To Exercise, or Not to Exercise, That is a good question...

Kelly the Kitchen Kop is hosting a Weight Loss & Wellness Challenge over at her blog. Since I'm nursing (and therefore advised on all fronts not to focus on weight loss), we are focusing more on the wellness end, but exercise definitely still fits into that picture. And even though I am not focusing on weight loss via diet, I do know that getting up and moving around will help the process of fitting in my pre-prego clothes along. Another great reason I have to focus on making sure I get more exercise in, is that it really helps me in dealing with ADD...more focus is never a bad thing!

At her Exercise & Weight Loss Questions post, Kelly is also giving away a gallon of Olive Oil from Chaffin Family Orchards! Also, there is a list of questions you can choose to comment with, so I thought I would answer them here at my blog, too. :)

• Does exercise help you lose weight, or is it more about what you’re eating?
• I have always found that I needed to focus both on what I am eating and exercise together to achieve any weight loss results. It can be tricky, though, when weight loss is your goal; because increased activity means you are burning more calories, and your body automatically tells you to eat more. I found the easiest way to bypass that is to have plenty of high protein snacks around. Hard boiled eggs, cheese sticks (or just cheese), homemade (for lack of preservatives & MSG) jerky.
• What is your favorite way to exercise?
• While I had an office gymnasium at my disposal for free, I became addicted to the elliptical machine. I also grew quite fond of the treadmill while I was using a treadmill desk at work. Now I am staying at home and taking care of my adorable, wonderful, amazing son, though; so I am opting for taking walks in the sunshine with my handsome little man, and doing stretching and toning exercises a few times a week.
• What is your favorite excuse NOT to exercise and how do you push past it?
• It was waking up early to squeeze in a workout before my work day, and for that I had friends meet me at the gym for extra get-out-of-bed incentive. Now, though, it tends to be finding the time. My best way to push past it, though, is remembering how I feel when I do not take the time.
• What is your best way to motivate yourself to DO IT?
• Again - knowing how I feel when I am not exercising. I had to spent several weeks post C-Section trying not to do very much, and if there is anything I have discovered it is that laying low breeds lethargy and sluggishness. I also remember how amazing I felt post-workout, before even drinking my coffee.
• What do you listen to while your exercise?  (If anything.)
• If I am doing a faster-paced work out (like being on the elliptical) I tend to listen to Skillet, faster Switchfoot songs, and even some of the faster-tempo Nichole Nordeman (I have pretty eclectic taste). Anything with a good rhythm that will help me to keep moving.
• What are your 2011 exercise goals?  (As I said in a previous post, it’s good to get these into writing!)
• I want to take daily walks with Joshua (getting a little more sun with my son, too...great for that Vitamin D synthesis), and spend time doing stretching and toning exercises 2-3 times a week.

Whatever the reason, I hope you will take time to get a little more active this year. Exercise is not only good for losing weight. Studies show that people who sit down for most of their day have more health problems and a shorter lifespan. We were not meant to be so still, so inactive. So get moving!  And get on over to Kelly the Kitchen Kop to win some high quality olive oil from a fantastic family farm.

Giveaway at Kelly the Kitchen Kop - Fermented Veggie Sampler from Cultures for Health

Lacto-fermentation. I have to admit, the word sounds pretty disgusting at first listen. You think to yourself, “Are they fermenting these things with milk?” Even realizing that everyday foods for us like yogurt and sour cream are fermented milk, it does not sound even close to appealing.  But, truth be told, lacto-fermentation has nothing to do with milk (brace yourself, this sounds even less appealing), but with lactobacilli – a probiotic bacteria that can help to preserve foods.

Fermented foods are even more nutritious than their raw counterparts. This is because the fermentation process produces digestion-aiding enzymes, and can vastly multiply the vitamin content of food, all while creating a rich flavor.

