Mixed Messages

I found this billboard and just had to post it.  Our society is sending so many mixed messages to families and kids.  I was reading a message referencing someone making a trip to eat fast food that day.  A friend  commented "get ready....you will be taking your kids there all the time."  Really?  Do we have to make that the norm for us personally?

If we do, we will certainly pay the price at some point in time and our family will as well.  The way you can get serious about obesity and the health crisis our nation is entrenched in is by considering everything you choose to put in your mouth and allow your kids to eat.  Will it bring life and health to your cells or are your feeding a disease just waiting to come forth in your body?

What brings health?  Real fruits and vegetables and whole grains; water; exercise; and proper sleep.

I am certainly not talking about the occasional run through a fast food dive or ice cream after a movie.  I am talking about what you are CONSISTENTLY doing to take care of your cells.

I started to say, "Shame on the company for producing food that is slowly killing people."  But really it is shame on us for being poor consumers.  If we did not eat the food, they would not stay in business. WE DO HAVE A CHOICE!

What is your "kinda shoppin' spree"?

Eggplant Parmesan Lasagna

I wanted the taste of Eggplant Parmesan, but it was just not the right dish to cook tonight, so I decided to turn it into a lasagna.  My neighbor JoAnna gave me some eggplant from their garden, and Ed & Renae Morgan shared amazing tomatoes from their garden. They inspired me to create something I had never fixed before.

After I had the taste for this meal in my mind, I realized I did not have canned tomatoes or bread crumbs.  I decided I would just have to try to make homemade breadcrumbs and make a fresh tomato sauce both of which really surprised me! (See the next postings for making your own breadcrumbs and tomato sauce.)  It was more labor intensive than most dishes I make but worth every minute!  Since I wrote the recipe just as I created the dish, I highlighted all the ingredients in red, so you could make a list.

Eggplant Parmesan Lasagna

Sauce Ingredients:

4 large homegrown tomatoes

1-2 cloves garlic
1 medium white onion

1 T olive oil

5 fresh basil leaves

1 tsp salt

1 tsp pepper

Directions: Place all ingredients in the food processor (you could use a blender as well), and puree into a sauce the consistency your desire.  I left some small chunks in mine.  Keep in mind, you are using fresh tomatoes and the sauce will have more liquid than a canned or jar of sauce that has been stewed.

Eggplant Parmesan Ingredients:

3 medium eggplant

4 eggs

2 cups breadcrumbs

1/2 cup parmesan cheese freshly grated

12 T extra virgin olive oil (using 3 T at a time)

Directions: Slice eggplant lengthwise into 1/4 inch pieces.  Place them in a colander and sprinkle a small amount of Kosher salt onto them and place a plate on top to press them down.  Leave them in the colander for a couple of hours.  This will allow some of the excess water to drain out of the eggplant.  Mix eggs in a bowl large enough to dredge your eggplant it.  Divide breadcrumbs & parmesan cheese in 1/2.  (When you place your eggplant on your breadcrumbs they will get soggy after a while.  When you divide them in half, you will have a fresh set of breadcrumbs halfway through the process.) Place your breadcrumb/parmesan mixture on a medium sized plate.  Heat a large skillet to medium heat with 3 T olive oil. Dredge eggplant on both sides through the eggs.  Place the eggplant on each side in the breadcrumb mixture.  Place in the skillet and saute until eggplant starts to turn clear and breadcrumbs are lightly browned.  Flip and repeat the process on the other side.  Place on newspaper or paper towel until you are ready to place it in layers in the lasagna.  Repeat until all eggplant are lightly sauteed adding fresh olive oil as needed.

Cheese Filling Ingredients:

12 oz Ricotta Cheese

12 oz Cottage Cheese

2 t. basil

2 t. oregano
1 t. salt

Directions: In a medium bowl, mix the above ingredients.

I also used 2 cups of Monterray Jack cheese; you could certainly use Mozzarelo or another combination to your liking!  Add more cheese if you like it heavy on the cheese side!

Additionally, you will need to cook 12 lasagna noodles.  I used an organic jerusalem artichoke pasta.  Be sure too cook them ONLY 1/2 the time on the directions from the package of noodles.  The reason being, they can absorb the rest of the extra juice the fresh tomatoes produce.

Then just layer your lasagna in a 9 x 13 dish or whatever dish you want to use:

A little sauce on the bottom to keep your noodles from sticking

3 Lasagna Noodles

1 cup Ricotta mixture - spread over the noodles 

Eggplant Parmesan

1 cup tomato sauce

1/2 cup cheese

Repeat!  

On the top of the last layer of noodles, add one cup of tomato sauce.  I went ahead and added the last 1/2 cup of cheese.  I should have waited until the end of the cooking time to add it because I cooked the dish at 425 degrees for 40 minutes without covering it to allow more juice to cook away.  Because I did not cover it, my cheese was a little more brown than I would have liked.  I let the dish sit for 15 minutes on the counter before serving to allow it to set.  It was a big hit with everyone!

Oh and thank you to Brad and Mandy Sartor for delicious garlic from your garden!  You all continue to inspire me press on to have more homegrown food!

Vinegar & Honey Drink

Many drinks that we consume on a daily basis in America taste good, and we desire them often but have a detrimental effect on our health.  Here is a drink that actually benefits the body and provides balance and healing.  You can make it one glass at a time, but we have found it more effective to make a quart and keep it in the refrigerator.

