Getting stressed about eating healthy isn't healthy

I'm in the middle of making sage cupcakes right now, so I'm hoping to keep this short. But this has been on my mind for a bit now and I think I'm really starting to grasp it.

I'll start here: I love food. You may or may not have guessed this about me. Less goes onto this blog than I think goes on it, but I think about posting about food ALL the time.

I'll go on to say: I also like being healthy.  I like feeling good and strong and energetic. And since what I eat affects my health more than anything else I do, I therefore like eating healthy.

But I like eating yummy too. And when healthy and yummy coincide, that's the ultimate bomb-diggity, I tell you.

There's a strange myth out there that healthy food isn't yummy food. But I guess it depends on how you define healthy food and I'm thinking that it's because people get healthy food mixed up with "health food." There's actually a BIG difference between the two.

Health food is soy protein, "candy" vitamins, wheat grass juice, spirulina* and cardboard "fiber" cereal that most people I've met have independently nick-named "twigs and stones." Yuck.  Yes, I agree, health food is grody!

Healthy food, however. Ahh, the goodness... don't even get me started on this. Okay, too late.

Real butter, fresh fruit and vegetables, homemade whole wheat sourdough bread, homemade pierogies with homemade sauerkraut. Homemade mayonnaise, ketchup, pickles, oh oh oh. I want to go eat something.

You're seeing a theme here: homemade = good. And it's true.

Of course, just cause it's made at home doesn't actually mean its healthy, but it's no doubt better than not homemade counterparts. I will never claim that my homemade marshmallows are "healthy" but they certainly are yummier than the jet puffed kind...

And you see, this is generally my motivation when it comes to food. I love making good food at home with real ingredients and, since I don't add superfluous sugar, chemicals or food-colourings, I really thought I was doing well. I was happy and felt healthy due to all this good food.

But then I read the first 70 pages of Nourishing Traditions. And I'd recommend you do it too, but I warn you: you will get freaked out. 

My first feeling was fear, then despair. I thought I had been eating healthy.

But no, I hadn't been soaking my grains, the milk I was using to make my homemade yogurt was nasty and full of trouble, my eggs weren't free-range and therefore hardly beneficial and I may as well be inviting hardened arteries and many other deadly diseases into my home by buying canola oil. And the fact that I was using white sugar? Forget it.

Oh what, those vegetables you buy aren't organic? You are dead, sister, or as good as.

I was scared. I was depressed. I was in complete distress. I thought I had been doing everything right! I mean, yeah, we still ate sugary laden treats every now and then, but I generally reduced the sugar... That's not good enough? Any amount of white sugar in my diet is going to kill me, wow, I had no idea.

So then I started wildly making changes. I soaked my flours for bread, biscuits, muffins. If I couldn't figure out how to make it without soaking the flour first I didn't make it.  And if  I had a whim to make something but hadn't thought of soaking, or if I had forgotten? Well, it simply didn't happen. I also did my utmost to stop using sugar.

Unsweetened oatmeal? gag it down baby, it's healthy and I remembered to soak it the night before. Mushy, flat banana muffins. What? You don't like them? Well, too bad, they're healthy so EAT THEM.

My good, delicious and nurtured baking skills and cooking talents went bye-bye for a while as I attempted to make things HEALTHY.

John did not complain. (much) He did mention the banana muffins "weren't particularly good" and he added his own sugar to his oatmeal (much to my alarm.)

But when I started trying to convince him of all the more money we'd have to start spending so that our food would be healthy... Well, he laid down the law. (Sort of.)

I had to calm down. Yes, spending boatloads of money on "organic" produce did kind of seem like a gigantic leap. Since our decision to to start saving money to buy a house we've tightened our belts, so to speak, on spending. Not that we spent a lot before, but I had decided I'd try to keep our monthly food bills under $130 a month. Then suddenly, I wanted to buy raw milk, organic vegetables, free-range eggs. These things are considerably more pricy than what we normally bought. My own mind's voice of reason yelled at me to calm down, and John's calm voice of reason calmly told me to calm down.

