Double Challenge // Week 4 Real Food Pledge // Cooking Black Beans from Scratch

We made it through this week of DOUBLE challenges! I won't say it was double fun. But we made it and that feels great. We did give ourselves one cheat meal (WINGSSSSS! and Dr. Pepper (me) / Sweet Tea (Josh))  but other than that, our meat consumption was limited to that leftover ground beef + a couple hot dogs from Earth Fare.

We even turned down seductively-scented barbeque meat at Josh's mom's house. Luckily she had plenty of good sides for us to chow down on - stuffed potatoes, corn on the cob, baked beans, squash casserole, and as many cupcakes as we could stuff in our face.

I felt extra kitchen-accomplished this week because I cooked my first batch of black beans from scratch! It took awhile, but the end result was so much cheaper (and I think healthier?) than buying canned. Have you ever tried cooking them from scratch? All you have to do is:

1. Soak beans overnight (2 cups of water per 1 cup of beans)

2. Drain and rinse

3. Cook beans in water (I started with 3 cups water per 1 cup beans and then added more water as they cooked down) and add in any flavorings you want (I added Mexican spice mix plus salt** and pepper)

4. Cook until tender (took 2 hours for me)



So simple! Why was I ever intimidated by this? My 1 cup of dried beans (which I think probably cost about $0.50 - they're about $2.50/lb in bulk) turned into about 4 cups of cooked beans - the equivalent of 2 cans of beans which would have cost $3 total just for the Earth Fare brand!

I think this method will work for just about any kind of dried beans you may find.

**Oops, I just read that it is best NOT to add salt to the cooking water - it prevents the beans from absorbing water and getting tender. That could be why I had to cook mine for so long! (it should have taken more like 1 hour to cook). So if you do this, make sure to only add salt AFTER they are already cooked.

Anyway, on to this week's challenge:

No fast food or deep fried food.

We can totally do this! Especially since we're getting stricter about our budget so I've already got some tasty things planned for us to eat at home, saving money from eating out.

We're also continuing with all the pledges from previous weeks, mostly. It definitely feels good to be reducing our meat consumption by a whole lot (I've got one meat dinner planned this week and four vegetarian dinners, yum).

This week we will be eating:

Dinners
Vegetable korma and homemade garlic naan (yesterday)
Roast carrots, parsnips // quinoa  // Roasted Chicken Leg Quarters
Earth Fare vegetarian pizza

Crispy potato & black bean soft tacos

Lunch
BBQ tofu over cheese grits (yesterday)
Dinner leftovers
Sandwich with cream cheese, sprouts, onion; tortilla chips; broccoli and hummus
Turkey rollup with garlic herb cheese

Breakfast (any combination of the following)
Frozen smoothies (blueberries, raspberries, vanilla protein powder, flax seed)
Gluten-free bagel with cream cheese
Apple and peanut butter
Sausage patties (Italian seasoned sausage from our 1/2 pastured pig!)

Real Food Pledge: Week 2 & 3

After being without air in our house for close to two weeks during a record-breaking heat spike, we are so thankful to have the air working, thanks to a patch on the old unit. We'll have a new unit installed on Wednesday. Hopefully this will mean that we will be able to gloriously bask in chilled drafts for many years to come without having to put any more money into it. 

Now it is time to get back to business: The Business of Real Food. Last week we decided to forego the challenge of Real Food in exchange for the challenge of Coping with No A/C - a fair trade, wouldn't you say? 

Thankfully we did not actually have to live in our house while the air was out, but instead turned into nomads, staying at Josh's dad's house and my parents' house and driving home daily to make sure the animals were all fine and dandy. The animals, strangely, seem relatively unaffected by the heat - not that we're complaining, since I've heard of several chicken fatalities this week and am thankful all of our seven ladies are still in the land of the living.

Okay, so back to Real Food. This week we will be doubling up on the Challenge so we don't fall behind in the schedule that we're following with Julie's family.

The Real Food Challenges we will be facing this week:

1. Only "real beverages" can be consumed: water, coffee, tea, and milk (only naturally sweetened with a little honey or 100% pure maple syrup). One cup of juice will be allowed throughout the week. Wine (preferably red) will be allowed in moderation (one drink per day).

2. All meat consumed this week will be locally raised (within 100-miles of your hometown). Meat consumption will also be limited to 3 – 4 servings this week, and when it is eaten meat will not be presented as the “focal point” of the meal. Instead meat will be treated as a side item or simply used to help flavor a dish.

< white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;">In addition to this, we will be attempting to keep up with the challenge from Week 1 to consume 2 fruits and / or veggies per meal. All three of us are actually enjoying this part, surprisingly!

