Category Archives: I’m Looking for You

Guest Post – Rejuvelac, the easy-to-make probiotic

Posted on April 2, 2010 by | 14 Comments

This guest post is by Auburn in Southern New Hampshire.

Thanks to Wardeh I learned about the benefits of water kefir. I tried to find water kefir grains locally but couldn’t so I wound up ordering fresh grains online from the kefirlady with great results – the grains are growing fast, healthy and produce a nice soda-like drink but I’ll have to wait a few more weeks for the grains to yield a half a gallon per brew.

Two weeks ago, a nice lady from New Mexico introduced me to rejuvelac. She has a history of malabsorption leading to underweight, and went through an anti-candida treatment about a year ago. After adopting a traditional diet and adding daily raw live non-dairy fermented probiotic drinks like kombucha and rejuvelac, her digestion has improved markedly.

I don’t keep my house warm enough during the winter to brew kombucha successfully. It does well in the summer but it just takes forever the rest of the year so water kefir and rejuvelac are the easiest fermented drinks for me to make.

So what’s rejuvelac? It’s a very healthy drink you can make from grains. Rye and wheat berries, and quinoa produce the best results.

From Wiki: Rejuvelac contains eight of the B vitamins, vitamins E and K, and a variety of proteins, dextrines, carbohydrates, phosphates and amylases. It is rich in enzymes that assist in digestion.

I’ve been making it as per these basic instructions I found online:

- Soak a 1/2 cup of rye berries for 8 hours in filtered water in a glass jar.

- Drain, rinse, drain again and let the berries sprout.

- Then rinse again and fill the jar with two quarts of filtered water.

- Cap securely with a piece of cheesecloth and leave on the counter, away from direct sunlight, for a day or two.

- Strain (I suppose fruit juice could be added for flavour at this point, haven’t tried that) and refrigerate.

I find the resulting drink quite nice. It looks like lemonade and tastes kind of plain, can’t describe it – it’s an OK taste, though.

However, soaking with water doesn’t address the phytic acid problem so now I’m adding whey to the first step and letting the rye berries soak for a full day, after that I rinse them and let them sprout.

The rye berries can be reused a couple of times.

All sites I checked say to discard the “spent” berries or feed them to chickens. I don’t have chickens and hate to throw food away so I just cooked the berries in a little water until tender, about 5 minutes, I think. Added butter, some raisins, a bit of raw cream, pecans, walnuts, banana slices, and raw honey off the heat.

The hubby and I liked the new breakfast concoction a lot.

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Posted in I'm Looking for You, Lacto-fermenting, Local Grains - Where to Get Them and What to do with Them, Recipes for Seasonal and Local Foods, Rejuvelac

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Guest Post – How I Fit Real Food Into My Busy Life and Tight Budget

Posted on March 26, 2010 by | 9 Comments

This guest post is from Becky of Becky’s Stockpot. This is a HUGE topic that I get a lot of comments about so thank you, Becky, for tackling it! And maybe could we get a link to that pie recipe?…

How I Fit Real Food Into My Busy Life And Tight Budget

I watched “Food Inc.” over New Year’s with my husband, my sister, and her husband. To say that it affected me would be an understatement. Though I have always been interested in feeding my family healthy foods, the movie inspired me to learn more about our food… where and how it was raised, how it’s processed, and simply what was in it. At the start of the year, I made a few resolutions or challenges for myself that had to do with feeding my family.
Resolution #1 – Buy/consume fewer processed foods
Resolution #2 – Buy local whenever possible.
Resolution #3 – Make the best use of my own garden
These resolutions gave me a focus. It’s been almost 4 months since I watched Food Inc. (and subsequently read “Omnivore’s Dilemma” and “In Defense Of Food”) and I’m really proud of the changes I’ve made…. both for myself and my family.

I’ve learned a few things over the past 4 months that have made it easier for me to stick to my resolutions while working from home and sticking to my budget.

My husband is a band director at a local high school and I do in-home daycare for a toddler and an infant. We make enough money to live what we consider to be a good life but there’s never a lot of wiggle room in the budget. I have always been a coupon clipper and a sale shopper. I was worried that buying whole foods and shopping locally was going to break the bank. On average, we spend about 18% of our income on groceries (including non-food items like toilet paper and toothpaste). We spend more then the national average (of 9%) on food but it’s worth it to me. I don’t own a cell phone, we only eat out once every two months or so, and our clothes come from a local Mega Thrift store whenever possible. I knew that we couldn’t spend more then our 18% on food so I had to find ways to buy healthier food while sticking to the same budget or less.

