What does your grocery list look like when you’re eating healthy?

I’m on Weight Watchers again, and I’m working on my grocery list.  I was talking to a couple of Facebook friends earlier about the types of healthy foods we try to keep on hand when trying to eat healthy.  I shared a few things that I’ve come up with, but I’d love to hear other people’s suggestions!

Here are some of mine:

I hate to admit it, because I seriously do try to avoid processed foods when I can, but it’s a lot harder when you’re dieting or doing Weight Watchers.  I tend to keep a few Lean Cuisines or Lean Pockets in the freezer for emergencies or when I’m just feeling extremely lazy–they’re easy and don’t have a lot of points.  I also tend to keep a can of milk chocolate Slimfast powder in the cupboard for the same reason.  While I’m doing true confessions, I also use butter sprinkles or butter spray when I’m doing Weight Watchers.  Yes I know it’s like one molecule away from being plastic, but I still do it.  (There, I admitted it.)

Other than those seriously processed things…

I try to buy a lot of produce, then wash and chop it the next day so it’s easy to grab at a moment’s notice.  (Grocery shopping can be exhausting, so I usually never do it right when I get home from the store.)

I buy romaine & other lettuces, spinach, radishes, carrots, sprouts, and any other salad-bar things that would be low or no points.  I also get some slightly higher cal/higher protein items  like sunflower seeds, garbanzo beans, olives,  and 2% cheese–but I try to make sure to weigh those things before putting on my salad because they can rack up points quickly.  I keep all of it–chopped, washed and ready to eat–in small containers in the fridge.  (My own little instant salad bar!) I also keep low cal salad dressing, which I also try to remember to measure when I use it when I’m counting points.  I try to make my own salad dressings because it’s hard to find dressings that don’t have HFCS.  The Annie’s dressings don’t, but I’m just not crazy about bottled dressings to begin with.

I also try to get stuff like zucchini, summer squash, fresh mushrooms, onions, eggplant, red peppers, and other similar veggies that I’ll chop up and saute in a small amount of olive oil while I’m prepping all my produce. (I usually saute them one at a time, then throw it all in together.  I just keep a big container of cooked veggies in the fridge so I can warm some in the microwave to go into my Egg Beaters omlet in the morning with a couple of Tbs. of 2% cheese.  It’s a fast, healthy, and fairly quick breakfast.

The other day, I figured out that I can peel and chop up an apple, throw it together with a little sweetener, pinch of salt, butter spray, cinnamon and nutmeg; and then nuke it until it’s soft.  It’s awesome on a toasted whole grain English Muffin when I’m craving a pastry.

When I buy any bread product, I check the label to make sure there’s no HFCS, then I check to make sure it says “Whole Wheat” or “Whole Grain”.  After that, I check the nutrition label to figure out which one has the most fiber and the fewest calories.  If there’s more than one that fits that criteria, I get the one that feels softer.

In the summer, we love frozen grapes.  I’ll buy a bunch of grapes, wash them really well and cut the stems so that when you grab them you’ll get a proper serving size.  Then I just throw them in the freezer.  They work really well when you want something cold and sweet like a Popsicle.  (They don’t satisfy a chocolate craving though.  I’ve been known to keep the fat free Fudgesicles on hand for that purpose.  Only one point each!)

My doctor suggested another one to me.  He’s completely against all sweeteners.  (He prefers sugar or honey to HFCS, but would prefer we avoid all of them with the history of diabetes in our family.) He suggested that a calorie free, yet refreshing drink is flavored water.  He told me to take a pitcher of water and put in sliced lemons, limes, even cucumber.  Throw it in the fridge overnight, and it makes a really good drink.  I’ve tried cucumber water at a spa, but I keep meaning to do this at home.  I love to put water in the fridge anyway.  It’s handy to have cold water, and I swear it tastes better after the chlorine has had a chance to evaporate away.

