The good thing about the early summer weather we’re having is we tend to eat more salads.
The bad thing about the early summer weather weather we’re having is someone has to spend time in the kitchen and make the salads. The kitchen is INSIDE the house. I’d rather be OUTSIDE… 
But alas, I was happy to have salads ready to eat whenever we felt hungry for the rest of the day. I figured since I’m chopping veg anyway I may as well do it all at the same time, get it done, and then head outside.
People who know me, or who read this blog, hear me moan bitch complain about the tiny-ness and claustrophobic-ness of this house occasionally sometimes all the time. We live in a 2-bedroom bungalow that has a basement with two additional rooms and a large-ish space which functions as the kids’ play area.
But it’s still a 2-bedroom bungalow.
Because of the pipe backup into part of the basement and the renovators currently in the basement doing stuff, I have more clutter upstairs in our everyday living space.
Here I would like to offer PROOF that my complaining is valid and completely justified. This is a picture of the state of my living room this morning: Continue reading
It’s been about a year now that I’ve belonged to an organic food delivery service. I took a break from it for a few months, and we’re back getting our orders twice monthly (or rather, bi-weekly, which isn’t quite the same thing), and I have to say I’m very glad.
Although I don’t shop with organics specifically in mind, if there is a small price difference between an organic item vs a ‘traditional’ item, I tend to reach for the organic one. I know, partly from my own research, and partly from educational dialogue with my Naturopath doctor, that not all items we consume must necessarily be organic. For example, squashes don’t need to be certified organic. In the case of squash, I go for local (grown nearby, in my own backyard, or at least in my province) rather than, say, imported from Argentina. (Why do we need to import squash from there? We have plenty of squash in Canada). Same with garlic, although non-pesticide garlic is extremely hard to find in Ontario in winter. Garlic grows like weeds….don’t need spraying, and you can eat the shoots that come up and curl.
Yet for some reason, the bulk of Ontario garlic is imported from China. Didn’t China recently make the news about their air pollution problem? So why are we eating Chinese garlic? I grow garlic in my backyard and if I don’t keep on top of it, the entire garden would be infested with garlic. That’s how easy garlic can be grown in temperate climates like ours. (freezing cold winters, sizzling hot summers, and everything in between).
There’s another reason why I chose to get a food delivery service: I’m sick and tired of grocery shopping.
There. I said it.
So anyway, I get this box delivered every other Tuesday, and it looks something like this:
I get the standard, basic box, which means they select what I get. They send a lovely little email, twice before my delivery date, to remind me that I can modify and add items to it (for additional pay). But mostly, for the $37 I spend every other Tuesday, I have been happy with the produce I get. The picture above was a delivery sometime in January I think, but my last two deliveries have had a lot of greens in it (which is what we’re out of constantly), as well as fruit. This is a big fruit eating family, so that’s been helpful. (Organic fruit in February is not cheap so I do tend to purchase my own bulk apples and other fruit that are not organic, and just wash them really well.)
In the past few times, I’ve gotten something interesting that had met thinking of doing my own sprouts. One item was called Organic Live Kale and it was basically kale grown as sprouts.
You just snip them into your salads, on top of sandwiches, as eatable garnishes….
The live container I got last Tuesday was pea shoots. The idea is ingenious and you can grow them yourself. All you need is a flat container with sides, some sterile earth (or possible even just cotton), seeds, and water.
I really like the box delivery. The service I use is called Front Door Organics, but there are many different ones, and I recommend it for people who love their fresh food. Shopping isn’t eliminated, I still need endless other stuff, constantly, it seems, but it certainly has helped keep us fed well over the dull winter months. And the surprises like the live trays of sprouts has been a great addition to our dinner table.
You know that new-ish comedy “Last Man Standing’ with Tim Allen? He used to be the tool man…now instead of 3 boys he’s got 3 girls and a grandson. Anyway, he hunts and is the owner or co-owner or something of an outdoor/hunting store. He co-owns it with this guy who used to be a doctor on Chicago Hope.
I live with a hunter. He’s not like Tim Allen, nor does he own a hunting store, although perhaps that might be something he could, potentially, be interested in…
Anyway, my guy took up hunting a few years ago and his emphasis has been mostly on deer. There are deer aplenty all over the place and they are multiplying in mass numbers, so hunting deer has been a passion without guilt, so to speak.
