Freemotion's food journal: Expanding the gardens, pics p 53

freemotion

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OK, I neglected my journal for a bit, but even I was getting bored. I do get into ruts with my eating sometimes.

We attended a conference for three days, and had to live in a hotel and eat very different foods....somewhat. So here is what we did for the three days (dh and I.)

As soon as we checked into our room, we scoped out what was available to us....a mini fridge with a tiny freezer (past experience told me that the freezer likely wouldn't work, and it didn't) and a microwave. Plates and mugs could be borrowed from the breakfast bar. Glasses in the room.

So off we went to the local grocery store. Later, we found a Walmart with a grocery section, I like these better when traveling. We would've saved at least $10 or more if we'd found the Walmart first. We spent about $65 total on food for the entire trip. Could've done it for less, but when possible, I like to really load up on the fresh foods when traveling, since the immune system is lowered by the stress.

So we bought:

2 pks ww flour tortillas
2 8 oz cheddar cheese
2 tomatoes on the vine
1 lb baby carrots, organic
1 lb local green beans
1/2 lb sugar snap peas
1 qt strawberries
2 apples
2 bananas
1.5-2 lbs cherries
1.5-2 lbs grapes
3/4 lb deli ham
1/4 lb sandwich pepperoni
1/2 gallon milk
2 gallons spring water
1 bag tortilla chips
4 cans boiled peanuts
6 eggs
1 small jar green olives

I also scrounged mustard packets and plasticware from the deli area. I brought tea bags and stevia packets with me from home, along with some paper plates and a variety of plastic baggies and a small fabric cooler bag.

For breakfast each day, dh got up in time to go to the breakfast bar and get an omelet. I putter around, and it is mobbed by the time I get around to it, so I used a mug and heated up a couple of pieces of the pepperoni, then removed them and put in two eggs and nuked them for a minute and a bit more. The pepperoni greased the mug. I made a burrito with those and some cheese. Had some hot chocolate and later some tea.

For lunch, we packed wrap sandwiches with the deli meats, cheese, tomato slices and mustard on the tortillas. We packed baggies of veggies and olives and baggies of fruit, and bottled water. We made ice packs with ziploc freezer bags and ice from the hotel machine. We picnicked in the shade of the trees lining the parking lot for two of the days, and on the third day, we tailgated with some friends and contributed some of our food.

For supper, we had more veggies and fruit and made nachos with the tortillas and the cheese. I also had some boiled peanuts (UGH! I used to like them, but I could taste the chemical preservatives! Interestingly, by the third can, I could no longer taste the chemical taste, even though it was the third day, and not all in a row.) One night, dh got a six inch subway sandwich, as he felt like something different. Oh, and I got a biscuit with butter from the breakfast bar one day....we were in the south, I had to have boiled peanuts AND A BISCUIT! I think it is the law there! :D

We had enough fruit and veggies to pack plenty to bring to the airport for the long trip home. In the airport, dh got another six inch subway sandwich, and I got a personal pepperoni pizza....ew, never again will I get one from subway! It gave new meaning to the word, "Pasty!" I threw most of what was supposed to pass for crust away.

I treated myself to one bag of peanut m&m's in the airport. DH had a beer and watched Tiger Woods in a pub while I read my paperback novel.

We arrived home feeling good about our self-control and frugalness on this trip. What we spent on food for three days we could easily have spent on one evening meal in a restaurant.

All I left behind was some eggs and some milk.
 

big brown horse

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That sounds like you went camping instead of hotel-ing! You were really prepared!

I didn't know they made canned boiled peanuts!!! I've only had them the homemade way...mmmm they are better than a thick cut bologna sandwich on white bread I tell ya!
 

freemotion

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Well, I am ordering a 25# box to can a bunch more. That chemical preservative was NASTY!!! I got 47 quarts from my last 25# box! It ended up being about $1 per quart because of the shipping to the East Coast, but the cans are $1 for 7 oz at WalMart in the south! A no-brainer. You can also freeze them, I've read, if you don't pressure can. A quart is a great lunch.
 