We also love to make 5-minute tomato soup.  I’m pretty sure I’ve posted it on here before, but all you do is put a small amount of olive oil in the bottom of a saucepan, warm it a little and then throw in a little fresh garlic.  (Roasted garlic is even better!) Then you let that sizzle for less than a minute before you add a can of crushed tomatoes and a little dried basil.  You let that simmer for about 5 minutes, then either take a stick blender to it, throw it in your regular blender, or leave it slightly chunky.  We love it, and it’s almost point free!

Ok, there are a few of my healthy food tricks.  Now it’s your turn to comment and share some of yours!

Some Thoughts (while I still try to get my other computer up and running)

I recently discovered this site and was completely enthralled.  If I’m not mistaken, it was set up by a couple of friends who practice something called “Urban Homesteading”.  (Which is essentially just trying to be as self-sufficient as one can be without being ridiculous.)  It isn’t a survivalist mentality–they don’t have stores of provisions and guns in their larder.  It’s a very back-to-basics mentality that appeals to my nostalgic side.

Several years ago, we moved into the home that was first my husband’s grandparents, then his parents’ before we moved in.  It was built in the early 1940s, and is completely charming with it’s huge basement, arched doorways, whole-house ventilation fan, cute little porch, etc.   It has been updated over the years–the heat pump/AC unit makes the coal chute obsolete, but I love that it’s still there.

It has actually been updated a little too much if you want the truth.  When my husband’s parents moved in, they replaced a lot of the charming doorknobs, light fixtures, etc. with the finest the 1980s had to offer.  It’s sad, especially when you consider how popular the mid-century style is now.  Little by little, we’ve been replacing the peach and country blue with colors that are a little more tolerable.  We’re still discussing ripping out the carpet and uncovering the pristine oak hardwood floors; but I’m a little afraid because they’re authentic, waxed wood floors so they don’t have the protection of polyurethane.   (I have a dog, two cats, and a little boy to potentially destroy it.)

That whole tangent brings be back to the fact that I’ve always been drawn to the way my grandmother did things, and now that we live in her house–the way my husband’s grandmother did things.   As we go through the house, my husband tells me stories of the amazing gardens his grandmother kept, the fruit she grew and canned, the art she created (that is still hanging on our walls), how she always line dried her laundry, and the amazing food she created–from scratch.  (Ahhh, now we’re getting to familiar topics!)

If you’ve read my blog much at all, you know that I have a distrust for excess chemicals.  I don’t believe in the idea of “better living through modern science”.  I think a lot of the chemicals that are now in our lives came about because manufacturers just wanted to save a buck in manufacturing so they could make more money in the long run, and boy howdy did it work!  I’m firmly convinced that food that is grown from dirt that has been farmed to death is pretty much nutrition free. They use petroleum based fertilizers to force things to grow, then they spray on “nutrients” during the manufacturing process–and the efficacy of those is now being called into question.  I think that chemists are smart people, but I don’t believe that they can fully understand how nutrients work in the body.  They have recognized the very basic elements that we need, but they don’t know how all of those things work together, nor do they understand how they work within each individual’s system.  I’m finally even starting to hear reports that scientists are discovering that taking a vitamin might not be the cure-all that they once thought it was.  Now they’re starting to suggest that you’re better off to eat more healthy foods like produce to get the nutrients you need.

I also think it’s sad that so many people have no earthly clue where their food comes from, nor do they have any idea that not long ago people survived just fine without all the extra chemicals in their food, cleaning products, etc.  I am absolutely amazed at the number of friends I have who can’t make even basic recipes from scratch–or act like it takes an act of God for them to be able to.  Cooking isn’t hard, yet so many people I know are unable to feed themselves without eating out or reheating processed foods.  It makes me sad.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not judging those people.  I know I’m in the minority, and I understand that I’m in a unique situation because I have more time to cook at home.  (And trust me when I say we eat plenty of restaurant and processed foods lately.)  But most people don’t understand that cooking from scratch frequently doesn’t take any longer than making something from a packaged mix, is frequently faster than going out to eat, and is a million times healthier than pretty much any of the chemical laden processed meals that you can reheat.  Especially if you plan ahead a little–which is my downfall.

