Thank The Lord for Cooking Day

     I absolutely love to cook! I usually take a day to cook some foods that need time and/or attention. We don't use store-bought packaged or processed foods, but we like to eat them. So it is up to me to make them. 

     I started today by roasting a winter squash. I have no idea what variety. It was short, fat, green, and warty. I cut it in half and cooked it for half an hour. I didn't want to cook it until it was mushy, just long enough that the rind was easier to cut off, and I could cube it for later. Later, I will toss it with olive oil, salt and pepper and roast 10-15 minutes.

     While the squash was roasting, I made my lotion. Oh...wait! That's not cooking. Well, I did use a recipe, pot, and the stove. I make my own lotion following a recipe from Diane Kidman in Beauty Gone Wild. I have all of her books. Her books are excellent! Very educational and all of the recipes are easy to follow and give you consistent results.

     Lotion is one of the most time consuming products I make, but it is worth the effort. I did have to get a mixer attachment for my drill, because I kept burning out blenders. The last time I used a stick blender, and it started smoking and melted all around the motor. 

     I also cooked a couple of pots of beans. We only use fresh or dried beans, so it takes some planning. I cooked black beans to use in Mexican Stuffed Peppers and pinto beans to use in a Burrito Bowl later on in the week.

     The most exciting thing today was the arrival of new worms. No, I won't cook them, but I saved a lot of scraps to split between them and the chickens. The old worms could not keep up with the scraps (maybe we're too wasteful!), so they will be used as fish bait and chicken feed for the winter. The new worms will take over our composting.

     After the arrival of the worms, I decided to try my skills at Egg Nog. I cannot find any Egg Nog without high fructose corn syrup or worse, so I just had to make my own. I used an old Better Homes and Garden Cookbook and some farm fresh eggs (from my chickens), and it looks and smells perfect. I'll let you know about it after it chills.

     The day's not over. My husband wants sauerkraut, so I planned a meal around it. Later I'll cook Pork Chops with apples and sauerkraut, roast the squash, and roast some broccoli. 

     Hurray for cooking day!

     Eat Healthy!

P.S. The Egg Nog turned out to be very good custard. Oh well, I'll try it again. On my next cooking day.

When's the Last Time You Pooped?

     When you tell your mom that you don't feel good, that's the first thing she asks. Why? When I go to the doctor, they ask, "Where's the pain?" "What type of pain?" They listen and say try this and hand me a bottle or a prescription. When I take my dog or cat to the vet, they ask,"What are you feeding him?" My immediate reaction is, "Oh my goodness. Here I am a nutritionist, and I'm feeding my dog poison." I really never thought too much about his food. I asked my father-in-law what food to buy, and that's what I buy. The vet then asks about my dog's/cat's poop. How often? Consistency? Etc.... He recommends that I try a new food, and if he doesn't get better bring in a stool sample.

     Wow!

     Does your doctor talk to you about what you are eating? How about your poop? How often have you taken your doctor a stool sample?  Why is poop the first thing your mom asks you about? Why does the vet need a stool sample? Why don't we talk about our poop?

     If you eat, you poop. If you don't poop enough, you feel like poop. If you poop too often, you feel like poop. There must be more to this poop!

     My favorite show used to be You Are What You Eat on BBC with Gillian McKeith. She always took a stool sample. She talked about the importance of regularity and consistency. This was the first I heard of poop being discussed mainstream. Her show was fantastic, and I wish we could get here.

     Have you read The New York Times article  by Michael Pollan, Some of My Best Friends are Germs published on my birthday, May 15, 2013? It's all about microbiota. It makes me think of poop. My daughters' doctor back in Savannah, Dr. Ramon Ramos, always talked about gut flora and keeping it strong and healthy. (We miss Dr. Ramos! He taught us well how to live well. ) Anyway, he had us do things and consume things to improve our daughters' gut flora long before they talked about probiotics in TV ads. 

     Your poop is the first thing that will signal when your gut flora is not healthy. We are all different, and we all have different needs to improve our gut flora.(Read Pollan's article).  We need to pay more attention to our poop.

     The rise in popularity of probiotics has me all confused. It used to be all yogurt had probiotics, but now I have to read the labels. The ingredients must say "active cultures;" otherwise, the probiotics are dead. Other ways to consume active cultures are in Kombucha tea (which is very hard to find here, so I'm learning how to make my own), Kefir, unpasteurized fermented foods (think sauerkraut, pickles,...), and probiotic pills and liquids. Just read the labels and make sure the cultures are active and the product has not been heat treated or pasteurized .

     If you take supplements like probiotic capsules (which I don't recommend, but that's another subject), read the label. I cannot stress this enough. You only want to take something healthy. If the pill/liquid contains silicon or coloring, do you want to add that to your gut?

     Just do what you can to poop right. Get your gut in check, and you'll feel good.

     Eat Healthy!

Recipes are a Guideline

     When you see Pepper Steak on the Menu it doesn't necessarily mean we're having peppers or steak. One night Pepper Steak was Chicken and Broccoli. Not because we don't eat peppers or Steak, but I wanted the flavor of Pepper Steak and only had chicken and broccoli. When you live 20 miles from the store you rarely follow the recipe as written. I usually do prepare what the recipe says with little modifications: no processed ingredients (ketchup, BBQ sauce, hoisin sauce, enchilada sauce unless I made them myself) and nothing that I cannot explain as "real" food.

     I do eat a gluten free diet, not because I have celiac disease or believe in the latest diet fads, but I do have another unexplained autoimmune disease. I strongly believe that after years of cellular abuse from eating highly processed and mostly GMO products, my body tried to destroy itself. Now I work hard at making sure I know where my food came from and what I'm actually eating.

     I like to use Pinterest to find recipes for each week and then I tweak them to make them fit for my family. I love cooking new things and I love being able to use pictures to plan my meals.  

     I also follow several blogs and get recipes from Dr. Andrew Weil at
DrWeil.com, Lisa Leake at www.100daysofRealFood.com, Carrie Vitt at www.deliciouslyorganic.net, and Andrea Beaman at AndreaBeaman.com. I do plan everything for the week, so I can just go to the store once a week. The plan is for the farm to provide all of our meals, but it's very difficult to give up berries this time of year.  And I absolutely love avocados, and we'll never be able to grow them here.

     You can see my weekly meal choices on my Pinterest page jenwhitmire. I did not create any of these recipes; they are just my guidelines for planning my meals and creating my grocery list.

     I love variety! I try to cook something new everyday. This time of year it is fun to cook all of the different funny looking squashes. I just love them.

     Eat Healthy!

Why Homesteading?

     We want to do what we think is best for our family, environment, and community. We bought a small farm a year ago and started growing our own food, raising chickens for eggs and bees for honey and started making our own soaps and lotions. 

     We have been following the "real food" movement since 1997 when I started learning about diseases, nutrition, and health promotion. I was a terrible cook, so I had to go to culinary school to learn what to do with the "right" foods (they don't come with instructions). Anyway, now we cook all of our meals and do our best to teach our family to choose the best foods. 

     I love to cook and believe it's one of the most important things I can do each day. I love food, and I love to eat! I am not perfect, so I do eat "un-real" sometimes. 

     I hope that I can inspire others to grow their own foods, cook more meals, and make their own products. It makes you feel good just knowing you're taking care of yourself and teaching others to do the same. It's not easy! But, it is very rewarding. 

     Live Healthy!