Here are some of the things I do to help to save money.

  • I’ve switched to shopping every 2 weeks for most items. I find that if I go weekly, I end up buying things we really don’t need just because I’m there. I sometimes have to make a quick stop on the non-shopping weekends for produce or a gallon of milk.
  • I make up a meal list and make a grocery list based on that meal list. If we’re only have pasta once during that 2 weeks, no reason to stock up on 5 boxes of pasta.
  • Buying my local, grass-fed meats is more expensive so I plan at least 2 meat-free meals each week. I also stretch the amount of meat by using only half as much in each recipe. One night I might make spaghetti with only a 1/2 lb. of ground beef. I’ll set the other 1/2 lb. aside until the next night and make tacos with it. I add a cup or two of cooked black beans to the taco meat to make up the difference.
  • We make sure to use leftovers. No sense in wasting food that you’ve spent money on. I make sure to put leftovers in clear containers so that we’re more likely to use them. I often ignore leftovers if they’re put in yogurt containers since I assume it’s yogurt. My husband loves taking leftovers to work for lunch.
  • Stocking up when produce is in season will save some serious money. Last fall I bought 2 huge pumpkins (since I didn’t have any luck with mine in the garden) and put about 50 cups of pumpkin puree in the freezer for $12! This year I’m planning on going to as many U-Pick farms locally as possible and filling my freezers with all kinds of wonderful produce. Nothing like blueberry muffins in December.

    • The second obstacle I’m continuing to work to overcome is balancing preparing food from scratch with parenting, housework, and down-time. Luckily I’ve always enjoyed cooking and baking and thanks to my mom, I’m pretty good at it. Part of the fun for me is finding new recipes. I love to find recipes for foods that people can’t believe can be made at home. I mentioned to my daycare parent that the kids had homemade graham crackers for snack and she said, “I didn’t know you could make those at home.” It still amazes me that people think food processors are the only ones with the magic to make snack foods.

    Here are a couple of things that I do to be able to make more homemade food without spending hours in the kitchen (not that I mind hours in the kitchen but the kids tend to need to be checked on occasionally).

  • Working from home gives me the added advantage of monitoring rising bread dough or to put on a pot of beans to cook while the kids play. I realize that not everyone can work from home but using the crockpot could work for those who aren’t home during the day. Nothing like having dinner ready when you get home.
  • I will sometimes bake during naptime but I find if I do that too often, I feel like I haven’t had a break. Knitting and catching up on Project Runway is my favorite naptime activity.
  • I’ve recently started baking in double or triple batches and freezing the extra. I don’t find it much more work to make 8 loaves of bread instead of 4 and that means that I’m only baking bread once a month or so. I freeze batches of muffins, cookies, banana bread, pizza dough, precooked beans… the list goes on. On a busy day when the toddlers have been cranky or the daycare baby has been fussy, it’s nice to be able to go th the freezer and pull something out that just needs to warm up instead of starting from scratch.
  • Doubled recipes don’t always head for the freezer. I make double batches of pizza dough so we can have pizza one night and maybe have calzones or “hot pockets” the next night. If I’m making rice, I’ll sometimes make a double batch to add to a casserole or stir fry for later in the week.
  • I’ve started trying to limit my baking to 2-3 times a week. Sometimes I just need a baking fix so I break my own rule but I’m allowed to…. I made the rule. I find that if I condense my baking to a few times a week, it saves time for laundry, cleaning, kid wrestling, knitting, etc and I don’t get so tired of being in the kitchen.
  • When I have the patience and the time, I involve my kids in the kitchen. My two year old, Evan, loves to stir ingredients. He’s anxious to crack eggs but those locally grown beauties are too precious. My five year old, Charlotte, is getting quite good at kneading dough and mixing batters together. Involving them in the process not only keeps them nearby where I know they’re not climbing on things they shouldn’t be, but it also gives them valuable skills and self- confidence. I want both of my children to feel comfortable in the kitchen and to be able to provide healthy food for themselves when they grow up.

    • This food journey continues to be an exciting one for me. I love every step of the process from ordering seeds in February, to sourcing local meats, to making hamburger buns.
    Ooo… time to go find a great recipe for breakfast cookies! Gotta run!

    More ways to save money by eating locally.

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    Posted in I'm Looking for You, Saving Money

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    Buying Bulk Meat – What you Need to Know

    Posted on February 18, 2010 by | 20 Comments

    I’m so excited to bring you this first guest post by reader Auburn in southern New Hampshire.