All that said, I think I might shift the focus of my site just a little bit once I’m back up and running again.  I think I was already heading that way.   Don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to get rid of my TV or stop eating fake meat. We all have our things that we like.  I do want to start trying more things like canning my own food, try my hand at making soap; and I recently tried making my own ricotta cheese.  (It was really easy and good.  I’ll post it soon!)

At first I was worried that people would think that I’m becoming very “crunchy granola”.  I’m not trading in my sneakers for some Birkenstocks.  But the more I think about it, the more it makes sense now that more and more people are looking into saving money and being more environmentally friendly.

Feel free to play along with me, live vicariously through me, or just laugh at me–it’s all good.

I would love to hear your thoughts on the matter in comments though.

Tagged for a Meme (Sure it was almost two months ago, but it still counts!)

Back in August, Teresa from I’m Running to Eat tagged me for two different memes. Strangely enough, I have been thinking about the song one every single time I listen to the car radio. I should have been thinking about the other one, because it’s harder.

For the first one, I’m supposed to: List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your summer (or whatever season). Post these instructions in your blog along with your 7 songs.

Here are the first ones that come to mind:
1. “Radio Ga Ga” by Queen. I heard it the other day and it’s been stuck in my head ever since!
2. “Fill Her Up” by Sting. Last month, I watched a DVD that Sting recorded on 9/11, and that song is on there. (Also stuck in my head.)
3. The theme from “Heroes”. We bought the second season of Heroes a few weeks ago, and when we all got sick we decided to watch it all, starting with the first season. I don’t know if it counts, but I’ve heard it a lot lately.
4. “Small Enough” by Nichole Nordeman. I’ve been threatening to sing this one in church for a while, but haven’t done it yet. I love it and sing it a lot in the car.
5. “Into Temptation” by Crowded House. I still love their whole “Temple of Low Men” album, but this one is a favorite.
6. “Never Tear Us Apart” by INXS. I saw the video on Pop Up Video the other day, and remembered how much I loved that song.
7. “Wishful Thinking” by The Ditty Bops. That song is just so much fun that you can’t help but be happy when you hear it.
The second tag is to post some random things about myself.

Tag Rules:Link to the person who tagged you.Post the rules on the blog.Write six random things about yourself.Tag six people at the end of your post.Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.Let the tagger know when your entry is up….and here are 6 random things about myself:

1. I’m left handed.
2. When I was a kid, my dad made me wooden stilts and I spent hours teaching myself how to walk on them–but I can’t walk in heels without looking like a toddler.
3. I never learned to walk in heels because I’m 5′ 9 1/2″, and was frequently taller than my boyfriends.
4. For years I’ve been thinking about going back to school to get my masters in dietetics.
5. I was born in Muncie, Indiana.
6. Throughout my life, I’ve had somewhere around 15 cats; but Linus is my first dog.

Ok, so now it’s my turn to tag other people-

Elle’s New England Kitchen
Canarygirl
Noble Pig
Velvet Lava
Renae du Jour

And there you have it!

Fall is my Favorite

Fall is my favorite, not having internet access on my laptop is NOT.  I had hoped that we’d get our wireless modem fixed or replaced by now, but we’ve been so busy that it hasn’t been a priority.   Since my Living Cookbook is on my laptop, it makes posting much harder–which is part of the reason I haven’t been posting as often as I should.

I have to be honest with you, I’ve also been horrible about cooking lately.   I started volunteering at my son’s school, and I swear I’ve caught every freaking bug those precious little tykes have had to offer.  I got some sort of stomach virus, then I got strep.  As soon as I was finally feeling better from the strep, I caught a cold.  I’m finally trying to start building my immune system back up; and I’m realizing that eating out so much lately hasn’t helped my immune system at all!  Besides that, we’re going broke and my dryer is suddenly shrinking all of my clothes! (I refuse to admit that I’m gaining weight.  I don’t even want to step on the scales.)

