little spaces

In our little thousand-foot house, I'm always looking for little spaces that can be utilized in order for things to run efficiently and to keep our open areas open.  Our kitchen is one of those places-it's filled with windows, a few cupboards, and even fewer drawers.  We've added quite a bit of external storage with a few shelves and cabinets, but this past weekend we added just a bit more and I'm thrilled with the addition!  I love how a seemingly unusable space can be transformed into practical storage within minutes and for just a few dollars (thanks to IKEA)!  

The knife magnet was one of the new additions.  With all of the cooking and baking that happens in our kitchen, the knives are almost always out.  And since we hand-wash them, they tend to either be dirty and sitting on the counter, or clean and drying on the counter.  The knife magnet will hopefully solve these problems!  Not only will it keep the knives off of the counter, but it also frees up space in one of our two drawers, and it uses an unused wall in our kitchen.  (Sidenote: we also got a new kitchen rug--the colors are fun, but more importantly, they won't show dirt and stains...that's my kind of rug!)

The second addition is one I'm even more excited about! For the past couple years, we've had an IKEA chalkboard hanging in this spot.  It covered a random outlet and unwanted phone jack and it served as a practical place to keep track of lists and notes, but I've been dreaming of turning that wall into much more usable space over the past few months.  And now we have!  With the new shelves, we've been able to clear a few things off of the counter and add them to the bottom shelf.  While the top shelf gives me some extra space to keep my growing collection of dried herbs.  Both shelves are filled with empty jars at the moment, but over the next week or so they will be filled with granola, chamomile, lavender, alfalfa, spearmint, and more!  I love how rewarding little spaces can be! 

bread, bread, and more bread

Bread.  Fresh, warm, right-out-of-the-oven bread.  There's nothing quite like it--especially when it's smothered in a think layer of delicious good-quality butter.  Yum.  Bread.  We love bread.  

I've been experimenting with sourdough for the past year or so and have become quite the fan.  However, after making the same recipe week after week, my husband started to long for a bit more variety (and honestly, so did I).  So, in the process of looking for a few new recipes, I came back to a lovely cookbook recently published by Jennifer McGruther called The Nourished Kitchen: Farm-to Table Recipes for the Traditional Foods Lifestyle.  I had checked this book out from the library shortly after it was released to see if it was something that I wanted to add to my collection.  To my delight, it included multiple sourdough bread recipes along with several more recipes that could put my ever-growing sourdough starter to use!  So, I added it to my Christmas list and was thrilled when I found it beneath the tree!  

Over the past month and a half, I have been busy baking and trying these new recipes.  And I must say, we have not been disappointed!  The recipes are not only well-written and easy to follow, but they produce the most delicious and beautiful loaves of bread I've ever made!  I realize I may be swooning, but golly, I'm in love!  From a simple whole wheat loaf, to Bohemian rye, to German-style sunflower, the recipes are fabulous!  

As for the many, many other recipes in the book, I've just started reading through them and I'm excited to give them a try.  For those of you interested in learning more about traditional foods and/or cooking more with them, this is a great book to add to your collection! 

teas and tinctures

I thought I'd share a little with you today about a new obsession of mine...herbs!  Now, I've been in love with herbs in the kitchen for many years, but right now I'm learning about using herbs for medicinal purposes.  As herbs are very powerful tools that should not be taken lightly, I have little to share with you other than my excitement for them.  I'm currently exploring the world of tinctures and teas, in baby steps and with much guidance from books and experts.  With  garden planning just around the corner, I'm also starting to dream about what herbs I want to tuck into underutilized spaces in my beds and to learn more about how to put them to use once they are growing strong.  

If you're interested in learning more about herbs, Mountain Rose Herbs is a great resource!  They sell all the supplies you could need, but they also have a great list of books to get you started.  I'm hoping to add one or two of them to my shelves in the weeks to come!

meal planning

This past fall was a hard semester for me.  I constantly felt behind--like several weeks behind.  While these feelings mostly came from work related things, they blended over into my home life as well.  I especially felt them when it came time to make dinner each night.  You see, I'm a planner and a strategist, even in the most basic things like dinner making.  However, because I was feeling stressed, overwhelmed, and behind at work, I felt that I didn't have time to plan out meals for us to eat at home.  The result of that, though, was me feeling directionless, uninspired, and last-minute.  Now, some people thrive in the last-minute side of life (my husband and best friend being two of them), however, I am not one of those people.  So, in the end, my lack of meal planning added to my feelings of being stressed, overwhelmed, and behind.

