Chew Slowly and Savor Your Food Rule

Food vanishes from this house quickly. My oldest and quickly growing daughter can eat as much as I do and I have a big appetite for a small woman. People are amazed at how much food I can eat. At the grocery store I avoid buying the snacks, the cereal bars, the candies to save money, for the environment and to live healthier. Instead, I load up on vegetables and fruits (local and organic if affordable). I buy some meat (mostly whole natural chickens) to make up for the days we run out of CSA meat. I buy cold organic cereals for the morning, eggs, potatoes, rice and organic milk. These are the basics. Sometimes I’ll buy stuff to make homemade snacks and I always buy crackers to eat with tuna.

When I look at the grocery cart I am amazed at how full it is? When I pay for the groceries I swear under by breath and sometimes out loud that the food better last a month, but when I look at the fridge two weeks later I am shocked that it didn’t.

Where does it all go? I stretch the food. I ration it out. I no longer cook enough to make leftover unless I know %100 percent we will eat them for lunch tomorrow. I don’t let the fruits and vegetables rot. I…. I don’t understand. Not long ago I heard this story on the news about a women who fed her whole family for a month on something like $100. She fed them things like noodles with veggies inside. She’d make soups and save the chicken bones for flavoring etc. etc. She’s also a coupon clipper.

Now I do most of that, except save the bones. I give those to my dog. I also don’t coupon clip though I have been meaning too. I have a box of coupons waiting to be clipped and used. In the past though, looking through those coupons I found little of use. There are no coupons for fresh fruits and vegetables. There are very little coupons for organic foods and frozen vegetables and fruits. I use what I can find, but these coupons are usually for the expensive organic brands. I buy store brand organic because its less expensive even if I use the coupon with the organic name brand. I guess I could double up coupons, but some coupons state on the coupon not to double up and some stores don’t allow double up. I will have to do more research in this area. If anyone out there has some experience feel free to send me a message.

In the mean time I’m going to have to find a new way to make fresh food stretch farther than it usually does in this household. I am going to have to keep reinforcing the “eat slowly and savor your food” rule (which no one likes) a lot more. I’m also going to have to keep trying to succeed with the garden. I’ve saved a lot on money on herbs, mint tea and cucumbers. If only I could get other things to successfully grow.

Speaking of success. My basil looks amazing. It is thriving! My camera battery died before I could download the pictures I took of it. I will have to post a picture later.

Food In 2010

My life hasn’t been as organic as I’ve hoped, especially the last two month of 2009. And the first few days of 2010 haven’t started off so well either. To be honest I think I’m a bit depressed or my body is reacting to all the junk I’ve eaten. Maybe its the dark cold weather. Maybe its the guilt that I haven’t fed my children the healthiest meals either. Maybe its our money troubles. Maybe….. maybe its a lot of things. I keep telling myself I’m going to start exercising again, but I haven’t. I think a little exercise would do me a lot of good. Just a little over two years ago I could run 6 miles on the treadmill. I could run a few on the trails (the trails are tough on my knees) too. Then I got pregnant. Then I had my baby. Then My husband came back from Iraq for good and now everything is back to normal, and though I began the year physically fit and filled with energy and happiness despite life’s problem, the end of the year and the beginning of this year are not so cheerful for me, though I have everything to be grateful for. Like I said it’s probably the weather and I just need to force myself to begin. I need to force myself to eat better again today, no more holiday junk food. I knew it was bad that we had it, but it comes in gifts, in stocking stuffers, from schools, for homemade baked goods and before I knew it I was just saying only a little bit to myself and my children. There’s no harm in a little bit and there wasn’t except a little bit became a lot, because I have a problem with food…when I’m down I eat it for comfort. The worse I eat the worse I feel. The worse I feel the less I care what I eat and if it’s organic, or local or even healthy a slight bit goes out the window. I know this too, but I do nothing. Nothing at all until I’m tired of feeling tired and down. I think I’m at that point now. I hope I am. I feel like I am and yesterday I began to take those tiny steps to get back on track. The junk food is almost all gone and I don’t plan on buying any either. We go shopping on Tuesday…

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HEB, Bulk and A Pumpking Pie From Scratch

I have set it in my mind that today I will make a pumpkin pie from scratch. I’ve never made a pumpkin pie from scratch before, but the CSA pumpkin I received last week and the one I received at today’s last pick up of the season, keep whispering to me, “Make me! Make me! I will tastes delicious!” So you see, I have no choice.

