Some People Have Pets, I Have This...

This is my latest pet project, one I'm more and more proud of with each day that passes.  Much like a pet, it requires love and attention daily.  If I don't tend to my "collection", I'm not sure what would happen, maybe nothing, maybe something disastrous, but I know it's worth nurturing.

Over the past few weeks, I've become a little freakish about what we're eating. Thanks to an evil discovery involving a loaf of MONTH old bread with no mold, baking our own healthy, preservative free bread became an obsession.

After the success of my wheat bread (with the only complaint being that it needed more honey which I used the last of on the bread) I wanted to branch out.  Next was hot cross buns for Good Friday breakfast, followed by wheat dinner rolls and Amish white bread on Easter. Still not satisfied with my knowledge, I started researching sourdough starters.

There is a site called Sourdough Home that is a fountain of knowledge for creating sourdough. Hoping to be a "sourdough purist", I followed Mike's way of starting a sourdough starter, the measuring cup in my picture.  Four days later, it's doing great!

Being a worrywart, I also found a starter that used yeast (which I call my cheater starter) shown in the bowl in the middle.  This starter is also doing quite well and will be ready to use soon. 

These two have completely different smells at this stage of the game because the "cheater" was started with yeast while the other was simply started with flour and water.  It will be interesting to make a batch of each to taste the difference!  I'm hoping to do that sometime next week and will definitely post my results. 

On the left is a bag filled with Amish Friendship starter.  I can remember my mom receiving bags of starter and making some wonderful fruity breads with them.  I'm hoping to do the same and I have friends waiting for their share of it as soon as it's ready.

So, my friends have dogs and cats, I have my various containers of starter. Every night, I uncover them, feed them, and give them a vigorous stir to make sure they  have enough air to grow properly.  I'm still slightly worried that one of these times they will grow out of their containers and I'll have a dripping mess, but hopefully I'm doing a good job of watching them and I will move them to bigger containers as needed.

Food Week Wrap-up

I didn't get a chance to blog quite as much as I had hoped about trying to change our food habits, but with any luck, I'll keep working on it and find some time.  That way, years from now, I can come back and see how far I've come!

I'll call this week a 50/50 draw.  I didn't do as well as I hoped, but I did cook more than I used to and when I did, I didn't pull out a Hamburger Helper once, a bad habit I've gotten into over the past decade.

One night, we had pizza.  This is the ultimate cheap meal for us because Hubs manages a pizza place.  I had to pick Bubs up from him at work and he made pizza since it adds about 40 miles total to my drive.  The good thing, I know exactly what they use because I used to work for the same company.

Another night, I wound up getting the dreaded arches.  I forgot my keys and forgot to get them from Hubs when he dropped Bubs off to me, so I added over an hour to my evening commute (I was close to home when I realized what I had done).  It was easier to drive thru than to deal with late bedtime.  The interesting thing, I HATED IT!  Seriously, how did I live off such crap for so long?

Thursday, we had limited time because we had church.  I consciously chose to drive thru a different place that had a bit healthier (but still not healthy) options.  I even hated that!  I'm starting to like cooking at home, controlling how things are seasoned, etc.

And today, Hubs' good intentions are falling just a touch flat.  He's not as into (read, not at all) reading labels as I am.  He picked up a "ham" for dinner tonight since we didn't have a family feast at lunch.  It's a "ham and water product" with up to 35% weight in added products.  WOWZERS!!!  I'm not bringing it up to him right this minute because I know it will sour the evening, but dang!  To balance that out, we're having fresh carrots, mashed potatoes, and homemade wheat dinner rolls.

Even though my choices weren't as great as I would like, I think it's a success because the times I faltered taught me a valuable lesson.

Oh, and for a bonus point, I've almost totally converted from soda to water!  We were huge soda lovers, but it's not healthy in so many ways.  I still can't get Hubs on board to change his ways, but I can control what I drink.  And now that I'm not drinking it, Bug is asking for water more than anything else!  Double score!

Such an Exciting Meal!!