For all of those reasons, I’m going to try to get back into cooking mode.  As a matter of fact, I’m going to get back into cooking mode with a vengeance!  I am going to try my hand at an abbreviated form of once-a-month-cooking.  I’m not going to fool myself into thinking that we’re going to exclusively eat from our freezer, but I am going to spend some time over the weekend making some freezer friendly meals that I can just take out of the freezer in the morning and reheat when I get home from school.  I hope that if I have a few easy options like that, I’ll stop saying, “Let’s just run out and grab something.”  (Because the somethings we’ve been grabbing have been spendy and FAR from healthy.)

I went out yesterday and picked up two whole chickens.  I’m going to make my friend Nikki’s Chicken Verde with one, and make Chicken and Apple Curry with the other.  (If I have any left, I’m thinking about making chicken and dumplings, but I don’t think they’ll freeze as well as the other two.)   I’m going to just go ahead and start with meat based dishes, because they’re so easy, and then I’m going to work my way back to making more meatless meals.  (Meatless meals seem to take so much more work, so I’m just going to ease back into it.)

Today I’m giving my kitchen a good cleaning, and I’m at the school again tomorrow; but Saturday I hope to get a lot of cooking done!  Look for some actual food posts by early next week!

Very Good Taste Omnivore’s Hundred–the Shaye edition

Here’s what I want you to do:

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten. (Google all the items you’ve never heard of. -S)
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment here at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone (It’s endangered. -S)
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin (Only if taking Kaopectate counts. -S)
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

Not too bad for a girl who lives in the boondocks!

(Thanks to Canarygirl for the link.)

Miscellanea

So it’s fairly early on a Saturday morning, and I’m the first one up.  Of course the first thing I did was to try to catch up on reading some of my favorite blogs that I’ve been too busy to read lately.  (I’ll be sad when school starts back up because I’ll be lonely and I’ll miss my boys, but my consolation is that I’ll have a lot more time for keeping up with my blog reading!)

My first random thought involves this blog.  I’m kind of a newcomer to the whole food blogging thing, so I’m always trying to figure out what I’m supposed to be doing.  For instance, have you ever noticed that I comment on your blog all the time, but I don’t have you on my blogroll?  And a lot of the people I *do* have on my blogroll haven’t updated their blogs in months?  That, my friends, is a pretty good indication that I can’t remember how to update my blogroll.  I’m sure I could figure it out if I played around for a while, but that would cut into my precious blog reading time.  (Heck, I just figured out how to set up a reader so I no longer have to go through my bookmarks and click on each blog that I like.)  I promise that as soon as the boys are back in school, I’ll figure it out and fix it.  I’m also trying to figure out how to better organize my recipes on here so you can find them if you ever come back and want one.  That would be yet another one of those things that will require me to spend quality time poking around the WordPress site, which isn’t my favorite thing to do when I have internet time.

A few days ago, Cathy at Noble Pig wrote a post asking What Bothers You Most About Certain Blogs? Some of the comments she got were fascinating.  It also makes me feel a little better about my blog.  I don’t have any obnoxious music that starts playing as soon as you open my site.  It isn’t cluttered with all kinds of extra stuff.  I tell little anecdotes about my life, but if you want the long (TMI) versions you have to go to my non-food blog.  I try to post decent pictures with each of my recipes, and I try to post any extra instructions I can think of for the benefit of the people who don’t cook as much.  I don’t scream at my kids across the lawn, and I don’t leave my dog out to bark all night.  (Wait, that’s MY pet peeve about my neighbors.  Sorry.)  I do tend to rant occasionally about things like stupid people and processed food, but I try to keep it under control.  I’ll also concede that I probably use parenthesis and italics too much, but I like them and it’s my blog.    (Oh, and I use cheesy winky-faced emoticons.  At LEAST I don’t use things like lol…much.)

Did I tell you that I’ve been teaching Simon about non sequiturs?