Dace

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Free you did great with your $65! I totally agree, you would have spent a lot more eating out and came home feeling like crap!

Can I pick your brain about raw diets? I am not so sure I want to really go raw so much as I'd like to incorporate more raw into my diet. I have heard pros and cons, but I thinking the cons are probably form those stupid diet dictocrats...but I would be interested in your thoughts.

Also I know this will be terribly unpopular, but I am having a hard time falling in line with Sally Fallon. Some of her technical speak loses me, I try to get into her writing but find my self re-reading sections because I am not getting it. For example. we were at Whole Foods yesterday and they had the Celtic sea salt. It was $16....when my DH asked me why it was worth that much money I could not answer other than a very lame...it is supposed to be better for you. I am sure he wanted to :smack me!
 

freemotion

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My thoughts on raw, cooked, canned, dehydrated, fermented, not fermented, blah, blah, blah :p is to use balance. Try to eat some raw fruits/veggies daily, and some cooked. Some nutrients such as enzymes and vitamin C are destroyed by cooking, some are unlocked by cooking. Canning is supposedly worse than any of the methods...pressure canning, especially. But I've also read that dehydrating destroys all nutritional value, and elsewhere, that it makes certain nutrients more available when soaked in boiling water and the soaking liquid is also taken in.

So as wide a variety of foods and methods is the key, IMO. For the average person. There might be some who need to be more strict....for example, I cannot eat most tree fruits unless they are peeled and cooked. So a totally raw diet would eliminate most of the variety in my diet.

An all cooked meal will be digested better with the addition of some fermented and uncooked condiment, homemade, and some homemade, traditionally prepared bone broth. Otherwise, the digestive juices tend to stay on top of the food in the stomach and gastric reflux or heartburn is more likely to occur. So lets say you have a boiled dinner of corned beef, potatoes, turnip, cabbage, carrots and onions. You might include a mug of lightly flavored broth to begin the meal, and have a little raw fermented sauerkraut, kimchi, gingered carrots, salsa, etc on the side. Or let's say you order a pizza. Have a little fermented salsa on some tortilla chips before it arrives, or any of the above as a condiment.

I will be discussing a lot of Sally Fallon's work in my teleconference class.....hint-hint! ;) Second group starts tomorrow (Tuesday) night at 8 PM EST and runs for four consecutive Tuesdays. Part 2 will follow, and likely be another four classes. Scheduled for 2 hours each, but more likely will be 1:45. All for $20 for ss members!

PS: You don't have to pay before the first class, I trust y'all!

Either way, give yourself some time with the book. Just start with something easy. I recommend fermented something, anything, for summer, and when it cools off a bit, some broth.

I have three-hours of cd's of her lectures, and I've listened to them at least a dozen times, and each time I catch many new things. There is a LOT of information packed in there! Same with the book. I've read it twice, and will likely do a third reading this winter. It is just too much to take in all at once.

You can also do a youtube search and get some clips of some of her lectures. That can make the book more real to you, give you a face and a voice when you read. Hope this encourages you to stick with it.

Being healthier is a lifelong journey, so give yourself a break if you are not doing EVERYTHING you think you should be doing all at once. Learn one new thing and make it a habit, and when it is easy, learn another one. Soon each skill is built on the previous ones, so the new projects become fun and exciting, rather than scary and tedious. I applaud your efforts, you are making some wonderful changes that will impact you and your children for the rest of your lives. :thumbsup
 

Dace

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I know that you are right, it is like any new undertaking...there is a learning curve and a lot of people drop off before they get thru that curve. I will just keep plugging a long and reading. I like the youtube idea too! I will def. do that!

I wish I could join your teleconference but I am at cheer practice with my girls at that time. Please do let me know when you plan the next as I really would like to participate.

Thank you!
 

big brown horse

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I am taking freemotion's teleconference class...I highly recommend them to you! I learned so much in just the first class!