I was getting stressed out and feeling bummed about my non-organic potatoes in my gnocchi and at breakfast, I was cringing as I ate battery-raised chicken eggs. But I was also gagging as I ate unsweetened oatmeal and I was longing for a rich chocolatey sugar laden BROWNIE.  I had to think of my health!

Then it occurred to me. What's the point of food if it doesn't taste good? Yeah, yeah, I'll choke down some wild-caught salmon if someone else is paying, but really? I don't like the taste of fish. But it's healthy, and if someone else is paying, then I'm gonna get me some omega-3s down, baby! But when everything is gross because it's "healthy"? Um, no. I can't do it.

After all, I had to think of my health. Enjoyment of food is so very important to me that, I'm much more willing to eat something that's a little sub-par of the perfect health food every now and then, if it's yummier.

So I never figured out how to soak flour and get a good cookie out of it. No way am I giving up cookies! Right, yes, limit cookies, yes, yes. But give up sugar all together? No.

So I've drawn the line. Some things are more delicious when it's healthier, like homemade bread being a trillion times tastier than store-bought bread. And when you add whole-wheaty goodness? Yes! Oh and sourdrough bread? My gosh, I'm drooling and it's way more nutritious than regular old bread. And I was in on sourdough way before Sally Fallon approved of it.

Raw milk? TOTALLY worth the price for it's goodness and it's entirely more yummy than pasteurized, homogenized milk. My husband agreed and we've made that step. But some times you really do just need a little bit of sugar in your porridge, and if I forgot to soak flour before dinner, well, the non-soaked biscuits ain't gonna kill me. And dang it, I'm going to enjoy this peanut-butter chocolate chip cookie even if it IS slowly killing me due to non-organic peanuts and the fact that chocolate has caffeine and it has WHITE death sugar in it.

Obviously, real butter is better than margarine because it tastes better. Also happens to be healthier. And olive oil really does taste better than canola, so even if it's a bit pricier, I'll switch to using it all the time instead of just when the taste will make a difference.

Plus, John is happier. And by default, I am too. A healthy marriage is also an important key to being healthy, you know?

And fermented foods are FANTASTIC and healthier. And guess what, Sally Fallon? I discovered and liked fermented foods before I read your book. So there. *raspberry*

Okay, but actually, her book does have valuable information and I say "read it if you dare." But pick and choose your battles, because you can't win them all. I've even read some things saying that a certain amount of phytates (what I'm trying to get rid of by soaking my flour) are actually beneficial. So whats up with that? And while I, personally, never drink soda and find it absolutely disgusting, I don't think I would go so far as to call it "the veritable drink of the devil" as she does. And I also prefer my cook books to let me choose my own flours and not "allow" unbleached white flour in certain recipes. You don't allow me anything, sister! I make my own choices.

I'm so empowered and free now. Now that I figured out that stressing out about eating healthy isn't healthy.

And now I'm going to finish making my sage cupcakes and I'm going to put brown butter frosting on top that's CHOCK FULL of SUGAR.

But don't worry, they're soaked and made with sourdough, so it's not too bad.

*I actually like spirulina, but don't tell anyone.

Things I love Thursday: My cast iron cookware.

I'm going to try out this Things I love Thursday thing for a while and see if it makes posting on Thursdays an easy task. I'm on my own in this, as in I'm not joining some other blog co-op with it, since it was just a random idea I came up with. Though, I don't think I made it up, there's probably tons of other bloggers doing the same thing out there. I just love alliteration, really. You probably know that by now.

This could probably be more appropriately called "Things I really like Thursday" but it doesn't quite have the same ring.

This week I want to tell you about my cast iron pots and pans. Why? Because I love them.

In my sunny living room for a photo shoot

Why do I love them? Ah, let me count the ways...or tell you the reasons.