Today’s shopping trip to the new HEB for the ingredients only inspired me more. Why? I discovered today that the new HEB has a bulk isle in the store where we, the customers, can grab a bag and fill up on ingredients like spices and nuts and snacks. The kind manager there explained the system to me. She also told me some of the items were local from Texas and others where from and eco-friendly vendor in California. I quickly caught on and then I asked her if we could bring back our containers to reuse and cut down on waste instead of using the a new plastic bag everytime. She told me they are working on it. She also told me some customers are interested in using glass containers to refill, but she let them know glass is heavy and that would weigh on the cost. That makes sense. I wish they were a way to seperate the weight though, because I have tons of glass. She then gave me tips on other ways to use the spices I was buying for the pumpkin pie. One spice I had never used before (cardamom) and the other was ginger. I wasn’t sure if I had ginger at home.

The store was crowded and I overheard a few people complain about feeling overwhelmed from the crowd. I’m just happy it wasn’t as crowded as the first week it opened. In a few minutes I will begin to cook our semi thanksgiving meal for my family. It will be eco-friendly chicken (yes again) with olive oil, rosemary from the CSA and basil I received today from the CSA. As side dishes I will cook today’s CSA green beans, HEB sweet potatoes (candied yams) and last weeks CSA acorn squash (I need to eat these before they rot). For dessert I will make two pumpkin pies. One for our family and the other for tomorrows pot luck. I may even make my special semi-organic oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, but it already seems like too much food. Maybe I’ll wait for next week to make the cookies.

I mentioned the menu to my girls and they were so excited they didn’t know what to do with themselves.

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Target, Broccoli, And The Garden

Last week, after taking a ride to see if the new HEB was open yet (we had to run some other errands in that area too) and realizing it wasn’t open we drove to HEB. when we parked I showed my husband how easy it was to remember to grab the reusable bags in the back of or car. We shopped for the things we needed. I told him to keep the cost down and for our health we needed to cut down some on packaged food. That proved harder than I hoped. After all Target is no Farmer’s Market. Still we cut down on packaged food.

My husband doesn’t really like when I shop because I avoid unhealthy snacks and other unhealthy foods. He says I suffer for it too. He’s right. This week I have been jumping up an down in craving for chocolate. The fair trade and organic chocolate is out of our budget. We could barely afford the organic milk. I did however grab a gallon. We cut down on our meat purchase too and we are managing to survive off what we bought but my husband already had to go back to the store today to buy something extra for dinner to feed out neighbor so we would ave enough. What it comes down to is that we were raised a certain way to eat and to adjust or try to adjust to a new way of eating without much counseling or opportunity thanks to where we live this is proving to be difficult. Still this issues is not what my entry was suppose to be about. It was suppose to be about the reusable bags.

So, as we are checking out at the check out line, the cashier (with super customer service) is kindly interrupted by another cashier. The other cashier whispers a reminder to her that we get 5 cents bag for every reusable bag we use. It’s a new thing she tells her and then points to a note or something close to the cashiers register. We are then told and I was delighted. Yeah!

I am still delighted. Finally that idea, which I knew happened in other states is finally happening here. I love it. I would use my totes either way, but now I get money back too. I wonder if HEB will start this soon?

On another note I think organic milk has something to do with my smoother clearer skin and less painful menstrual cycle. Not to get to specific, but those few months that we were on WIC and back on regular milk I noted my skin break out and during my menstrual cycle it felt again like it did when I was younger….so many painful cramps. Now that I’m back on organic, just a 1 month and a pain free menstrual cycle and nicer skin. It could just be a coincidence or wishful thinking. It could just be that I’m eating healthier now too.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention, we took down the Topsy Turvy. Can you believe there was a bird nest in there? We also added compost to my front garden. We tilled the dirt a bit. Moved some plants around , planted some broccoli seedlings, some leak seedlings and some lettuce seed varieties. We added the excess (almost over flowing) worm poo from our worm compost into some of the front garden and the rest into our compost bin. I then went to the back yard to pull up some weeds and lift up the melon and watermelon/tomato plant. The cucumber is still giving us cucumbers, but now something is attacking it. There are some orange bugs on it with 6 long black legs. I’m trying to identify them, but still don’t know for sure. The orange bug is either an assassin, a soldier bug or a stinky bug. I should catch one and take it to a professional gardener.