We have been hoping to include more fermented foods in our diet for some time, now. I acquired a copy of Wild Fermentation by Sandor Katz – a book that holds a wealth of information on fermented foods – and scoured the real food blogosphere for tips, tricks, and any recipes I did not already have. I started my experimenting this summer, when I made a batch of lacto-fermented peach salsa. It was absolutely incredible! Not only did it taste great, but it kept very well, and of course was loaded with enzymes and nutrients. Shortly thereafter, though, third trimester exhaustion caught up with me and I was not in the mood for much more experimentation, and of course it is now winter (and I really prefer to work with local, organic produce for these experiments. This spring, however, I plan to let the fermenting fun begin! I even managed to add some additional wide-mouth jars to my collection, so I can do more than a couple different veggies at once.

Between now and then, however, it would be great to get a taste for specific vegetables in their already-fermented state, so I am very excited about Kelly the Kitchen Kop’s latest giveaway: A fermented veggie sampler from Cultures for Health! I have been very pleased with purchases I have made with them; including yogurt cultures, kefir and water kefir grains, and a kombucha SCOBY, as well. Everything has been great quality, and I have gotten some great results with their cultures, so I have no doubt that these veggies will be incredible.

Head on over to Kelly the Kitchen Kop to enter, and sign up for her newsletter, because the winners will only be announced there!

Menu Plan Monday - Getting Out of the Holiday Sweets Frenzy

I am stunned to find that we are already entering the new year, wondering where the time has flown. Babies, it seems, are a time machine of sorts. If anything speeds up time, it is taking care of a baby. One moment we have just woken up, and the next it is time for bed.

While I love Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years -- and all the great food these holidays bring -- I am eager to get us back on track, food-wise. Especially when we consider how lax we had become with food toward the end of my pregnancy and in the beginning weeks with Joshua. We were making healthier choices, but "easier" healthy choices that were not nearly as great as the choices we were striving to make before. So....New year, new opportunity to get things moving in the right direction again.

We are following along with Kelly the Kitchen Kop's three week health/wellness jumpstart, and our focus is mostly going to be reducing (even healthier homemade) sweets, and emphasizing proteins over carbs (Also, I am going to be taking more walks with the baby, trying to get a bit more active). While we are not going to be able to do completely low-carb all that feasibly, we can at least reduce grains and gluten via my favorite non-grain, quinoa; but primarily we're just making sure that all of our grains are whole grains. Quinoa is not actually a grain, but frequently used as one, quinoa is gluten free, a complete protein in and of itself (something no grain can boast), and very high in other important nutrients like iron. So we have two quinoa based meals in the menu this week, and some higher nutrient grains like barley, and other high nutrient foods. We also still have a bit of Christmas money left, so we worked in an eat-out night, mostly because our friend Gaby still has not gotten to meet Joshua. Gaby's is great, particularly because she seasons her food with actual herbs and spices, not any of the cheaper "spice" mixes that contain MSG, so I can eat there headache free.

Monday - Baked Chicken with Apples and Barley
Tuesday - eat at Gaby's (Caribbean & American Cuisine)
Wednesday - Quinoa and Veggie Stirfry
Thursday - Salsa Chicken & Blackbean soup.
Friday - Hummus & homemade Whole Wheat Naan, Veggies
Saturday - Quinoa Burgers (sans buns) and Pumpkin Soup (from homemade pumpkin)
Sunday - Leftovers

This post is a part of Menu Plan Monday. Go to I'm an Organizing Junkie for more great menus.

Why Did the Chickens Cross the Road?

For almost 2 years now, my husband and I have been making many steps toward a healthier (and more frugal!) lifestyle. We started simple: switching our sweetener of choice from refined sugar to Sucanat and raw local honey; switching from pasteurized milk for me and soy milk for dh to fresh, local, raw milk (which I prefer to call real milk); and milling our own flour from whole grains.