    Buying Bulk Meat – What you Need to Know

    There’s a lot of info online about “freezer meat” or “bulk meat” and many people blog about their experiences buying 1/4 or 1/2 cow, though most focus on the meat itself (quantity and quality), having to buy a second freezer and the many “new” cuts they get to try by purchasing meat this way.

    So I thought it would be useful to write about the buying process, from my own experience.

    I started reading FAQs on freezer beef, pork, lamb and goat and, while some of the information was very useful, some of it was also inconsistent and, at times, downright misleading.

    So I decided to contact the beef and pork farmers in my area (Southern New Hampshire), asked a lot of questions and, surprisingly, most of them took the time to reply with the answers and an invitation to visit their farm. Nice. :)

    Then, when I was sure I knew everything I needed to know about buying bulk meat, and was about to place an order with the “farmer” who offered the cheapest deal for pastured beef ($3.25/lb hanging weight) and pork ($2.40/lb hanging weight), by chance, I happened to find out that she was a middle person. Aha! And this lady is not the only one who does this in my area – a greedier middleman wanted $4/lb for the beef and $3.50 for the pork!

    Guess what? The farmer these middlemen buy from also has an internet presence but he doesn’t list the prices. You have to call, which I did. He charges $2.50/lb for beef and $1.80/lb pork, hanging weight, butcher fees included. See?

    Also, the hanging weight the middlemen “estimated” was 50 pounds higher than what the farmer quoted me – they both claimed that a side of beef would be about 350 pounds. This is very important for you to know because when you deal with a middleman, you may not get the invoice from the original farmer stating the actual hanging weight of the animal.

    So be sure to do your homework and ask the right questions because that can save you a lot of money and headaches.

    Buying from the cheapest middlemen, a side of beef would have cost me $1,137 ($3.25/lb) with an “estimated” hanging weight of 350 pounds and about 210 pounds dressed weight (what you take home).

    Buying directly from the farmer I paid $750 ($2.50/lb) for 300 pounds of beef which yielded 240 pounds of dressed weight.

    The middlemen “cut” would have been almost $400 plus 30 pounds of dressed weight. Yep. :(

    And how do you know when you are dealing with middlemen? When you land on a website and read something like “I purchase steers from another local farmer who also raises his animals humanely and naturally” or “I raise my own lamb and chicken here but I do not have the facilities or hay fields to raise beef and pork. I buy from a friend who raises them the way I would if I could.”

    Buyer beware.

    Other things I’ve learned:

    You will get a lot more for your money if you tell the farmer that you want:

    - All cuts “bone-in.” This will get you plenty of roasts and steaks with bones that you’ll then use to make wonderfully nutritious stock.

    - A thick “fat cap” on all cuts. You want them to trim as little fat as possible. You can use that fat to cook with or you can feed it to your birds, chickens and other animals.

    - No ground meat. Instead, you’ll want all scrap meat packaged in 1 lb or 2 lb packages. This way you don’t end up with 80 pounds of hamburger but with scrap meat that you can grind yourself as needed or shave/cube it for use in dishes like quesadillas, stir-fry, etc.

    - Flank and skirt cuts whole. You can make delicious recipes with them.

    - All bones: dog bones, lower leg bone/heels and tail which you will use for stock (braised beef tail is exquisite, by the way).

    - All organ meats. If you don’t cook these, you can feed them to pets or give them to people who appreciate them.

    If you decide to buy half a side (1/4 of the animal) ask if they’ll include cuts from the front and also the back of the animal, otherwise you’ll end up with all roasts or all steaks.

    The standard thickness, at least in this area, for steaks is one inch. If you happen to like thinner steaks (say, 3/4″) you can ask for this at no extra cost.

    This is very important: Be sure to ask if the meat will be vacuum packed and if it will be fresh or frozen. This you really need to know because 200+ pounds of fresh meat is a lot more than what you can safely freeze at once in a regular freezer. Non commercial freezers can only adequately freeze no more than 3 pounds of fresh meat per cubic foot of freezer space within 24 hours.

    Here’s a nice beef cuts chart, very helpful to have at hand when you are going over the cut sheet with the farmer over the phone.

    Thanks Auburn for the great meat buying tips!  We saved a lot of money by buying a local 1/4 cow and 1/2 pig this year as well.  And now I don’t have to frantically check the freezer for bar codes every time there is a meat recall.

    This also popped up in my google reader today about buying in bulk.

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    Posted in Grass Fed Beef, I'm Looking for You

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