I think the real beverage challenge will be pretty simple if we take it easy on eating in restaurants. The only thing we drink at home is water and milk/almond milk, plus I'll have a cup of coffee with cream and sugar maybe once or twice a week. It's when we go out that we order Dr. Pepper (me), sweet tea (Josh), and pink lemonade (Mags).

The meat challenge should be pretty simple as well. From 2010-2011 I spent six months as a vegetarian, both to prove to myself that I could do it and also to reduce my mental need for meat. After those six months I transitioned to consuming only meat that was produced using ethical methods, mainly sticking with locally raised products.

 When I started dating Josh, my ethical meat stance fell by the wayside (I was maybe too lovestruck to care right then?), but lately I have been extremely convicted to take up that lifestyle again (perhaps you came across my late night Facebook rant about it... more on this to come). The transition hasn't happened instantly. We still give in and go out to eat wings occasionally, but our family is moving in the right direction. This week I'm excited to take a more vegetarian focus in most of our meals and revisit some delicious recipes that I discovered during my vegetarian time.

Some things we will eat this week:

Red Lentil Soup with Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

Tofu and Black Bean Soft Tacos

Vegetable Korma with Homemade Naan

Earth Fare Vegetarian Pizza with garden salad

Beef and Mushroom Stroganoff*

*Meat Disclaimer: We have a bunch of Earth Fare grassfed ground beef left over from the weekend that we will be eating to avoid it going bad. Other than that, we will stick to local-only!

Real Food Pledge: Week One

Well, we started challenge week out great on Monday night. And then... later in the week it broke down a little. Honestly, it was tough to be offering Maggie ice cream products (for her post-tonsillectomy recovery) while abstaining from them ourselves. But the challenge did prevent us from eating out on two different occasions when we were tempted to. Hooray for that!

This week, beginning on Monday, we are starting fresh with the same resolution for no desserts and also something new. Recently I've been inspired by a website about a family who made a resolution to eat Real Food. They've made it easy for others to join in the fun by breaking down the Real Food journey into mini-challenges, which I will be tackling along with Julie, a good friend of mine as well as family - she is married to Josh's cousin Brian! 

The best things about these mini-pledges is that they are simple and relatively small steps. This is something that Josh really appreciates - I have a tendency to make wild and crazy resolutions in the wee hours of the morning, only to cast them aside at the first inconvenience (which makes him crazy, understandably). This one-step-at-a-time approach is much more his jam.

Week One of the Real Food Pledge:

Eat a minimum of two fruits / vegetables with each meal

I think this will be easiest for dinner and hardest for breakfast. For simplicity's sake I may revert to the great habit of having a smoothie for breakfast - straightforward and nutritious.

If anyone is interested in joining us in this challenge, please chime in!

Time for a Challenge

Okay, I'll go ahead and say it. I have a real problem with saying no to bad food.


Now the thing is, I know how to cook good food. Not just food that tastes good, but food that is healthy. I know the basic guidelines to cooking a healthy meal. When I cook at home, our meals are generally well-balanced and comprised of whole foods - fresh produce, whole grains, and "happy" meat. Maggie has even gotten into the swing of things, from eating vegetarian lettuce wraps without a single tear or protest, to happily requesting snow peas fresh from the garden.


The problem that undermines all of this? Eating out and eating dessert. When I don't feel like cooking, we eat out. And the healthy food options in Ardmore, Alabama (and really, most of the greater Huntsville area) seem few and far between.

Another major issue I have is a terrible, horrible habit of undermining my healthy meals with dessert. I will cook up a fabulous roast chicken with vegetables on the side, be full and happy afterwards... then eat a giant bowl of ice cream. Or a brownie. Or a Sonic milkshake (have you seen their after 8 milkshake deal??).


Since tomorrow poor Mags is getting her tonsils out, we will be mostly homebound for her week of recovery. This will make this new challenge easier (though she won't really be able to participate in much, since her diet will probably revolve around frozen fruit snacks and mashed potatoes).


Here and now, I would like to publicly accept this challenge for our family this week - we will be eating in and eating a little bit healthier than normal, starting tomorrow night at dinner (we'll be at the hospital around lunchtime tomorrow) and ending on Saturday night.  Here are the guidelines:


1. Eat in
2. Eat whole foods for lunch and dinner (we'll give a little leeway to breakfast and snacks)
3. No dessert




Tentative Meal Plan (for the next few days, until Round Two of grocery shopping):


1. Smoked Salmon Alfredo with (homegrown) spinach salad and homemade garlic bread (with elephant garlic I got from market)
2. Kale and Sausage soup plus grilled cheese with spinach and tomatoes
3. Roast chicken with mashed potatoes and roasted carrots
4. Snow pea and parmesan risotto
5. Barbeque ribs (special for my father's day dinner for my dad) 




Wish us luck!