With all that in mind, I decided to be more intentional this spring about making time to really plan things out in the food department, which will hopefully leave us better fed, better nourished, and better satisfied in life.  People plan meals out very differently and my way is in no way a science, it's just what works for me.  I like to plan out a list of meals around the beginning of the month (when my grocery budget is full...ahem...) and shop for most of the ingredients at that time.  I add in produce and dairy as needed throughout the rest of the month in my weekly co-op trips.  This style of planning does two things for me.  One, it provides me with flexibility.  I usually pick out a few of the meals each week, depending on the time they take to make, the time we have at home in the evenings, and on the produce I have.  Because I've already shopped for the main ingredients (meat, root veggies, and grains), it doesn't take long to pick up any additional ingredients I need.  The second thing it does for me is it helps me to add variety our meals.  When I'm flying by the seat of my pants I tend to make whatever is easy and convenient and not what is best for our bodies.  Planning options out in advance helps me to be more mindful of the types of food I'm filling our bodies with.  Are we getting enough dark greens?  Are we getting enough good fats?  Are we eating a variety of grains and not too much of them?  Are we getting enough protein?  

Sitting down to make the list can take awhile, but in the end I always feel excited to get cooking!  Having good cookbooks, and not too many of them, is my key to success.  I wrote a post awhile ago about the cookbooks that I keep in my kitchen for day-to-day cooking.  This Christmas I added a new one to the list, The Nourished Kitchen, and I'm loving it!  It focuses on traditional food styles and recipes, which is quickly becoming a great interest of mine.  I also find that having a cookbook or two that is organized by season is very helpful for me both in inspiration and helping me to cook with more locally sourced ingredients.  

I got back into my meal planning routine last week and my time in the kitchen this week has been so much more enjoyable!  Hooray!  I do so love the simple things that make our lives just a little easier and help them to run just a bit smoother.  

organic

A few weeks ago, I starting writing about how our eating habits have changed a bit over the past year and a half (healthy bodies, happy lives and food, real food).  One of the changes was that we started buying more and more things labeled "organic."  Now, the label "organic" is quite an interesting one as it encompasses everything from carrots to cookies and kale to cupcakes.  What also makes the "organic" label interesting and at times unappealing is the price tag that often accompanies it.  For that reason, it took quite a bit of research to transition me from a conventional buyer to an organic one.  

First off, let's talk about the "organic" label.  Just because something is labeled as "organic" does not make it healthy.  In our house, we start first with whole foods and when we buy those whole foods, we buy organic versions when possible.  Because we live in a big city, we can usually find an organic version of any kind of food we're looking for.  I've realized recently that this is not the case for many who live in smaller towns and for that I've become very thankful for the resources that I have and also more passionate food issues in our country.  But, that's for another day.  However, even with access to almost any organic foods we could possibly want, we do not, by any means, buy only organic foods.  There are a couple of reasons for this.  First, we can't afford it.  With a limited grocery budget, it's just not affordable to buy only organic items.  Second, there are plenty of great foods out there that do not have an "organic" label.  It can be expensive for small farms to become certified organic and for that reason, many of them don't.  I find that it's more important for me to know how the food is produced, than it is for it to have the "organic" label on it.  Third, there are times when it's more important to me to buy locally grown food, then certified organically grown food.  Locally grown food has a direct impact on the local economy and it also hasn't had to travel across the country to get to our house--which, for produce, means it is likely more nutritious compared to the produce that has spent days or weeks in a refrigerated truck being transported from California or Mexico.  Harvard School of Public Health has a great little article on the nutritiousness of locally grown food.  

This leads me to the second reason that we try to buy organic--nutrition.  Organic farming practices require farmers to take a more holistic approach to the nutrients in the soil. The idea is that if your soil is full of nutrients, then your produce will be too.  The scientific field is not in agreement over whether organic produce is more nutritious (but the scientific field also brought us margarine...so there's that...); however, a recent study has shown that organic produce is higher in antioxidants (read/hear more about that in this NPR report).  From a gardening perspective, I know that if my soil is healthy, living, and full of organic matter (compost), then my plants grow better and produce better food.  So, for us, since better soil means better produce, buying organic produce rather than conventional produce is a way to know a little bit more about how our food is grown.

The third reason that we buy organic produce whenever possible is that it contains fewer pesticides.  Once again, the scientific field does not agree on the safety of synthetic pesticides, but for us, we've decided that we're not fans.  In general, we don't like the idea of eating chemicals, putting them on our bodies, or using them in our house.  So, for us, buying organic food is a way to reduce our exposure to unwanted synthetic pesticides.  You can read more about pesticide use in the U.S. on the Environmental Working Group's Shopper's Guide to Pesticides in Produce.  

I've talked a lot of about organic produce (fruits and veggies), but what about organic grains, meats, and dairy?!  For us, when it comes to buying organic, we focus primarily on fruits and vegetables.  Beyond that, it depends on the food and the price.  I buy some organic grains.  We buy organic yogurt and butter.  However, the milk we buy is from a local creamery that uses great farming practices yet isn't certified organic.  Also, the chicken we buy is also not certified organic, but it is a much better option than its conventionally raised counterparts.  So, when it comes to organic foods, we start with produce and work out way out from there.  

If you're looking for more information on organic foods, the Environmental Working Group is a great place to start.  There are also a lot of great documentaries out there.  See my food, real food post for links to a few good resources.  Navigating this food system we live in can be a complicated and overwhelming process.  But, I think the benefits of learning to effectively navigate it far outweigh the frustrations.