Speaking of Simon, I’ve also been thinking a lot about upcoming school lunches.  (If you lived through the whole lunch box thing on my non-food blog last year, I’m truly sorry.  Let’s just chalk it up to the fact that I was going through a lot of stress right then.)    I’ve been the worst June-Cleaver-wannabee ever this summer.  My poor child has been forced to live on whole lot of the foods he’s able to make for breakfast and lunch.  (That includes sandwiches, cold cereal, and fresh fruit.)  One one hand, I don’t feel too guilty about it because I don’t cook breakfast for people who don’t get out of bed before 9:30.  On the other hand I feel guilty because summer is almost over and all of my grand ideas of having all kinds of great snacks on hand are out the window.  EXCEPT, for that lovely do-over we like to call the beginning of the school year!  It’s like New Year’s resolutions, only different!  And I’m much better at school-year resolutions because I actually have more free time after school starts to lovingly prepare these wonderful snacks and foods that my beloved child will consume for breakfast and lunch!  I’ve already been practicing while they’ve been at Music, Arts & Drama Camp this week.  We’ve suddenly been getting oatmeal for breakfast, and there are suddenly extra things like boiled eggs and string cheese in the fridge to grab when you want a snack!  I also pulled out the yogurt maker, and I’ve pulled out some higher protein muffin recipes to try out.  I still don’t think I’ll be one of those bento lunch making moms, but my hope is that his lunches don’t deteriorate into all pb&j all the time by the end of the year like they did last year…and the year before.

Also, Simon’s birthday is this week, so his party is next weekend.  He requested the banana cupcakes with peanut butter frosting, so I’ll actually take a real picture this time!  I might even replace the cupcake drawing I made with a picture of the real thing!

This Cheese is Proof That Jesus Loves Me

We ran to Indy on a grocery shopping trip last night. We made the rounds and hit Costco, Trader Joe’s and Wild Oats–which has now officially turned into Whole Foods.

At Whole Foods, we were just browsing, and Steve picked up a wedge of cheese and said “Oooooo, smell this!”

(Now, you can’t always trust my husband when he hands you something to smell. One of our favorite games back when we still had a Yankee Candle store nearby was called “Yuck, smell this!” Where you’d pick up something horrid, but not let on that it’s horrid until after the other person had taken a big, gag inducing whiff. Fortunately, this was not one of those times.)

This cheese smelled like the food of the gods! We immediately threw it into our cart, and went on our merry way. By afternoon today, the half pound block is gone.

I decided to Google the name of the cheese to see what I could find out about it. (When did I become the type of person who Googles cheeses?)

Here’s what I learned–It’s called Parrano Uniekaas. This is what the Zabar’s website said about it. (The above picture is also from Zabar’s site.):

It’s Dutch, but sort of Italian. How can this be? Dutch cheese producer UnieKaas has taken the best qualities of Gouda and parmesan and created this 20-month-aged pasteurized cow’s milk wheel. Tasting tangy, full-flavored, and nutty, its smooth, semi-firm texture makes it an ideal grating or table cheese.

The Cheese Reporter said that it is imported by Best Cheese Corporation, and that Best Cheese products can be found at Whole Foods Market, Trader Joe’s, Safeway, Albertson’s and Kroger. (And obviously Zabar’s if you live in the New York area.)

Oh. My. Gosh. Part of the reason I’m posting about it is to recommend it to everyone I know. The other reason is so that I’ll be able to remember the name later when I go back to find more…next week.

(Oh, and just in case you’re wondering–I calculated it, and a 100 gram serving has 10.5 ww points.)

Staples (It’s what for dinner!)

Nope, not the metal bits that keep your papers together or even office supply store–the must have grocery items!

I was just reading this entry on The Delish, and started thinking about what staples I keep around. Not very long ago, I asked many of my foodie friends just what they kept in their larder. I kind of started my list there, and have been adding and subtracting things according to what I use most.

I imagine there are other people who are trying to come up with their list of must-have grocery items, so I thought I’d throw mine out there. You can do what you want with the information. (Ok, if you sell it for a lot of money, I want at least a cut. Come to think of it, I also want to know how you found someone who would pay you a bunch of money for my grocery list!)

I’d post pictures of my fridge, freezer, and pantries; but they’re all pits of despair. I really need to spend an afternoon cleaning them all out. It seems like I just did that, but for some reason they all need organizing again. (Would someone please invent a self-cleaning refrigerator?)