(Freemotion, I signed up for a cheese making class. (The teacher's have goats.) As soon as they get enough folks signed up they are going to begin the class. I'm so excited!!)
 

Henrietta23

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big brown horse said:
I am taking freemotion's teleconference class...I highly recommend them to you! I learned so much in just the first class!

(Freemotion, I signed up for a cheese making class. (The teacher's have goats.) As soon as they get enough folks signed up they are going to begin the class. I'm so excited!!)
Wish I weren't on the opposite coast or I'd join you!
 

big brown horse

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Henrietta23 said:
big brown horse said:
I am taking freemotion's teleconference class...I highly recommend them to you! I learned so much in just the first class!

(Freemotion, I signed up for a cheese making class. (The teacher's have goats.) As soon as they get enough folks signed up they are going to begin the class. I'm so excited!!)
Wish I weren't on the opposite coast or I'd join you!
Are you talking about free's class or the goat cheese class?

Free's class is my time 5:00-7:00 and it is really cool b/c there are other folks on the line listening along and sharing.

The cheese class I will be sure to share everything I learned with you all! Is there a cheese making thread out there already?
 

freemotion

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Hey, how did I miss a conversation on my own journal?? :p

:frow

Thought I'd post again, since I ate something besides a veggie shake today!!!

In my usual rush this morning, I had my usual breakfast: a pint of warm chocolate goat's milk, and three eggs, scrambled with butter.

Lunch was a big huge bowl of boiled peanuts.

Supper was some zucchini corn fritters, recipe I got somewhere on this forum recently...the zucchini recipe thread, no doubt! I did adjust it, here is what I put in it:

2 cups whole white wheat or kamut flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
teaspoon sea salt
teaspoon black pepper
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup milk
1/4 cup butter, melted (or chicken fat)
2 cups grated zucchini (lets say 4 cups)
1 1/2 cups fresh corn, kernels cut from cob (or three large ears)
1 cup finely shredded Cheddar cheese (or romano or parmesan)
oil for frying (chicken fat is nice!)

DH said it was quite sweet....I added no sweetener, just dropped the sugar the recipe called for. The corn was very sweet and the freshly ground flour makes a huge difference....no bitter rancidity (free radicals!) to deal with.

I cooked up half the batch and saved the rest for tomorrow.

I also made another peach pie with the peaches I bought two days ago. Lots of peach slices, a full dropper of stevia extract, and one crust for the top that I had made previously and frozen (see the "what are you fermenting today" thread.) We split the pie. I'm so full!

I cut a section of my pasture with the scythe, bagged up some "lawn hay" that dh cut and spread to dry yesterday for the winter for the poultry, and started a three-gallon batch of St. Maure cheese. Let me tell you about that...

After bringing a bunch of cheeses about three months ago to my favorite client, a European lady who lives about an hour away from me and I bring my table to her every other week. We have become very close, she is very, very dear to me. She critique's my cheeses for me, being quite the expert on French cheeses.....especially the stinkers. My first batch of St. Maure I threw in the trash because it smelled so bad....she brought out an expensive stinky cheese for me to smell and it was the same! So I brought the next batch to her for a taste, and she said it needed aging. So into the fridge it went, where it was forgotten.

My parents were visiting last week and were enjoying all the cheeses I'd made. Dad was snacking on goat cheddar and popcorn one night, I was eating my corn with commercial romano and Mom had hers with butter and salt. Dad asked if I'd made any stinky cheeses yet. I said no, I hadn't.....then almost ten minutes later, I suddenly remembered the moldy St. Maure in the back of my fermenting fridge.

My dad LOVED it, and I brought a piece to my client and she declared it to be perfect.

Mom tried a tiny bite and spit it out. I still haven't tried it. Mom told me later that for an hour after she'd spit it out, she had the most wonderful aftertaste in her mouth, and wanted more. Of course, for some reason, she didn't ask! Sheesh!

So now I am making a three-gallon batch from my half-gallon recipe, and maybe this time I will get brave enough to actually try it before I give it all away!
 
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