I get amazing results when it comes to food quality. Cast irons are fabulous for browning meats, sauteing vegetables or making sauces. I can make the most delicious home fries and hash browns with my pan. They hold heat like nobody's business and keep your food hot while you wait for your husband to wrap up his projects and come to dinner. And food cooked in cast iron pots and pans just tastes better. It has some magical taste properties that it adds to each dish, making it yummier than food cooked in a regular pan.

It's indestructible. You can use metal spatulas, knives, spoons, forks, you name it on these guys. All those tools that if you even hover one above a non-stick tefflon pan, wears and scratches the surface before your very eyes. I've scratched up the seasoning of my cast iron frying pan tons of times. All it needs is a little swipe of oil and some time in the oven and it's back to its good as new self.

The best set of pans a girl could wish for

It's non-stick. Who needs that tefflon crap? I don't even know if I'm spelling it right, but I started my married life with a full set of pots and pans in that tefflon-coated line and all of them are scratched to death. Some have been thrown away in their unusable-ness. (Turns out, they don't withstand oil fires very well, either.) My cast irons, have been with me for about 3 years now. I got them all used or free, (with the exception of our wok, which I bought for John as a Christmas present.)

I've brought them camping and I've set them on fire, put them in the oven; I've used them as hammers and pounders, you can even use them as a weapon like the girl from Tangled does. I loved that!

This is reverting to the indestructable thing again. Where was I?

Ah, non-stick. So long as you keep them in good shape (and trust me, it's not hard) these things will release your eggs, crepes, etc. perfectly every time.

Which leads me to the fact that they are very easy to take care of. I'm lazy. I frequently go days without washing my pans, even when they really should have. It's easier when you do it right away, but even if you slack off, it's not too bad. You can take comfort in the fact that while you might take off some of your seasoned coat while you scrub with all your might, you'll still have a pan when you're done. And you can always put a new coat on.

Part of the ease in caring for cast iron is that it doesn't need soap. Just hot water and a good scrub. Then I dry it on the stove and wipe it down with an oiled rag. Good as new for the next go. And if you make sure to wash it right after your done using it then it hardly even needs a scrub, more like a swish.

Even when you get your pot super old, dusty, rusty and worn it's still good!

See?

Good as new. Not bad for a free pot.

Cast iron also keeps you strong. When your frying pan weighs five pounds, you get a work out even when you cook! Carrying an eight pound wok FULL of food to the table builds your muscles big time. Add to that the fact that cast iron actually imparts some iron to your food every time you cook with it. Iron is a very necessary mineral to keep your blood working. Lack of it can lead to anemia and fatigue. Despite the fact that I rarely eat red meat I've been told multiple times that my blood's iron levels are absolutely fantastic. This is to the girl who was once diagnosed as "slightly anemic." Actually, that iron thing might be the reason behind why food cooked in cast iron tastes so good...

The wondrous weighty workable wok

When I was reading Nourishing Traditions, the author mentioned that "non-organic" iron was bad for the body. Which made me worried for a little bit that she didn't approve of cast iron cook ware. But then in the "recommended equipment" section she lists cast iron pots and pans as a great alternative to aluminum or non-stick cookware. So no need to worry! It's Sally Fallon Approved!

If you're interested in cast iron, ask around or check out some thrift stores. I've found that people frequently have them laying about and are willing to part with them because they fail to see the value, or like my mother in law, they simply collect them because they can't get over the value. Even if you end up buying one new, you can be sure that it's a great investment. I mean they'll last you forever, your great grandkids might end up using them.

I've grabbed up a few cool cast iron pans that I don't even know what to do with. Like this heart pan.

Too bad I hate Valentine's day

Cute, yeah? It was a dollar at our thrift store and even though I don't see my self using it often, it still makes a nice country kitchen kind of decoration. (You know, for when I have a country kitchen.)