Apple Cider Vinegar & Honey Drink
1/4 cup Braggs Raw Apple Cider Vinegar
1/4 cup Raw Honey
30 ounces of filtered water

Pour the Raw Apple Cider Vinegar into the jar along with the Raw Honey.  Shake until blended well.  Add filtered water and refrigerate.  If you are used to drinking sweeter drinks, add a little more honey until you develop a taste for the original recipe. (We actually double our recipe in one jar and just fill our drinking glass with 1/2 Vinegar Drink and 1/2 additional water.  That way we do not have to mix it as often.)

This recipe is similar to the one on the www.bragg.com website except I multiply it by 4 to make it last longer!

Because of the amount of white flour, white sugar, and processed foods that many people eat, their bodies do not have the live active nutrition you get from real living foods.  Our bodies thrive on living nutrition which is not found in the S.A.D (Standard American Diet) consisting mostly of dead foods.

Thus our bodies become very acidic.  Disease thrives in an acidic environment.  What this drink does is helps to turn your body more alkaline.  Disease cannot however thrive in this environment.  Raw Apple Cider Vinegar has living enzymes and nutrients that the body is craving.

Now for many people who eat and drink based on what they initially like the taste of, this drink might not suit them at first.  When we are changing to a healthier way of living there will be many times that we have to eat and drink things that are not at first what we would normally like until we come to the point where we develop a taste for new healthier options.

I look back and think about times I refused to eat foods that were "different" and did not taste like the feel good foods I had been used to eating.  I was not doing my health any good with that attitude!  It was not until I started being open to understanding what was actually in the food before I made a decision whether I was going to eat it or not that my health began improving.

On a side note, my grandmother drank this drink every day and lived to be 97!  I am not saying that this will do the trick for everyone (other lifestyle choices are very important as well), but I do think it is a testimony for keeping your body alkaline on a daily basis for the long haul.

Hummus & Fresh Local Tomatoes

This morning we went to our local Farmer's Market in Oxford.  We purchased the most delicious red and yellow tomatoes.  I decided to use them as our afternoon snack with homemade hummus.

Hummus
16 oz cooked garbanzo beans
1/4 cup organic extra virgin olive oil
1 T. fresh squeezed lemon juice
1 t. cumin
1 large clove minced garlic

Blend all ingredients in a food processor until creamy and smooth.

For a variation add 3 T. sundried tomatoes packed in oil or rehydrated in hot water.  I added a couple of chopped fresh basil leaves.  You can cook your own garbanzo beans or used canned.  This recipe is easily doubled if you have a larger crowd.

Serve with raw veggies or pita wedges as a snack or appetizer.  You can also used it as a spread on a sandwich or pita pocket with cucumbers, sprouts, fresh tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, a little balsamic vinegarette dressing, and anything else that sounds good to you!

Yogurt, Fruit, & Granola

Breakfast, lunch, snack, light supper, or dessert, this combination will fit the bill!  It is simply yogurt, fruit, and granola.  We like to make our own yogurt and granola but you certainly can find great clean brands at most grocery stores.  We use plain yogurt.  Other variations have so much sugar that it is really counter productive to eat it!  Once you add the fresh fruit and granola, you have the added sweetened touch needed.  Yes, sometimes it takes getting used to a new taste but you will adjust and probably realize when eating the other later how sugary it really becomes!  If you need to,  add a little raw honey.  

Now is the perfect time of year to find fresh fruit at your local farmer's market!  You can even purchase ones such as blueberries and peaches and store them in your freezer for use later on in the year.  You will be glad you made the effort.

Wild Berry Tea

Summer is the time to beat the heat!  We love making our own special beverages together.  Sure it's easy to grab a package or container of an artificially sweetened and dye colored drink to add some spice to the day but the health detriments far outweigh the pleasure.

Instead, check out the tea selection at your local grocery store or better yet your local farmer's market might have loose leaf teas!  Read the labels and pick some flavors you might like that are just natural tea leaves.

Brew the tea according to the directions on the package and add the amount of sweetener you like.  We add 1/2 of a cup of sweetener such as Agave Nector or Local Honey to a gallon of tea.

It's easy to get a glass jar and let the sun brew your tea!  Just add your tea bags to a jar of filtered water.  Set it out in the hot sun for a few hours.  Then add your sweetener if you would like.

In our house this takes the place of store bought juice.  The color is unbeatable and the flavor is amazing.

Homemade Peach Preserves

The ingredients for these preserves were simple - peaches and agar agar.  Now what on earth is agar agar you might ask?  It is a sea vegetable that serves as an emulsifier to thicken the preserves.  It keeps you from having to add a gelatin product to get your preserves to gel together.

Homemade Peach Preserves

4 cups fresh peaches

2 T Agar Agar flakes

1/2 cup turbinado or another natural sweetener (if you want a sweeter preserve; if not, leave out the additional sugar)

DIRECTIONS

Step 1:  In order to get your jars to seal your preserves, you need to heat the jars.  Here is one way to do that.  Heat four 1/2 pint jars in the oven by placing glass jars in a glass baking dish.  Fill the dish 1/2 the way up with water.  Add the 4 flat jar canning lids to the water so the rubber seal will heat as well. Turn your oven on 350 and place the pan of jars in the oven while you are preparing the peaches.

Step 2:  Cut peaches into small pieces.  Take one cup of peaches and puree them in the blender.  Pour puree into a small stock pot.  Stir in Agar Agar flakes.  Add additional 3 cups of peaches.  Allow mixture to come to a boil.  Turn down the heat and simmer for 5-7 minutes.  Stir often.  Then turn the stove off.

Step 3:  Remove the glass dish from the oven.  Fill the jars with the peach mixture leaving 1/2 an inch at the top of the jar.  Wipe the top edge of the jar to make sure it is "sticky free," so it will seal well.  Remove one of your jar lids from the water with a fork and place it on top of the jar.  Add your sealing ring.  Place jar in the refrigerator to cool.