Hummus

Homemade hummus: We bought some dry beans from the farmers market so we started with the dry beans instead of the beans in the can. The process took a lot longer because we had to cook the beans first. But, we supported local agriculture and it was nice to see our little beans plump up. The onion and garlic we added were from the farm, but the oil and tahini we bought at the store. The first time we made hummus we split the beans and Jamie and I each made our own. Of course his was better.
Garbanzo beans are not one of our staple food items, but I want to try to incorporate it more in our diet.

Jamie and I took a huge salad to a get together of friends. And, we each had it for lunch over the next few days. All the veggies were from Harmony Ridge Farm where Jamie works. The dressing was store bought - but hey, we were close to being all local and organic.

Purple Breakfast Scramble

Jamie is the cook in our family. But he was gone for the week, so I was left to my own devices. I made an egg scramble with local eggs, and veggies from the farm where Jamie works - carrots, beets, and onions mixed in with the eggs over blue potatoes.
The meal was pretty monotone in color as the beets turned my scrambled eggs purpleish and I used blue potatoes. But,  It was yummy, if I do say so myself.

Taking a Break from the Car

Bike - check. Helmet - check. Bike Lock - check. Leg strength to push myself around on this thing - I'm getting there.

I've started riding my bike to work at the school. Today was day two and I felt a lot more confident than I did yesterday. I don't have the best bike in the world and I'm not the greatest biker (a man in his 60s went zooming past me on his bike today while I was huffing and puffing). But, it's better on the environment (and better on the bank account).
We really do live in a great location to forgo the car. We can walk (or bike now) to the library, the grocery store and the pet store. We've walked to these places a number of times, but many times we get in the car because it's easier and we're a bit lazy.

Now, I am trying to be more intentional about opting not to use the car. Every little bit helps, right :)

Chipotle - Yes Please

So, exams hit, and then we were adjusting to our summer schedule - blogging went on the back burner and I sort of forgot about it. We have pictures to post of meals we've eaten, but that will have to wait until later. This post is just to share a video that is GREAT! Watch it.

Update: Many people site Chipotle's refusal to join the Campaign for Fair Food as huge negative for the chain that boasts of their integrity.

Can we make? Yes we can! Almond Butter

We thought about starting a theme of posts called “Can we make it? Yes we can!” We’ll see how often we actually do this. But for starters, here’s Almond Butter!

Do you know how easy it is to make almond butter (and peanut butter, etc.)? Easy! You just grind the heck out of some almonds.

Do you know how time consuming it is? Very. We do not have a food processor so we used our immersion blender attachment. The thing is - that thing can get over heated, so we had to take frequent breaks. What should have taken about 30 minutes took us two hours. Oh well, we were happy about our creation:

(we only used a few of the almonds)

 And here is a picture of some of our homemade almond butter on our homemade bread:

Testing it out:

  

Will we do this again?  I would love to... once we get a better grinder contraption :)

For the time being, I’ll let someone else do the grinding and I'll buy it packaged, or I’ll go to Fresh Market and grind peanuts or almonds there.

Granola Gone Wrong

After watching King Corn, I want to try to cut down on our corn intake – especially high fructose corn syrup.* But, in protest to how much corn we mass-produce, I want to at least be aware of what corn is in, and possibly choose something corn-free to eat if possible. Don’t get me wrong; I don’t think corn is evil. But, in our efforts to be able to mass-produce it, we have stripped the soil of nutrients, reduced the corn variety we use, and use massive amounts of land- which could be used to grow thousand of other yummy foods- for only one food type. Also, a lot of this corn goes in to the animals we eat, which is not that healthy for them and enables “cow factories” and such. Just watch the documentary...

Taking inventory of our kitchen I realized I eat corn in almost every cereal I eat for breakfast! While also taking inventory I noticed that we had ingredients on hand to make granola. So I looked up a few recipes and went to work on creating a new breakfast for us to eat in the morning.

Mistake 1: using steel cut oats instead of rolled oats (it’s what we had)

In my defense I did google and read about using steel cut oats instead of rolled oats for granola. I read that I was to expect the granola to be more like brittle that would take some breaking apart.

Mistake 2: leaving it in the oven too long.

I kept expecting the mixture to get hard – like brittle, but it stayed liquidy no matter how long I left it in the oven. Finally, when it starting smelling like it was getting too done (a.k.a. burnt), I took it out. That’s when it turned in to brittle and it took Jamie and two spatulas to get it out of the pan.

Mistake 3: too much brown sugar and honey.

I followed a recipe, but either the writer of the recipe I followed had a serious sweet tooth or the steel oats had something to do with it. We tried it in milk but it made the milk so sweet that I could not drink it– and that’s saying something because I love milk.

So what did we do? Jamie added the left over rice krispies we had and I went to the store and got some organic yogurt and cranberries. After that, it was edible, though Jamie always opted for something else for breakfast and I ate the granola over yogurt with cranberries myself :)

Here’s a picture of my salvaged breakfast:

The granola contains honey, brown sugar, and almonds.

Though this attempt did not turn out to well, I’m determined not to give up. We will not be having granola for breakfast any time soon because 1. I’m not sure Jamie is ready for that again, and 2. We bought tons of muffin mixes last week because Lowes Foods had them on sale :)

*here is a clip of how to make high fructose corn syrup –makes you think twice about the stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jisBG3egS8o