This video talks about the true cost of food and other interesting information. Worth watching! Great reasons to buy local.

After I juice a ton of fruits and vegetables, I can’t stand just throwing away all of that pulp so I have started thinking of things to do with it. After I did fruits last time (pineapple, apple, strawberries, grapes), i cleaned out the pulp and put it aside. Then I did the carrots and beets. I took a bit of the carrot and beet pulp and added it to the fruit pulp (because I didn’t want too much veggie flavor). Then I added a bit of milk (organic) and sugar (organic, evaporated cane juice) and mixed it all up and froze it. The next day I thawed it for a bit and we ate it like sherbet! It was so delicious. My 3 year old just ate it up like ice cream and she got healthy doses of fruits and vegetables!

My wife wants to start having fresh juice as a way to supplement meals from time to time when she doesn’t want to eat anything heavy, so we bought the fairly inexpensive Hamilton Beach HealthSmart Juice Extractor. We bought a bunch of organic fruits and vegetables and started making juices out of pineapples, apples, oranges, strawberries, carrots and beets.  We also figured it would be a fantastic way to get our 3 year old daughter to get more vegetables, since we can sneak in some carrot and beet juice in a pineapple juice mix and she won’t even know it’s there!

In fact I got the idea to start mixing vegetable juices like carrot and beet into recipes. Today I mixed carrot, pineapple, apple, strawberry and substituted some water in pancake mix with the juice.  I also added some of the pulp from the pulp catcher into the pancakes as well. My daughter and I thought that they turned out fantastic and I was able to feed her carrot juice in a tasty treat that she gobbled up!  I plan on putting carrot and beet juice into more recipes in the future.

I can’t wait for the Farmer’s Markets to start up again soon and we can buy fresh, in season fruits and veggies for our juice.

It’s been a tradition in my family that I make lasagna for Christmas dinner for many years. Some years I make a veggy lasagna, some years I make one with turkey sausage and sometimes I even make an alfredo lasagna with chicken. This year I had the new challenge of making a lasagna for my wife with no dairy. I still made a dairy lasagna for everyone else. This year I made it with organic chicken sausage from New Season’s, fresh mushrooms, onions and zucchini. I went to the store with the intention to get organic ricotta cheese, but when I saw how expensive it would be, I decided against it this time, especially after seeing how much the ricotta substitute was going to cost for my wife’s lasagne.

The best idea for a substitution that I could find for ricotta that had no dairy or soy was mixing crushed pignoli (pine) nuts, nutritional yeast, lemon and salt. I couldn’t believe how well it turned out, although I couldn’t believe how expensive raw pignoli nuts are (like $20.00/lb.). I found later that I could have mixed crushed almonds and/or cashews as well (next year!) or I found cheaper Pine Nuts at Amazon. I also used rice cheese and chicken sausage and made my wife a very delicious lasagne!

While striving to eat more natural as well as eliminating dairy for my wife who is intolerant, I found some new and delicious ways to make Thanksgiving dinner. The easiest things to change was simply using the dairy free margarine to prepare the onions and celery in the stuffing, but the most challenging substitution was the evaporated milk used in the pumpkin pie.

Here is what I made:

Organic, Free Range Turkey from New Seasons

Stuffing using organic bread crumbs (with spices), onions and celery and the dairy free margarine

Fresh cranberries cooked in organic cane sugar (Yumm!!)

Organic potatoes, mashed (1 batch with rice milk and dairy free margarine and another with milk and regular margarine)

Corn on the cob – unfortunately I could not find any organic corn, which strikes me as odd. I was told that it was not in season, but I was just at a corn field maze a few days before and there was plenty of corn.

A friend brought a green bean casserole made with fresh, organic green beans

Pumpkin Pie made with a real pumpkin, coconut cream instead of evaporated milk and a pre-made organic whole wheat pie crust

Everything turned out pretty good, if I do say so.

We have lately seen some small black ants here and there in our house and would rather not call an exterminator (with a 3 year old and 3 pets) or buy something expensive, so I started researching natural pest control options. I am going to try these ideas and post later the results.

1. Cinnamon – Ants are repelled by cinnamon. I have heard that you can sprinkle some in areas where ants are found and they will not go there anymore.