Here's a link to a good guide on seasoning and general care. This is more or less how I do it, but if you look around you'll find everyone has their own little quirks; some people suggest a tiny bit of soap, others cringe at the thought. Some people won't even use water, preferring to burn off food matter. Some people are picky about what kind of oil they wipe in their pans. Do what works for you.

Sally Fallon is making me paranoid: a milk rant.

About two weeks ago, I used our inter-library loan system to check out Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon. I had heard the book mentioned a few times by bloggers I liked so I thought I'd take a look. I figured it probably had a great selection of fermented food recipes and maybe some other interesting stuff.

Scary but fascinating

What I did not expect was to be scared out of my whits concerning nearly everything I eat on a regular basis. And we eat fairly healthy compared to the standard American diet. I make my own bread and every baked item we eat. I use whole wheat flour the majority of the time. I'm always reducing sugar in recipes if I can get away with it.

When shopping, I read labels and ingredients carefully. If a food item has more than ONE ingredient, I scrutinize it closely. The only product with high-fructose corn syrup that I allow into my house is ketchup (although, not anymore. I'll do a post on my homemade ketchup soon). If I can't pronounce an ingredient I put the item back on the shelf.

As I've mentioned before, I don't buy organic in general because of the cost. But we eat primarily vegetables and whole grains and if I'm going to buy meat I usually will splurge on that to make sure it's actually good (i.e hormone free). I do buy free-range eggs for when we eat eggs, but I still use the cheap store-brand ones for baking purposes. I even drink whole milk, because separating all the fat from milk just sounds nasty and wrong.

But even though I felt good about the fact that I love olive oil, real butter and whole milk, I soon became panicked. I used regular non-extra virgin olive oil for cooking (saving my good stuff for when I'm not going to be heating it up) but the way they process olives after they get the first press causes the resulting second pressed olive oil to be rancid and unhealthy. I learned that my butter was missing valuable nutrients because it came from cows who possibly never saw the light of day and have been fed soy-products (among other nasties). And not only was I putting undo stress on my digestive system because my milk is pasteurized, but I was also endangering my heart by the tiny fact that my milk is homogenized.

What the-!? I didn't even know what homogenizing was!

Turns out, it's when they blast the fat particles of milk into tiny pores so they stay suspended through out the milk instead of condensing at the top. Sounds clever, right? You don't have to shake your milk...or whatever it is they do when people drink real milk.

But because it changes the chemical make up of the milk - making the fat particles tiny, as opposed to the large fat molecules they used to be - the fat is no longer healthy. Now, rather than hanging in the gut and intestines and drawing in toxins to help your body clean out, the teeny, teeming fat molecules go into your blood stream and contribute to hardening of arteries.

See why I'm so scared?

Added to the fact that since my milk is from cows who are fed GMO soy, corn and other crap (like other cows and their waste, no kidding), crammed into tiny space, given hormones to produce far more milk than any cow should be able to - even if I were to get this milk raw, unpasteurized, non-homogenized, it still wouldn't be a beneficial food product.

And I've been drinking this stuff for a good five years now!

So what do I do? One thing is certain, I cannot not have milk in my house. John - a milk addict - would go on strike, riot, rampage, foam at the mouth....

Okay, I'm joking. He actually understood fairly well when I explained my terrors to him. The alternative, however, is finding a local farm and buying fresh raw milk. Um delicious, and I wish wish wish, I could. But it's so expensive. And one day I'd like to own my own milk cows and live off that, but that dream waits until we have some land.

At least turning my milk into yogurt arms it with beneficial bacteria and enzymes to promote healthy digestion. But it doesn't solve the homogenized problem. Even Stonyfield Farms, who I used to love and trust, started homogenizing their whole milk yogurt. It didn't occur to me to be mad about this until recently. In fact, I didn't even realize that the reason that their amazing, most-delicious-yogurt-on-the-face-of-the-planet cream top yogurt was non-homogenized until after it wasn't anymore. I just noticed that they stopped doing the cream top thing and started crying. (Well, not really.)