This year, we added a few things to the mix. Having moved into a house with a gigantic yard (and a landlady who actually asked us to have a garden), we started with four raised garden beds, and then added a long row for corns, beans, squash, and watermelon to all grow in tandem. Then we thought, "good, free range chicken is so expensive, but we really do not want to eat all this soy-filled, antibiotic laden, factory chicken." So, we ordered some chickens from a hatchery and have a few hens for laying, a loud, but gorgeous rooster (appropriately named Chauntecleer), and several large breed birds to put in the freezer. That went relatively well (though we lost quite a few of them to neighborhood dogs), so we recently ordered several more chickens to add to our layers and put quite a few more broilers in the freezer (and share some with friends and family).

We know several people who have chickens in the city limits (city is a misnomer, by the way, our tiny town is comprised of about 10,000 people), who have had no problems with City Code Enforcement. Everything changed for us yesterday. Just as I was trying to get back to sleep for a bit after a long night with our newborn, CCE came knocking on our door loudly (and early!), telling us that we cannot have chickens in the city limits.

Frustrated. Disheartened. Discouraged. Angry. All of these words applied. We have invested a lot of time, energy, and money (which is the hardest of the three to come by, it seems) into these birds, and had no problems with any neighbors or anything in the near year we had been raising them. However, the Code Enforcement Marshall who came by did not serve us an official notice, which put my husband on the research trail.

As it so happens, the state of Georgia has a law that our Marshall apparently does not know about. On top of that, there is another, more precise bill presently awaiting a vote in the legislature.

The law, signed by Governor Sonny Perdue in May of 2009, states that "No county, municipality, consolidated government or other political subdivision of this state shall adopt or enforce any ordinance, rule, regulation or resolution regulating crop management or animal husbandry practices involved in the production of agricultural or farm products on any private property.”

We are hoping this is enough to allow us to keep our hens and the broilers, though we are giving our loud rooster away to our dairy farmer. In case it does not, however, we are encouraging all of our friends in the state of Georgia to contact their representatives in support of this bill, which states:

(b) No county, municipality, consolidated government, or local government authority shall prohibit or require any permit for the growing or raising of food crops or chickens, rabbits, or milk goats in:

(1) Home gardens, coops, or pens on private residential property so long as such food crops or animals or the products thereof are used for human consumption by the occupant of such property and members of his or her household and not for commercial purposes; and

(2) Community or cooperative gardens, coops, or pens on any portion of any private lot made available for such purposes by the occupant thereof so long as the total lot size is not more than 2.75 acres and the food crops or animals or the products thereof are used for human consumption by the growers and raisers and members of their households and not for commercial purposes; provided, however, that the slaughter of goats kept pursuant to this Code section shall be prohibited.

 
If you live in the state of Georgia, please contact your representative ASAP! The rights of individuals to raise food for themselves that keeps to our preferred health standards should not be compromised!  If you live elsewhere, contact your representatives in the state government and tell them that you want similar legislation protecting your right to grow your own food; or better yet, contact your state representatives to encourage them to vote no on S.510! 

This post is a part of Save Farm Freedom Friday @ Kelly the Kitchen Kop. Visit her page for more great posts!

Can the Canned Pumpkin (Donald Trump Style?)

So, I love pumpkin soup. As the calendar creeps towards Thanksgiving and Christmas, I get excited about all things pumpkin: Pumpkin bread, pumpkin spice lattes, pumpkin pie, and definitely pumpkin soup. This year, though, as I have been getting more focused on real foods, I decided I would try and make a pumpkin soup from scratch! How hard could it be, anyway?

Turns out it is pretty easy, and the taste is far superior. First of all, do not use a jack-o-lantern pumpkin. They are bigger, sure, but they have less meat and, apparently, less flavor (the flavor part I have to take from the lady at the farmer's market. I have no experience with this of my own).
Here is a picture of the pumpkin we used:

This pumpkin, rather than the bright (almost garish) orange, is a nice putty/beige color.  And it is heirloom, so you can bet we are keeping the seeds. But when you cut it open, it is twice as bright as the insides of the orange pumpkins. The bright color is a good indication that this pumpkin is pretty high in Vitamin A (in the form of beta carotene), among other things.