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The Stongest Survived, So Will We

I plunged in. I put on the his gloves, put on my brown shoes, asked him to sleep in living room (to be near the kids just in case) and I walked to the backyard. The gate my neighbor made for us was nice. I had a little trouble going in, but after pushing the post a little inward the chain loosened up and I was able to open it up. I walked in and I looked at the weeds, tall (up to to the top of my thighs and I’m 5’3) and thick as a forest. I took a deep breath, told myself I could do it and I went in grabbing and and pulling weeds.

I expected a fight, but there wasn’t as much as I expected. The weeds looked tougher than they were. They came out easily. Well not that easy. I did have to play tug-of-war with some of them and those weeds that proved too tough I just clipped at the lowest part of the stem with my Felco gardening scissors. The best part about the whole experience was that during the whole process I found several fruit/vegetable plants growing and growing strong. The weeds must have provide shade from the hot hot hot summer and the weeds must have also locked in enough moisture for these plants to flourish.

I was so happy to find the plants that I went inside (exhausted, back aching, and a bit dizzy but happy) and woke my husband up. Poor guy he has to work late nights all week. I told him to follow me. He said he was tired, but I wanted to show him so I asked him again. He was skeptical. He shook his head and said they were very likely weeds. I insisted he follow me. So, he finally did.

He was amazed at the progress I made. Honestly so was I. I wish I had taken a picture of the weeds before I pulled them all out. Then he looked at the plants. We disputed over 4 of them. He said they were weeds. I disagreed. Finally I did pull one up when I realized it was a weed. The other 3 we are leaving in the ground to see how they develop, then we will decide. As for the rest of them we are sure they are fruiting plants. If we can manage to keep them alive this time we may have some cantelop and watermelons after all. It’s a nice thought any way.

As he stood across from me and looked at the garden he then looked up at me and he asked me why I was being so nice to him. We have a lot of history. Maybe he thinks he doesn’t deserve it. I should have told him that I just wanted to bring him a little hope. I should have said I feel bad that you hate your job and your working it to put food and a roof over our head, so I wanted to do something nice for you.  Instead I acted like I didn’t understand what he meant. I’ve never been really good with the mushy stuff. I’m working on it. Sometimes it comes out. Sometimes it doesn’t. Today I made a joke, ” I was hoping to get more massages”. He smiled. Then he said something like, “Maybe we can work something out”.  I’m not holding my breath though.

Of course, there is still progress to be made in the garden, more weeds to pull out and more watering, but this time it wont be all or none. I hope it wont be. We  wont have many days like today to get out there, but I did tell him this, “Gardening needs to be fun right now. Let’s just plants stuff and if it grow it grows and if it doesn’t, it doesn’t. ” We’ll have time to garden the way we want when we are older. Right now we have kids and work and school….

It’s hard for my husband to understand time sometimes. He is the type of person that really likes to get deep into a project, so deep that sometimes he becomes obsessed with it and it become overwhelming so it becomes an all or none sort of thing.  He has to find out on his own that between work and family he doesn’t have the extra time he would like for his projects.

So today he finally understood what I meant when I said what I said. He smiled and he agreed. Then he said something about liking my positive thinking.

After I cleaned out all the pulled weeds and put them in a another compost pile he walked over to the main compost bin and turned the pile in there. He hadn’t done that in a while. When he saw the black soil turn up from the bottom a smile grew on his face and I was happy. I smiled too.

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I Took Some Pictures

I haven’t been blogging much lately. To be honest there hasn’t been much for me to write about living an organic life, or not much I had the energy to talk about. However, I have taken pictures of my now-ugly garden, of the dried up topsy turvy, of the rain that finally came once again last week, of the organic Bummies diaper kit I bought for my baby after he outgrew the hemp cloth diapers, and the mother-in-law plant that seems to be fairing very well despite this heat and drought. The white flower from this plant I cannot name is also blooming. The flowers from this plant are not as pretty as they were last year.

The picture of my flower garden hurts the most. I put so much time and effort into it only to driven away by heat. I took pictures of the vegetable garden too, but I lost those when my computer crashed two weeks ago. My computer crashing is another thing that has kept from catching up on many things such as this blog.

September is around the corner and my hope is that the temperature will be cooler, I will have more time on my hand to work on the garden (my certification exam is early September) and I can take the kids out in the yard with me too (cooler temp).  I have the month marked off on my calendar for gardening. I will do it.

