School is starting back soon but I am busy incorporating whole, natural foods into our diet! My preparation for teaching Calculus this year will have to wait one more day. =) Here are my firsts for the week!
Foods we’ve tried: Tofu & Artichokes – I used tofu in a lasagna and I was NOT impressed. Mark gave it a 3 out of 5. Not sure whether I am going to throw in the towel with this one or try it in another recipe. I cooked artichokes in a chicken dish and they weren’t half bad! I don’t think I’ve ever had artichokes prepared without spinach and cheese being involved. I am a fan!
Homemade Applesauce – I made my first homemade applesauce…and there’s no added sugar…yay! I cooked the apples in the crock pot so it was really easy. I blended the apples after they were cooked which made it a little too runny. Tasted great though! I’ll have to perfect it with the next few batches.
Healthy Oatmeal Dish in the Crock Pot – Epic Fail! I found this recipe that sounded so great but apparently I cooked it too long. It was burnt and tasted horrible. I will definitely have to try again with this one!
Homemade Popcorn – My hubby LOVES his popcorn! When I first suggested that we cook our own, he was not excited. He was, however, a good sport about it and cooked a batch for himself. That’s all it took. He now LOVES homemade popcorn. He still has to have the shaker seasoning stuff but I am secretly on the hunt for a healthy alternative…shh, don’t tell him!
Sourdough Starter – I started my first Sourdough Starter this week. I am at a complete loss as to what to do with this silly thing…you have to feed it every 24 hours…weird. Thankfully, I am following THIS BLOG that tells me exactly what to do every morning. And eventually I am going to make some fresh bread…another first! I’ll keep you posted about how this works out!
Pantry/Freezer Overhaul – Mark & I took a few minutes this morning to go through our pantry and freezer. We made a “give-away” pile and a “trash” pile. We looked at the ingredients on our food items and made decisions accordingly. We got rid of most of the items that would not be considered “Whole Foods”. White pasta, canned soups, salad dressings, etc. It felt so great to go through everything and make decisions together. We made some exceptions since we do have a grocery budget to stick to and we cannot buy everything new all at once. For example, I have some Imitation Vanilla Extract for baking. We decided that I could use this up and simply buy the real thing next time we need it. We also decided that Mark could keep his beloved Heinz ketchup…haha. I am scouting out recipes to make my own but it will be a tough job to convince him to switch. =)
-katrina
the simple saver 