So, to make pumpkin soup from FRESH pumpkin is actually a fairly simple task. Step one, cut the pumpkin in half. Rather than saw off the top and try to scoop out the insides (like you would when carving a pumpkin), cut it vertically in half from top to bottom, and scoop out the seeds. I have heard that the seeds are easier to remove once the pumpkin is cooked, but when your pumpkin is an heirloom variety and you want to save the seeds for your garden, cooking them first is a very bad idea.

Step 2, lay the pumpkin flesh-side down in a baking pan. You can use a cookie sheet, if you do not mind the smell of scorched pumpkin juice as it runs all over your oven. This was the first lesson I learned yesterday. Not unbearable, the scent is akin to burnt marshmallows. Oops.

I guess step 1 should actually have been "preheat your oven to 375," but I am going to pretend I already told you that. Step 3, then, is to place the baking dish in the oven for about 45 minutes.

Step 4: Remove the dish from the oven, and allow the pumpkin halves to cool for approximately twenty minutes. This step is vital if you are at all attached to your fingertips in their current, unblistered state.

Step 5 is much easier than you would think. Grasp the (hopefully) cooled pumpkin rind, and pull upwards. If all goes according to plan, you should now have a surprisingly thin and flimsy pumpkin rind in your hand, and a pile of orange goo in your baking pan (this is the pumpkin "meat").

Now, add to your recipe. Pumpkin is pumpkin, volume-wise (though I have learned that taste-wise, this is NOT the case!), so add the same amount as is called for with canned pumpkin.

Last year I made pumpkin soup with canned pumpkin, and Dh thought it was "okay." This year I made the soup with FRESH pumpkin, and he said, "You better freeze the leftovers so we have some for after the baby!"  BIG difference.

This is not my pumpkin soup. We ate it up so quickly (and froze the leftovers so quickly) that I forgot to take a picture.  This picture actually comes from here.

If you have a good farmer's market nearby, finding some high quality pie or soup pumpkins should not be too difficult. So can the canned pumpkin this holiday season! You are in for a very pleasant surprise if you do!

This is the pumpkin soup recipe I used. I should warn you, however, that I am not responsible for what happens if you follow the recipe exactly, haha. I realized as I was getting the soup ready that my husband had used the last onion (and not told me!), so I used green peppers (from our garden!) instead. Then, as I was smelling the nearly-finished soup, I decided it needed a dash of nutmeg and cardamom, too.  And I added some freshly ground black pepper. I did not really measure...not my style with spices. So, play around, have fun, and enjoy!

This is a part of Real Food Wednesday at Kelly the Kitchen Kop! Find more great posts there :)

Menu Plan Monday - Last Official Pre-Baby Menu??

Nine days till our due date! Not that I am naive enough to think that DS will arrive exactly on time, so we are quite aware he could come early or late. I am not feeling incredibly uncomfortable, so I am kind of hoping for the extra time to prepare; and yet... several of my pregnant friends have recently had their LOs, and I am starting to get a bit jealous! I would love to hold our baby boy, and I am really looking forward to our birth experience, in our home!

We do have several freezer meals made up, and are anticipating meals from our church, and my mom is going to be with us for about a month; so menu plans from here on out may be sporadic. I may get one more in next week, if DS does not come before then.

Up this week:

Tonight (Monday) - Roast Chicken Breast with Rice and Vegetables
Tuesday - Pumpkin soup, Wheat Bread, Sausage (from our pig!)
Wednesday - Chicken & Biscuits (Our chicken and whole wheat biscuits)
Thursday -Roast Ham (in the crockpot), sweet potatoes / veggies
Friday -Breakfast for Dinner (Grits, Bacon, Eggs)
Saturday - Leftovers (Roast)
Sunday - Family birthday / group barbecue - we're providing meat for burgers

That's it for our meal plan.  Head on over to OrgJunkie for more great meal plans.

