Apples to Applesauce

One of our 2 apple trees had the best harvest we've had so far.  We did find a disease on one of them and google told us it was a disease from an evergreen tree in our front yard.  We will have to address it aggressively next year with pesticides in order to prevent the problem again, but for now, don't they look yummy?

After hours and hours of peeling, coring and cubing, I made 3 big bowls of applesauce which have already been totally devoured by the Fish Sticks.

Homemade applesauce always reminds me of my Mimi Blair.  She kept a freezer full of it!  YUM!

Real Foods Month Recap

I apologize for not reporting well about our Real Foods month.  Vacation kind of put it on the back burner.

We are wrapping up the month and if you asked the Fish Sticks, they would scream and cheer for December to come so they can have the "old foods" back.   Junk food is what my son asked for this a.m.

Like I told you before, the breakfast and lunch menu were really the only big change in our house.  For the most part, we make healthy day-to-day choices.  I had made a chart for the Fish Sticks of all options for breakfast and lunch.  I even took a photo of it to show you, but it must have gotten erased because I can't find it anywhere.  I just wanted to show the Fish Sticks that although the pantry looked different (and empty) there were many options for them to make for these meals.

For breakfasts, I kept homemade yogurt stocked with Overnight Granola or a new recipe my friend shared called Peanut Butter Granola.  Fresh fruit, frozen berries and dried fruit were added.  I made pancakes, waffles, muffins and coffee cake all from fresh milled wheat flour and used sucanat, honey, honey granules, stevia and real maple syrup only as our sweeteners.  This required me to plan ahead a bit and sometimes I would make breakfast the night before.  Oatmeal with all the trimmings was a big favorite too.

Lunches were much more difficult.  We continued with sandwiches on fresh milled whole wheat bread but I purchased natural peanut butter and fruit spread.  The Fish Sticks did not like the fruit spread but ate it anyway.  No chips except for tortilla chips which are only corn meal, oil and salt.  We got some with a more healthy oil and ate them with homemade salsa that I canned last year.  Fruit as usual or vegetables cut up with hummus.  For snacks I made popcorn on the stove top with olive oil or coconut oil, homemade granola bars, nuts, or any of the things I've already mentioned above.

Being on the go made things more difficult.  Basketball games and wrestling matches were a challenge.  I had to be prepared and made advanced plans in order to prevent lots of whiney, hungry Fish Sticks.

We did have a normal Thanksgiving and celebrated a birthday a couple of times, so we weren't totally pure about the changes.  My kids got candy here and there at school and were invited to several parties, partaking of whatever was offered them.  I just wanted you to know that we weren't 100% for the entire month.

As for my budget, I didn't notice a huge difference.  At the middle of the month, I felt like it would actually help my budget because I had so much healthy choices stocked up through my Bulk Natural Foods, Bread Beckers and gardening.  I didn't buy every thing organic but tried to get the things I felt were important to purchase organic (like kale and lettuce).

As I head out to the grocery store today to shop for the month of December, my pantry is empty - honestly though that is nothing new to the end of the month situation in our house.  What I realized is that I can push my family a little bit more to make healthier choices.  Doing without white sugar and white flour is totally doable in our house.  I can bake more with milled wheat flour and use natural sweeteners more.  If we are going to be on the go, I need to plan well in advance.

Last, some of you might know that I have a love affair with chocolate and my recipe for chocolate chip cookies can't be beat.  I cringe to think of eating wheat chocolate chip cookies without white flour, white and brown sugar and Crisco.  Sounds like cardboard cookies to me.  BUT...I tried a recipe for chocolate chip cookies in my Bread Beckers cookbook and we all loved them.  They were totally wonderful and I was shocked!

So it can be done - changing your family to healthier choices - without breaking your budget, without killing the spirits of everyone in the house, without adding unthinkable amounts of kitchen prep time to you, the Mama.  If you would love to make some healthier changes, my advice is to take baby steps.  Pick one challenge a month that you want to change.  Start small.  You don't have to change everything overnight - that would be a recipe for disaster in my house.  Do what you can and know you are improving the health of your family, even in the baby steps.

Real Food - Real Complaints

It seems like it's been much longer than 10 days since we started eating only real foods.  I will admit that once or twice for the sake of convenience, I had to throw out a few processed things to my family.  This week the $2 Wacky Pack at Sonic sounded pretty good to 2 little Fish Sticks who had been shopping with their Mama all morning.

Here's some of my feedback in bullet points thus far:

** It does require a bit more planning - especially for breakfast.  I've been spending time in the evening throwing together muffins, biscuits, etc.

** Packed lunches are the biggest challenge.  My Fish Sticks say they miss the more snacky things like chips or pretzels.  They miss the variety of items in their lunch boxes also.

** Suppers haven't changed much at all.  Some things have made it better like homemade salad dressing and fresh parmesan instead of processed.

** Breakfast is so much more healthy.  I have been making 1/2 gallon of homemade crockpot yogurt every other day to keep up with their yogurt intake.  We've been making homemade granola and eating them together with berries or fresh fruit. 

** Natural sweeteners taste just as good as processed and in moderation are tons better for us.

So far, no regrets from this Mama.  I can already see some permanent changes that I will make after my challenge is over.  Anyone else doing this and loving or hating it?  Any drop outs?

Day 1

The Halloween candy is put up and we are geared up to start Day 1 of our month of "real foods."

For breakfast, I made Lorrie's Lazy Granola the day before.  (Recipe coming tomorrow)

The Fish Sticks ate it over plain yogurt with honey and I had it with some milk with sliced bananas on the top. 

 For snack we had 3 slices of blocked sharp cheddar with 4-5 Triskets.

Lunch was natural peanut butter with fruit spread on whole grain bread, hummus with carrots and grapes.

Side note - I bought these things at Aldi and although the peanut butter and fruit spread have a small amount of sugar, they are free of corn syrup and about 1/4 the price of the 100% natural things I found at Kroger.  It was worth the purchase to save the money.

For supper, I have pintos brewing in the crock pot for my favorite refried beans, ground turkey with taco seasonings, and all the trimmings for a Mexican buffet.

So far so good, if I can get my 5 year old to understand "Mommy said NO HALLOWEEN CANDY!"  :)

Gearing Up for Real Foods

I went grocery shopping Monday for my "Month of Real Food."  Her goal for a family of 4 was $150-$175 a week.  My family is twice that size, but I knew that I couldn't double her budget.  Looking over her menus, I saw that many of the grains and legumes she mentioned, we have in bulk already.  I didn't go completely organic but bought my 39 cent can of tomato paste at Aldi instead of the over $1 can she got organic.  I also realized that her menu would starve my family so I added some veggies here and there and got extra fruit to keep for snacks.  I tried to shop for the first 2 weeks so I don't have to grocery shop every week - I tend to spend more if I do that.  I spent $235 and got everything I could at Aldi and the rest at Kroger.  I also added a few things in there like a bag of baby pumpkins for the kids to paint, a few pre-real foods month treats like caramel dip and caramel apples, but other than that, I stuck right to the plan.

It starts Thursday and my kids seem to be on board except when I told them that all Halloween candy would be put up.  OUCH!  (That goes for their mama as well - so hold me to that!)

Funny how empty my pantry looks after I just spent $235!  No crackers.  No cereal.  No chips or pretzels.  Nothing but potatoes, onions, brown rice and beans.

I'm excited!  I hope some of you are in with me.  I'll be checking back with you to let you know how we're holding up and if we are shaking from sugar withdrawals.  :)