I will show you a picture of my spice cabinet. I love Penzey’s spices. They have a store in Indianapolis that I visit regularly. Their spices are fresher and cheaper than anything you can get in a grocery store! (This is just the cabinet with the jars of spices. I have another big plastic bin of bags of the things I use a lot of like chili powder, cocoa powder, cinnamon, basil, parsley, etc. in another pantry.)

There are a lot of things on my list that I can’t find in my local Kroger. (Sometimes I can find things at Kroger, but at twice the price.) I try to get a lot of my produce from the farmers’ market or our local fruit stand. (But in Indiana, they’re only open a few months over the summer.)

I have to make a trip to Indy at least once a month to get other things that aren’t readily available here. I get most of my flours and dry goods from the bulk bins at Wild Oats/Whole Foods in Indy. I get a lot of my nut butters, jams, and canned goods at Trader Joe’s. Costco rules for nuts and dried fruits. (Luckily for me, I live less than an hour from the north side of Indy, and all of these store can be found close to a stretch of 86th St. in or around a burg called Castleton on the north side of Indy.)

Ok, before you look at my list, please keep in mind that I’m *trying* to avoid processed foods, but I’m not a fanatic. I try to avoid anything with more than five ingredients, but I there are still a few processed things that I buy like fake meat. I also still keep white flour and sugar on hand–but I swear I try to use healthier options most of the time!

Canned Goods
tomato paste, crushed tomatoes, diced tomatoes (I want to learn to can my own this summer though.)
beans (pinto, garbanzo, black, cannellini, red kidney, green)
mushroom pieces (for pizzas)
cans and cartons of broth (mostly veggie, sometimes beef, some chicken and some mock-chicken depending on my mood)
diced pimientos (for pizzas)
black olives
chipotles in adobo (store them in the freezer once you open them)
artichoke hearts
light coconut milk
evaporated skimmed milk
fruit packed in juice
jarred applesauce (Those last two I keep on hand for the kid. I’d like to learn to can my own though.)

Condiments (check ingredients for hfcs)
vinegar (red wine, rice, balsamic, white balsamic, cider, white)
Worcestershire sauce
Cholula and Pickapeppa sauces
yellow mustard, ketchup, canola mayo, Dijon mustard
jams, preserves, fruit butters (like apple butter or pumpkin butter)
nut butters (peanut, almond, cashew, cashew-macadamia)
low sodium tamari soy sauce and Bragg’s Liquid Aminos
pickles/relishes/capers
miso (I only have red right now, but I’ve gotten yellow before)

Oils
extra virgin olive oil
canola oil
walnut oil
sesame oil
pan spray (I like to use regular oil in a mister bottle, but my mister got gunky and died. I’ve been using generic Pam lately.)

Dry Goods
dried fruit (raisins, currants, plums, apricots, blueberries, goji berries, dates, cherries, cranberries, mangoes–I usually get big bags of dried fruit at Costco to keep in the pantry for snacking, baking and putting in oatmeal. Maybe I’ll break down and get a dehydrator and make my own!)
nuts (I currently have pine nuts, sunflower seeds, walnuts and pecans in my freezer.)
dried lentils (red and brown)
dried split peas
oatmeal (steel cut and rolled)
dried beans (I think I have great northern, garbanzos, and a few others.)
pasta (I try to get whole grain. All different shapes. We’ve recently fallen in love with soba noodles.)
flours (whole wheat pastry, White Lily soft for biscuits, bread flower, regular whole wheat flour)
sugars (honey, molasses, agave nectar, white & brown)
vital wheat gluten
nutritional yeast
regular yeast for breads
grains (barley, millet, quinoa, bulgur, polenta, whole wheat couscous–I know couscous is a pasta, but I keep it with my grains)
rices (I try to get the brown versions, but some like arborio need to be white to make decent risotto.)
sun dried tomatoes
dried mushroom

Produce
celery
carrots
zucchini
apples
lemons
oranges
fresh ginger (sometimes I keep it in the freezer)
garlic
sweet potatoes
potatoes
onions (red and yellow or white)
greens of some sort (I usually buy a head of romaine or green leaf lettuce, chop it up, rinse it, send it through my salad spinner, and then just store it in the salad spinner in the fridge.)
(I buy lots of other produce items, these are just the things I always keep on hand.)