Meal Planning - We Are Still on the Wagon

Well, as my due date draws closer, time seems to find all kinds of things to be crowded with.  We have been taking the time to diligently meal plan; but I have not been taking the time to post our plans. Actually, as I have gone from working in the office to freelance writing from home, it seems I have fallen off the face of the blogosphere all together.  I am really wanting to remedy that, though, as I would rather write about these things than how many ways there are to skin a cat in Minnesota (anyone who has done freelance article writing online certainly understands that sentiment, I am sure).

We received a very pleasant surprise today: Dh went to our dairy farmer to get our milk, and checked to see if he had any beef yet (he said closer to October last time we spoke with him).  Well, he did not have the new beef yet, but after dh helped him get a cow back into the pasture, he gave us a shopping bag full of steaks and ribs he had in the freezer. Gave. Things are a bit tight these days, so that was a huge blessing.  Tonight we are having sirloin! (A side note: If you have never cooked grass finished beef before, or have cooked it with not-so-great results, head over to Kelly the Kitchen Kop to check out this post. Cooking grass finished the same way you cook commercial beef can lead to some tough results!

Regarding the pig we split with a family from our church: We worked our way through the pork chops, tenderloin, and roasts pretty quickly. We have another roast left, but mostly a good bit of sausage and lots (and lots) of ribs. Add that to the beef ribs we just got from our dairy farmer; and we have decided that the next few Sundays are officially "Rib Day."

Taking inspiration from many of the amazing real food bloggers I have been reading, I also decided that we would freeze the remains of one meal a week for freezer meals post-baby. I will have my mother here with me for a month, and friends visiting, so I know it may not be a drastic necessity; but I wanted to have at least a week's worth of back-ups, just in case. So far we have frozen the mixed up (but raw) beef mixture for Barley Burgers, Venison Sausage Chili (Dh's amazing creation), Pork & Cranberry Stew (we had a gluten-free guest that night so it is made with rice instead of barley). We actually have two nights worth of the stew frozen, all thanks to being only two people with one large crock pot ;) .

We were also very blessed with an abundant (and I do mean abundant) harvest of sweet potatoes.  For our first garden together, most of our planting yielded sparse results. Good, quality, heirloom and heritage fruits and veggies, but not in the greatest quantities. Sweet potatoes, it seems, were the exception to that rule. We planted 2 sweet potatoes in about 4 pieces (after sprouting them), and they took over our backyard. So, I have plans to freeze enough baked sweet potato for a few sweet potato pies (I need to do that before the baby comes, for sure!) for Thanksgiving and Christmas; but otherwise, we have them stored in the crawlspace under the house and we're just trying to incorporate them where we can.  So on this meal plan, you will see several meals with sweet potatoes, and now you know why!

One last little addendum.  My last checkup with my midwife had me reading as slightly anemic. Not a huge deal, but being due in 2 1/2 weeks (give or take), I decided that everything with grain is going to be soaked this week, even things I don't normally soak (like crepe batter, or rice for the risotto). Though I am not sure yet exactly where I fall in the phytic acid debate, I figure that this week I need all the help absorbing iron I can get.

Monday - Spinach/Tomato/Mozzarella Fritatta, Whole Wheat Toast (from our homemade soaked WW Bread)

Tuesday - Hamsteak (from our pig!), Sweet Potato Risotto (Yes, I am soaking the rice for this)

Wednesday - Breakfast for dinner - Sausage (from our pig!) & Egg Crepes (with soaked whole wheat crepes)

Thursday - Spaghetti with garlic bread (again with our homemade soaked whole wheat bread), and steamed veggies

Friday - Pan Fried Chicken, Veggies, Rice (soaked, and cooked up with a little bit of chicken stock - hello flu season!)

Saturday - Cozy Quinoa Casserole (We are revising this one to exclude the ground turkey - since it is really not necessary - and to replace the Acorn Squash with....you guessed it! Sweet Potatoes! Plus, we are ignoring all the "low-fat" and "low-sodium" parts of the directions. Only full fat cheese and our homemade chicken stock work for us!)

Sunday - Beef Ribs, Cornbread (soaked), and Baked Sweet Potatoes.

Visit Laura @ I'm an Organizing Junkie for more great menus!