But then one day late last year he was asked if he’d like to join a group who was heading north and spending the night to moose hunt. Apparently moose meat is great! Continue reading
My brain is fried.
Not unlike yours, I’m sure.
Here’s a tip for those if you who won’t give up the comfort foods, like pasta, but shouldn’t eat a lot of comfort food, like pasta. You know what I mean…pasta is easy and tastes great but boy does it make me tired. All those carbs…
I make the noodles for the kids. I make sauce or meatballs in another pot (obviously). See? Fried brain.
Then I drizzle sauce on pasta for kids, and for me and other adults who don’t want wheat or egg noodles, I drizzle sauce on eggplant or zucchini. Continue reading
Javamom’s mini apple tarts
I had some soft apples lying around. So I chopped them up and put them in a pot half filled with water. The soft pear I had lying around got chopped up too and added to the apples. Continue reading
I have decided to try my hand at weekly meal planning. In order to determine whether this is a viable option for me, and whether this is something that will actually help, rather than irritate and slow me down, I decided to jot down my thoughts on meal planning he
First impressions: the good and the bad Continue reading
I was thinking on the walk home from school this morning how each cup of coffee I consume in the morning has its own unique characteristic. Personality, even.
The first cup, for example, isn’t so much about taste, but rather a jolt. (No, that’s not right, I hate jolts, or rushing, or loud noises that early.) The first cup is like a lifeline. It gets consumed, almost gulped, and I can’t say I’m fully aware of its properties, however yummy they may be.
The second cup, usually sipped and savoured shortly after the first cup, has a much more prominent presence. You know what I mean? I can smell the lovely scent with my nose, I can feel the warmth of the cup with my hand, I can taste the full-bodied deliciousness on my tongue. I enjoy the second cup.
Unfortunately I cannot have a third cup until after the children are dropped off. The school is a 5-block walk one way, and by the time I return home 45 minutes later, my bladder, which, incidentally is the size of a coffee bean, cannot hold it any longer. Discomfort due to coffee is unpleasant.
So now I sit here with my freshly brewed third cuppa joe, and can once again feel the love.
Aaahhh.
The problem with the Paleo diet is that we are in endless need of meat.
He’s the one on the diet, but since I have to feed him AND us, I may as well cook accordingly…
Sure we have a freezer full of venison, some of which I do eat even though I’m not crazy for venison in general, but really I can only eat so many beef/pork/venison burgers or meatballs before getting bored (or sick of it).
We used to have a butcher. He died. We no longer have chicken from the Mennonite farm he used to get it from, nor eggs. We no longer have his awesome sausages. We have to shop for meat at other stores that serve organic, or at least pasture-fed, humanely raised meat-animals.
Beretta Organic Farms sells at Wholefoods and at Loblaws, even. So that’s one option, but that means get in the car and drive a distance. I’m a local kinda gal. I prefer doing my shopping close to home, if possible. So I either make the trip once or twice a month and spend a small fortune to fill the freezer, or I order via mom who passes Wholefoods on her way to visit us once a week.
Once upon a time we knew a guy whose parents had a hobby farm. They sold us a half a cow and we were happy! They also had a few chickens, eggs and a bunch of yummy squashes…but that freezer full of various cuts of beef was heavenly. So easy to plan meals! I will have to make the effort to find someone who sells us half a cow again.
While trying to accommodate his paleo needs, I have found that eating less grain in general (even though most of our grain is whole grain) has helped me in terms of battling mid-afternoon fatigue. But to say it’s challenging to cook this way in winter when most of the fruit and veg is imported, greenhoused, and mediocre at best in terms of taste, is pretty much an understatement.
Which brings us to the fantastic weather we’ve been having over the past few weeks. WARM, sunny, and if I stick my finger in the soil of my garden beds, I can feel it move. The soil! It moves! This normally doesn’t happen until May in these parts. Usually the soil is cold and clumpy, frozen even.
So the itch to sow a few seeds that can handle frost has taken me over. I’m thinking arugula, which can be eaten both raw in salads or cooked. The parsley and chives are poking through already too, and are ready for snipping to add to salads and sandwiches. Or on top of eggs.
In the meantime, I dug out a package of chicken and two turkey legs out of the freezer. The turkey legs are bigger so I put them in the crockpot with some orange slices, and the chicken will be defrosted in time to bbq later. Dinner for tonight is covered.
Don’t ask me what to make tomorrow.