Frozen Foods
firm tofu (It doesn’t come frozen, but I store it in the freezer.)
edamame (I just found shelled edamame in my grocer’s freezer. I did a happy dance!)
corn
baby peas
whole strawberries (No sugar added.)
mixed berries (Also no sugar added.)
Quorn fake chicken products
Morningstar Farms fake sausage crumbles (for pizza) and fake corndogs (for Simon’s lunches)
Other veggie burgers (Frequently homemade, but sometimes not.)
fish & seafood (I like seafood, but we don’t have it very often. I have salmon, scallops, and some tilapia in there right now. Try to avoid farm raised fish if you can though.)
meat (We usually only have meat a couple of times a week, but I think I have some ground beef, some ground lamb, and some chicken breasts in there right now.)

Other Refrigerated
organic milk (We think it tastes a lot better, and I’m afraid of hormones and antibiotics.)
soy milk
eggs (I get the best eggs from a family from my church. Their chickens live in their yard, and the eggs are amazing!)
cheeses (a hunk of parm, some mozzarella, something for grilled cheese sandwiches like colby-jack, chèvre, and who knows what else. We’re cheese addicts. I prefer to grate my own because the pre-grated has some kind of starchy crap in it to keep the shreds apart.)
That’s all I can think of at the moment. I would love to hear what items are must haves for you. (The things that you know you have to immediately replace when you run out or you’ll be in trouble the next time you cook.)

What have you bought and never used? (Mine would be fish sauce. If you buy it, NEVER smell it!)

Please, please, please comment at will!

School Lunch

Sorry I’ve been incommunicado for the past couple of days. I went with my son’s second grade class on a field trip to the Indianapolis Children’s Museum on Thursday. While I was at the school when we got back, one of the lunch ladies asked me if I could volunteer to help serve lunch today (Friday).

I meant to take pictures of the stuff I made for our sack lunches on Thursday, but I got busy and forgot. I’m going to recreate them sometime over the weekend and post pics and recipes for you, but for now I can just tell you that we had cherry vanilla ricotta muffins and homemade strawberry-banana yogurt. (We had a few other things in our lunches, but those are the major recipes I want to share with you in the immediate future.)

Gratuitous Field Trip Shot:

I thought I would also describe in detail the lunch I helped prepare for the students of my son’s school today. (And yes, my son took his lunch as usual.)

Today’s lunch was grilled cheese sandwiches, tomato soup, crackers, dill pickle spears, and fruit cocktail.

I looked at each package, and the children didn’t get a single thing in their lunches that didn’t contain high fructose corn syrup–including the milk. They can pick between chocolate, vanilla, strawberry or plain milk. For each case of plain white milk they sell, they sell six cases of the other flavors. NONE of the children ever choose plain milk.

I’ve volunteered at my son’s school fairly frequently, and it just so happens that I’ve made this lunch before–so I can describe to you exactly what it entails. (And you can see exactly why Simon brings his lunch from home.)

First–Open the industrial sized cans of fruit cocktail. Drain them, put them in a hotel pan, cover with plastic wrap, and place in either the fridge. (I put them in the freezer because I like fruit cold and the fruit doesn’t get cold if you put it in the fridge for two or three hours.)

Then–You open the jars of pickle spears, drain them, put them in a hotel pan, cover with plastic wrap, and put in the fridge. (Freezer again.)

Next–You open the industrial sized cans of Campbell’s Tomato Soup. Pour them with the appropriate amount of water into hotel pans, cover with foil, and put it into the oven until the internal temperature reaches 165.

Finally–You get out the industrial sized loaves of Wonder bread, a huge tub of margarine, and some huge packages of pre-sliced American cheese. Take a rubber spatula and slap some margarine on one side of the bread, throw two slices of cheese in the middle, and then slap on another slice of margarined bread. Stack these on a plastic tray, and cover them with plastic wrap until time to grill.