Then when I started making my own yogurt (and I've got a batch going right now) I thought, "I want to try to make that cream top kind. How did they do that??" so I looked it up. That's when I found out they started homogenizing it, much to the dismay of many people. But apparently it cuts their costs so they won't change (though I'm still going to write them to let them know my displeasure. You should too, if you care.) That said, I'll never buy anything from Stonyfield again. And that makes me sad because they're based in my state, a forty minute drive from my apartment, and I used to love them.

So local farmers it is. I asked John if we could start buying local raw milk and he said... Well actually we had a really long conversation about it and it involved many other things, but what it summed up to was "maybe."  The thought process went something like this: continue to buy gross cheap milk now and save enough money to buy a house quickly, buy our own cows (or goats), never spend a cent on milk again (other than upkeep costs) and drink the best milk we can imagine in the future. Or, buy expensive good milk now,  buy a house one day, and then buy cows (or goats) and cut costs on milk then by drinking our own (and possibly make money on it by selling some too.)

Course, let's be realistic here. I know nothing. Zilch, nada, zip, about cows. Or goats, for that matter. And increasing our food budget to pay five or six dollars per gallon of milk rather than $2.50, isn't going to set us back that much. Seriously.

I'm trying to think of it in this way (and convince John to as well): Local raw milk (hormone and antibotic free, but I'm not worried if they aren't certified organic because that certification is just dang ridiculous.) Is not actually expensive. It that mass produced, hormone filled, pasteurized, homogenized, cattle farm milk that's cheap. Way cheaper than milk should be. I should look at the price of that milk on the shelf and think "Okay, why's it so cheap? What's the catch here?" And well, now I know what the catch is.

Taking care of cows, even on a small scale, can be expensive (probably). But I want to support local farmers, small scale farms and real people making a living on growing real food.

It's the culmination of several things, this new attitude and revelation. I've always approved of small farms and eating as local as possible, but, except for when I grow and forage my own food, I've never really done it myself. Then I read The Omnivore's Dilemma and I realized just how bad the food industry really was. But I still didn't do anything about it. And now I'm reading Nourishing Traditions, and then one of my favourite bloggers wrote this article, and I felt very convicted.

I've known it all along.

It's time to make some changes. I've been slowly getting around to it with my fermented foods kick, which has given me a new appreciation for what I can do with what I normally buy. But I need to change what I buy, too. So maybe we'll be drinking (homemade) almond milk for awhile until I find some local milk. And then we'll start small. We'll just have to cut back on our milk intake for awhile. A gallon every two weeks instead of one a week, whatever, no big deal. It's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.

Because even though I'm just one person, I think I can make a difference. Even if it's just a tiny one

This is what happens when you put me in charge of the s'mores...

John and I and a group of friends planned a cook out for this last weekend; a bonfire on the beach with hot dogs and tin-foil wrapped potatoes smothered in the coals. And of course, s'mores. As far as I'm concerned, s'mores are essential to any fire-centered party being successful. Well, since I'm so adamant about marshmallows and chocolate melted between two slabs of sweet cinnamon-and-honey-crackery goodness, I found myself being placed in charge of the s'more round up.

I took my role very seriously. These would be the best danged s'mores of all time.

It started when I made marshmallows...

Last year I had learned to make the whipped sugary gelatin confections. They were scrum-diddly-umptious, bouncy and fluffy. More yummy than any store bought marshmallow could even imagine tasting. You don't even need corn syrup to make them.

 And the best part? You can flavour them. Any flavour you can imagine!!! ... Well, almost. I have a really vivid imagination when it comes to flavours and some pretty clever means of bringing them into existence...(though, I do say so myself. *cough*)

Of last year's production

Last year they were Earl Grey flavoured marshmallows. This year, inspired by pine edibilities, I made them...of course, Pine flavoured. But in case my very normal friends thought this to be too outrageous for their taste buds I made an alternate Vanilla Orange flavoured batch.