This may be my favorite meal of the week.  Are you ready???  Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches!!! 

Why is this my favorite meal?  Because the peanut butter is all natural.  Seriously, the only ingredient in this stuff is peanuts, nothing else.  At first, I wasn't sure I was going to like it.  Do you have any clue how little peanut taste is in most commercial peanut butters?

The next reason it's my favorite meal... Homemade strawberry jam.  Last summer, Bug and I went strawberry picking for the first time and I made a bunch of freezer jam.  With as much of a hit as it's been over the winter and into spring, I think I'll be making MUCH more of it this year!

And the final reason this is my favorite meal... Homemade bread!  I know I posted about making wheat bread earlier this week, but this is the first "meal" we've used it for.  Most of the bread has been eaten solo, as a snack.

Who knew that something as simple as a PBJ could make me smile so much?!  I am just totally in love with the fact that I made a meal that is mostly homemade and contains no words I can't pronounce in the ingredient list!

100 Mile Challenge

Thanks to this post on Suburban Saving Mom's website, I found out about the 100 mile challenge.  Reading the post, I had to laugh because I have used the "I live in Wisconsin" excuse for not doing more to eat locally.  I'm not saying it is an excuse for Amy, only that it was for me.

Seriously, I live in Wisconsin, it's not the best environment for many things that we love to eat. How could I do something as responsible as try to find local options and adapt my diet to fit the foods I find?

Well, apparently it can be done and I'm looking forward to finding great places to get our food from.  What I can't get locally, I will do my best to buy from smaller, local stores so I'm at least supporting our local economy rather than lining someone else's pockets.

Homemade Wheat Bread

In my "former life", cheap was good and quick was even better.  I'm not saying healthy, I'm just saying it reduced my stress level to spend as little as possible at the grocery store and have to put in as little effort as possible.

Last month, we bought a loaf of bread from one of the big box stores.  It was probably about $1 for the loaf.  Well, when we got home, it didn't get put in the bread box, it was put on my junk counter.  When I found it a couple of weeks ago, I didn't think twice, I put it in the bread box.  Then, there wasn't much need for bread for a while, until last week, when Bug wanted toast for breakfast. 

When I saw the sell by date, I was horrified that the bread was so old!  The date was around Valentine's Day.  When I saw that the bread had no mold and was only slightly hard, I just about freaked out.  I don't even want to think of how much they have to put into the bread to get it to last that long! 

As silly as it may seem, bread became a priority on the "healthier options" list.  I picked up a bag of Gold Medal Whole Wheat Flour last weekend when I was at the grocery store.  The back of the bag had a recipe for bread, so I used that recipe and made sure I had all of the ingredients. 

Another shocker, there isn't much difference in color between all-purpose flour and unbleached all-purpose flour.  If they're that similar, why purchase the bleached option?  Seriously, if anyone has an answer for that, I'd love to know!

Last night, after throwing dinner in the oven, I started mixing my first batch of bread.  I was terrified!  Bread is something that seems like it needs a lot of care and practice to do well.  After the first rise, I was sure I had messed it up, but I kept trudging through.  I formed my two loaves, put them in their pans, and covered them to rise again.  This time, I felt more confident as I had a better idea of the starting point of my loaves.

They seemed to get dark quickly and I got scared again.  What if my bread was inedible? What if I only thought it had risen long enough? What if...

It did take about 3 hours from start to finish but it was amazing!!!  As soon as it cooled enough to touch, I cut it and buttered a piece as a snack for myself.  Had I not shown some restraint, I easily could have eaten the whole loaf!

The funny thing is, I spent about $6 stocking my pantry with items I didn't have.  At the very least, I have enough left for one more batch, which would bring the cost down to about $1.50 per loaf.  So, to save 50 cents and some time, I've been buying tasteless bread filled with everything unhealthy for my family.  That really doesn't seem like I saved much at all!  From now on, I will set aside a little bit of my weekends to bake bread for my family to eat during the week.  If we have leftovers, I will use it to make French toast or something equally yummy so it doesn't go to waste!