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Just Another Day

I would like to say I learned something new today about living organically, but truth be told I haven’t exactly lived very organic lately. For the exception of composting, recycling and conserving here and there I’m also barely living green at all.

Other than the organic cotton diaper bummies kit I bought for my baby a few weeks ago I’ve fallen off the organic wagon, not on purpose…I mean financially. So, I’m at a loss for words. What Organic Taste can I possible introduce to you today? Maybe a bitter one. Maybe a bitter one because I want to feed my family the healthiest foods possible, but money or lack there of means I must choose between feeding my family healthy foods and not paying bills, or feeding my family foods with pesticides and pollutants so that I can pay the bills. It shouldn’t be this way. Why does it cost more to buy organic? Is it due to increase in labor since toxic chemicals cannot be used to help get rid of harmful crop pests or are the prices just jacked up because of the hype about eating organic.

I really wish we could have pulled off a successful garden. My husband has had to work such long hours that he hasn’t tended to the garden in a month. I haven’t either. Our once blooming and beautiful gardens have been over taken by weeds and cracking dirt. The rain comes but only after everything is about ready to die only to be revived and then die gain. My poor magnolia is feeling it too.

So my taste is bitter, for lack of time, lack of money and lack of know how. Did we plan too big? Have we given up? Is it just too hot to step outside and tend to the garden? Since June hit this year. I hardly see anyone outside unless early in the morning or late in the evening. No one wants to go outside in this heat.

The plants have no choice but to live in it.

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Tomorrow Is The Last Pickup

I can’t decide what to do about the veggie CSA. Tomorrow is the last pickup for the summer. The payment for the next season is due on the first. If I were to put this on a scale it would look like this. On the right side I would put 2 lbs for the yummy taste of the food and 3 lbs for the learning experience. On the left side I would place 1 lb for the time of pick up, 3 lb for the drive through traffic and distance, and 1 lb for the amount and variety. I would also add a lb on the left side because I wish there was a way I could have bonded more with the rest of the CSA community. It all seemed rather….distant. Wait I think I have decided. It seems I will not be a part of this particular CSA next season. I will look into other CSA communities for next season. Perhaps new ones have been added to the local harvest website. Maybe the new ones are a bit closer and less expensive.

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I Must Confess

I must confess after my husband came home from Iraq and after his last check we had to begin living off our savings, the savings I had saved just in case of lack of unemployment. Law or no law many employers out there find ways to not hire military. It doesn’t help that the economy is the way it is either.

I must have not calculated the amount of money needed for several months correctly because we were going through our savings a lot quicker than I had planned. I wasn’t sure we would make it much farther. About  two weeks before we knew he would be interviewed and hired I decided best we try WIC to help us live off our saving (pay bills and such) a little longer until he found something. I tried to keep my Wic appointment from him, knowning how much, he hates government assistance of any sort, but the day before my appointment WIC called to remind me of the appointment. He picked up the phone and handed it to me. He wasn’t angry, but he was disappointed and the look on his face showed me that he thought I lost faith in him. That wasn’t true at all, but I couldn’t change his mind.

Still I went through with it the next day and I wasn’t suprised at all when we qualified. We were well within need of assistance, afterall our only form of income was, the last bit of our savings and the $50-70 a week I recieve from work working twice a week outside the house. I couldn’t pick up any more hours either.

It was sad to see so many people at the WIC office…moms with one kid, moms with more than one kid, moms that have been on the system for a long time for whatever reason. During the appointment WIC also offered me some paper work for food stamps and other assistance, but I knew this was only temporary and I knew we wouldn’t stay on WIC very long. It was just enough to help us get back on our feet. Like when we were on it many years ago after coming back from Alabama. My husband had ended his year of duty. We searched and searched for work…

Being on WIC obviously means no more organic milk. The one thing left I had going for us and I had to let it go, but at nearly $5 a gallon it just proved too much.  This also meant no more organic much of anything else or any earth-friendly pesticide free food for a while (other than the CSA I had paid for in advance at the beging of the year and organic foods I already had stocked in my pantry). 

What does it all mean now? My husband is working again. He hates the job. It isn’t what he wants to do, but he’s doing it to put food on the table and until they open up positions in the career he wants to be in. Everyone there is still on a hiring freeze. We have one month left on WIC. It has helped the food cost come down a lot. They offer milk, cheese, beans, peanuts butter and eggs, juice and carrots and cereal for the kids and for the baby. Despite the fact that we still qualify, my husband asked me not to get anymore. I wont. I will just need to pinch pennies a bit longer again and look for other sources of income from home besides the ones I’ve been trying for the past year so that I can not only help feed my family, but feed my family with foods I truely believe are beneficial to our health.