A short time before serving, you pull out two large electric griddles and start grilling them sixteen at a time. As they’re finished, you take a knife (I use a pizza cutter), cut them in half, and put them four deep in a hotel pan that you pop in to a warming oven until it’s time for them to be used.

At serving time, you put the soup in disposable styrofoam bowls, but everything else with the soup on disposable styrofoam trays, and serve with a disposable plastic spoon. (Today was special, usually they get a disposable plastic spork.)

I wish I could say that this lunch is worse than normal, but all of the lunches that I’ve helped with have involved canned veggies, canned fruit, and processed main dishes that are reheated in an oven–and all served with so much disposable wear that they fill an entire dumpster in less than a week.

I never used to be this crunchy granola, but seeing this really helps strengthen my resolve to make Simon’s lunches, pack them in reusable containers, and send reusable cutlery. I’d say I even send a cloth napkin, but to be honest with you, Simon never actually uses his napkin anyway. I send the same one (with directions to use it) for at least three or four days in a row. If he starts using them on a regular basis, I might start sending reusable napkins, too.

(I promise to take pictures and post the yogurt and muffin recipes very soon!)

Opinions

Here are a few things that are just not right in my opinion:

• “Chocolate” made with vegetable oil rather than cocoa butter. (There’s a reason those football shaped chocolate Easter eggs are so nasty.)
• Of the 35 million pounds of antibiotics consumed each year, 24 million of those are consumed by livestock. (Livestock that probably wouldn’t need antibiotics if they were fed the food they were designed to eat and given adequate room to move around.)
• The practice of boiling ribs before grilling. (Yuck! PLEASE tell me you don’t boil the flavor out of your ribs! If you can’t smoke them, at least throw them in a low oven for several hours so the connective tissue can cook properly.)
• Restaurant servers who call me “Hon” or “Sweetie”. (If you aren’t in my immediate family, please don’t use false terms of endearment with me.)
• People who salt food before they even taste it. (Nuff said.)
• People who think a meal isn’t a meal if it isn’t comprised of a meat and two veg. (That is a hard mindset to escape from since it was drummed in many of us from such an early age. Learning to eat vegetarian was tricky! And I swear we really don’t eat meat that often, I just have a lot of opinions about meat.)
  
• People who think they won’t like something before trying it. (I tell my eight year old that we develop new taste buds every seven years. Even if he didn’t like something the last time he tried it, his new taste buds might like it more.)
• The fact that I still haven’t mastered making rice on the stovetop. (I can make it in the oven and I can make it in my rice cooker, but my stovetop efforts are always a dismal failure.)

Here are some of my loves:

• The discovery that bacon can be cooked in the oven. (Throw it on a rack on a sheet pan at 400 until it’s done to your liking. No turning, no curled pieces, no spattering, very little mess. Awesome!)
• Small appliances. (The number of small appliances I own borders on obscene. I have an extra closet off my kitchen to keep them in, and I inherited most of them–which is my favorite excuse for having so many.)
• Sharp knives. (I hadn’t realized how dull my knives had gotten until I got a couple of new ones long long ago. I swear it’s like being a new person!)
• Seasonal produce. (I live in Indiana, which means we don’t get fresh local produce until at least late May–if we’re lucky! I wait with baited breath for our farmers’ markets to open!)
• The *idea* of having a vegetable garden. (We haven’t actually planted a vegetable garden in years, but I’m very excited about the garden we’re currently planning for this summer.)
• Successful new recipes. (Let me tell you, I’ve tried some real clunkers. And sometimes it isn’t even my fault!)
• Having people over for dinner. (My New Year’s resolution for 2007 was to try to have someone over for dinner once a week. We didn’t make it *every* week, but we sure had a great time when we did have people over.)
• My laptop. (Between my recipe software and all of the recipes and food advice that I’ve gotten from various sources on the internet, I wouldn’t be half the cook I am today without my laptop.)

What are some of your peeves/faves??? (Inquiring minds want to know!)