slow, but it takes persistence to make change.

At our food co-op we have now opted to purchase all organic. Its a higher cost for less food. To give you an idea how un-popular it is, out of 80 participants, 4 purchased organic last week.  We also purchase organic home made wheat bread and tortilla's from our co-op- but plan to make all of our own very soon...

We watched a documentary on corn the other day and our daughter immediately went to the cupboards looking at all the labels, then to the fridge. I smiled thinking this is it- us making changes, discussing it out loud as a family will flow through to our children- to their children. If every family made changes the whole world one day could change for the better - one family at a time.

For our family, we are choosing to make everything possible home made...to eventually when we purchase land, grown everything we eat to provide for ourselves and truly know where it comes from. We have heard about and seen a documentary about 'plant based' diets and are looking into lessening our meat intake and going to grass-fed, organic, natural meat.

Here is a list of some documentaries we have found incredibly interesting, we don't want to force our opinion on anyone but for families to choose their own way and decide for themselves- knowledge is power.

All pictures courtesy of Amazon, you can find more info at Amazon- 

SNOW...First Weekend of December

We had a great weekend!  Weekend review...awards night, Christmas Parade and Santa, snow and the mountains!

4-H award night for the kids- they enjoyed getting dressed up for it!

The Christmas Parade was great on Saturday- the 4-H kids did such an awesome job on their float and both the kids had a great time ridding in in, although I'm not to sure my daughters rabbit 'Trophy' enjoyed the cold, windy weather. And Santa didn't come with his sleigh this parade, he came riding in on his...boat! Then we came home and lit a nice fire to warm up by.
Earlier that day we picked up our 'basket' from the co-op-  and made some pear-applesauce before my previous week's pears went bad- as the kids called it, we made 'papple-sauce'!

Yesterday we got into the holiday spirit even more with a trip to the Mountains where you can meet Santa, make crafts, drink cocoa and go on a hay ride...and this year the bonus was there was snow on the ground and the kids had a ball playing in it!!

After the snow trip we came home to a warm meal- yummy roast had been in the crock pot for the day with potato casserole and broccoli and cauliflower.  Warm meal, hot showers and then chocolate cookie making time! So proud, my daughter read the instructions and got out the supplies while she and her brother poured in the ingredients and mixed...and they turned out wonderful!

YUMMY

Easy Kid friendly recipe to make: Chocolate Chip Cookies:

3/4 c butter room temp

3/4 c brown sugar

1/4 c white sugar

1 egg

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup chocolate chips

350 for 10 minutes (mine took 12) and you are done! Our batch made 18 cookies.

Great first Weekend of December...next weekend...plans to decorate and get a tree and perhaps some more baking!

It's all about Food

I have to say I am obsessed with our crockpot! How I ever lived without it before I have no clue. And I've found I really am enjoying learning to cook and make things from scratch. I've always labeled myself as "I don't cook and therefore I'm not a good cook" - I'm on a mission to change that one meal or snack at a time!

A recent meal...French Dip Sandwiches with Home made coleslaw or as the recipe called it "Christmas Slaw" due to the colorful red bell's in it, turned out great- whenever the family loves something and wants seconds I consider that a major success!

4 lbs of beef chuck, 3 bay leaves, rosemary, 3/4 cup soy sauce, 2 cups beef broth, 1/2 cup water, salt, pepper and cook for 8 hours.  Slice the meat, we used it on french rolls then scoop up some broth for dipping!

 Simple Christmas Slaw: Half of one Red Bell chopped, 3 cups of Cabbage, Onion Powder, Salt, Pepper, Miracle Whip or you can use Mayo, vegetable oil and vinegar, mix it, taste it, done!

And then a fun cooking time with the kids- We made pretzels!

 Getting all of our ingredients ready....

 Letting the dough rise for 1 hour.

 They were boiled for 10 seconds on each side before they went into the oven for 15 minutes.

YUMM. The kids did such a good job rolling and twisting them into pretzels! And they tasted AWESOME, I wouldn't change a thing...except to make more since they take so long!