I do believe organic is the true way to go and if I could afford it all our food would be completely local and organic.   If we could grow it all at home we would, but now my husbands working hours don’t even allow him time to work in the garden. Between the kids, studying for my exam, the house and my work from home I haven’t had much chance at the garden either. Our cucumber and okra  plants are all that is left in our vegetable garden.We are also still on watering restrictions, though it has rained at least twice since my last post.

Oh well…maybe next season. In the mean time I have a few weeks left of the CSA. If we want next seasons our bill is due the first of August. I’m still debating what to do. Pictures (not in order) of some of the past pick-up are to the left.

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Hot, Humid and Stuck Inside All Day: Poor Garden

It is suppose to rain today, but I’m not holding my breath. On a good note the cucumbers and the pumpkin are doing well. The cucumbers, now gently tied to the tee-pee trellis, is climbing up the poles quickly and the pumpkin is spreading wide about its mound. As for the watermelon… it really doesn’t have much of a chance of survival. It will probably last one more week if at all. My husband is very disappointed about this and wants to just ho over the watermelon mounds, but I keep hoping for a good rain to bring them back to life. He is positive it is our clay like soil and the lack of rain keeping them from growing. Since we are on a neighborhood watering restriction right now, we can only water so often. I really wish we had rain barrels. I read the other day that Terracycle sells some of their barrels at Home Depot. Their products are sometimes affordable so we will have to take go to Home Depot and take a look. We need to do a lot of things, but we have just been so busy…

The cantelope is struggling too, but may still produce something. The potted Okra is taking a while to grow, but doing great. I would love to show updated pictures of our organic garden, but my 6 month old snatched it and dropped it to the floor, before I could stop him. The camera is broken beyond repair and now I can’t take a picture of him (he’s learning to crawl) or of the garden. However, I’m saving money to buy a new one. It may be a while though….Oh, well.

It seems our CSA farmers are suffering from the lack of rain too. The weekly newsletter mentions it all the time and it shows during the pickup. The veggie CSA pickup is down to giving us enough produce to only fill one bag again, sometimes not even a full bag. This week our new vegetable was one bell pepper. We also had onions, tomatoes, basil, and squash. The tomatoes seem to be picked early because they aren’t very sweet. We are tired of squash, too tired to even talk or write about it anymore. The basil comes in abundance. It smells great and taste great when cooked in foods like tomatoes sauce. Our own basil is doing well too. It is the best looking herb in our herb planter. Our cilantro…poor thing…looks like it has been torched and set to decay standing. We will have to try it again soon now that we have an idea of what we did wrong. We never did move the plants to the new spot in the garden. In fact since the temperatures here began to rise to the mid 90′s or more we began to do less and less outside. It’s too hot! We tried but would come back in burned or dehydrated despite or water intake. It’s hot inside too. Our AC isn’t the best and our old house isn’t well insulated.

The Topsy Turvy still has two tomatoes and are just now turning red. Our neighbor’s Topsy Tuvy though is filled with red tomatoes. Next time we will try the pinching technique we read about in the gardening books from the library. I love library books. It’s a great way to read a lot of books about the same subject without having to spend a dime. Just don’t make the mistake of turning them in late like I did this past month. Wow, the charges will add up.

The meat CSA was dropped off at our door on the 27 of June. This is what we received:
2 New York Strip
Boneless Porkchop
Pork Italian Sausage
Beef Shoulder Roast
Por Cutlet
Pork Shoulder Roast
Pork Bacon
2 Ground Beef
Hot Digity Dogs
Whole chicken

Yesterday, I used the CSA bacon and the CSA Hot Digity Dogs plus a CSA onion, CSA tomato and a jalapeno to make frijoles a la charra. I cooked the ingredients above in a pan on the stove and then added them to a pot of almost ready cooked beans. I finished cooking the beans and then served it as a side dish with our meal. It was a tasty dish, but not as spicy as my husband and I are used to. My girls loved it.

I din’t forget it is the fourth of July. Happy Fourth Of July Everyone!

More Interesting Stuff to Read


Is Organic Food Worth The Cost

AIR-igator: Collects AC Water For Your Garden

Food Independence Day
http://www.foodindependenceday.org/

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