2. Vinegar – Mix water and vinegar (50/50) in a spray bottle and spray it in the areas you find ants. The smell will supposedly go away shortly. Apple Cider Vinegar works great as well I have read.

3. Chalk – supposedly you can draw a line of chalk where they are coming in and they will not cross it.

4. Cayenne, chili and/or black pepper – putting down a line of pepper is supposed to stop them from crossing.

5. Cream of tartar – supposedly another great barrier, stopping ants from crossing.

6. Molasses - This method is supposed to kill ants, not just repel them and is safe around pets and children. If you mix 1/3 cup molasses, 6 tablespoons of active dry yeast and 6 tablespoons of granulated sugar. Put this in little containers around the house and it is supposed to cause lethal indigestion. Hopefully they take it back to the colony and stop an infestation.

7. Bay leaves and cloves – these are also supopsed to repel ants.

I think that I will start with cinnamon and cream of tartar (since I happen to have some from making play-do) and if those dont work I will try the molasses. Then I will report on what worked best.

We had the urge to eat out today. Thankfully we have a special fast food restaraunt here in Oregon called Burgerville!

When other fast food restaraunts use low grade hormone filled meats and MSG, Burgerville uses 100% antibiotic and hormone free natural beef for their hamburgers. Ah, the deliciousness!  Their motto is Fresh. Local. Sustainable. Burgerville has set the bar for eco-friendly and natural fast-food. Not to mention they currently have sweet potato french fries. Mmmm!

Our daughter Maya’s 3rd birthday is tomorrow and we wanted to experiment with a gluten free, dairy free, soy free cake (so Kathy could have some). Sounds like it was going to be kind of awful, but it turned out great! We bought a dutch chocolate cake mix by a brand called “The Cravings Place” (The Cravings Place Cake Mix) and a confetti frosting mix by “Pamela’s Products” (Pamela’s Frosting Mix) at our New Seasons Market.

After mixing the cake batter and tasting it, I was skeptical how it was going turn out. I figured if you didn’t want to lick the mixer, it probably isn’t going to be very good. But I was wrong. The cake turned out so moist and delicious!

The frosting called for butter, so we substituted the dairy free and soy free margarine made by “Earth Balance.”  It was quite delicious as well.

Once I put the two together, it turned out to be quite a good cake. It’s nice to know that our 3 year old is going to get a cake that she will love and we know it’s got all natural, healthier ingredients. Obviously, it’s not optimal to feed children so much sugar, but it is her birthday! We will let her bounce off the walls for a while!

We have started visiting the Beaverton Farmer’s Market every Saturday.  We bascially set out to buy fresh green beans and those fantasic walla walla onions every week. We also are still lucky enough to find fantastic strawberries! This is the season for apples, pears and peaches as well as peppers and pumpkins (obviously). There are so many varieties of apples and everyone offers samples. We love the samples of everything…from cheeses to breads and fruits.  You have to try Dave’s Killer bread, it is delicious!

We all know that ‘MSG’ is bad, but why? Monosodium Glutamate became famous by Chinese restaurants and now you may see ‘No MSG’ on the menu, but as most people don’t know it is in many popular foods we buy at the grocery store. To name one, most Campbell’s Soups have MSG. Your wholesome, American, grandmother’s soup contains harmful MSG! It is also found in many popular chips like Doritos and Lay’s as well as in Kraft salad dressings. These are some of the largest food producing companies in America and they are poisoning us with the addictive food additive.

Some have tried to hide the fact that they use MSG by calling it Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein. Look out for that one too!

It doesn’t stop there. Most of the popular restaurants we used to frequent use MSG in their food. You would be surprised to find out that Burger King, McDonalds, KFC, Wendy’s, Taco Bell, TGIF, Chilis’, Applebees and Denny’s all use MSG in their food!

MSG is an additive that is used as a ‘flavor enhancer’, but what it really enhances is obesity. No rats or mice are naturally obese, so for testing purposes, researchers inject rats with MSG at birth, which increases the insulin created by the pancreas 3 times, which leads to obesity. Researchers call these obese rats, ‘MSG Treated Rats’.

So this is the first thing we are trying our best to stay away from. Believe me, I love some of these foods/restaurants mentioned above, so it’s going to be hard, but it’s worth it in the long run when we live longer, healthier lives.