The result?
Oh heavenly goodness. How could such lovely perfection be wasted with nasty, grody, waxy, fake "chocolate" as those hershey "smore sized" bars? No no! I would have GOOD chocolate with my marshmallows and that was that.

But the prices. Oooohhhhhhhh the prices. A bar of silky, cocoa-y, marvelous Ghiradelli chocolate was ever so expensive. They were being priced at more than NINE DOLLARS A POUND. Even the yucky Hershey chocolate was more expensive than I imagined it could be.

So you know what I did?

I went to the BAKING section! Ah ha! Two 12oz bags of Ghiradelli semi-sweet chocolate chips for $5! That's under four dollars a pound! (I think...) Who needs Ghiradelli to put their chocolate in bar shaped slabs for an extra five bucks a pound? I could do that myself!

And while I was at it I would sprinkle sea salt on them babies.

Noms.

Now that's chocolate. Better than any sub-par Hershey chocolate could ever imagine tasting.

Well, that settled it. If I was going to go "cheap" and gourmet at the same time (funny how those two coincide more often than many people might imagine) I'd simply have to make my own graham crackers too.

Yeah, I've done that before too. And they were fantastic. More delicious than any stale store graham cracker could even imagine tasting. So I did it again and they were the perfect top and bottom to my marvelous marshmallow masterpieces and my clever chocolaty concoction.

The cookout was amazing. Fire + food + frisbees = forever fun.. (I'm fond of alliterating, you know.) How could it go wrong? Okay, well it was on a New Hampshire beach in April, so yeah, it was cold too. But that just added to the adventure.

 And the s'mores?

 Yeah, you know it.

Absolutely amazing. Better than any combination of jet-puffed marshmallow, waxy Hershey chocolate and Nabisco graham crackers could have ever even imagined tasting. As far as I'm concerned, this is the only way to have s'mores.

Wish I had a photo of the final product, but my camera is not beach friendly.

Even my normal taste-budded friends were impressed. Please excuse me while I go and be smug.

Considering life without a car

The state of New Hampshire requires yearly car inspections. If your car doesn't pass the inspection, you can't drive it legally. I think this is the case in most states, but I'm from Florida where the folk are blissfully allowed to drive their cars into the ground no matter what the car's condition. The first time I had even heard inspections was sometime after I met John. Now I have to deal with this every year in April, when I need to renew my registration etc.

Meet my car:

96 Honda Accord, nice n' snowed on.

(Well, not the greatest photo to show the actual car, but who cares? Cars is cars, they all look basically the same. Snow is prettier anyway.)

Her name is Lady Lethe, and she is a super duper, great, great car! I bought her five years ago, used, for $3,000. And if I did not need to spend $30 on getting her inspected every year and then spend upwards of $400 on getting all the little things fixed in order for her to pass inspection, then I probably wouldn't have spent another cent on her other than gas and a few oil changes. None of these "fixes" for her to pass inspection were things that affected me while driving. I don't care if she makes a ruckus because there's a hole in her muffler, and I didn't care that the electric window couldn't roll down (despite lack of A/C) and I'm definitely not worried about the steering rack breaking on me suddenly while I drive! (I'm very reformed.)

But the state of NH does. Or so the mechanic says.

This morning I was told that the fixes needed to get dear Lethe to pass inspection will be more on the side of a thousand (more, if I bother getting break pads replaced). Since I spent four hundred on her last year and eight hundred on her the year before.... Well, John and I just don't think it's a good idea to spend so much on a car that will very very likely not pass inspection next year for some other random expensive broken part. She is a very old car, after all.

This leaves us to figure out somethings. Buy a new car? Absolutely not. We want a house, not a car.  Buy a used car? Possibly. Go without a car? Hmm....

I remember when I bought my first car. I felt like I had just bought myself a whole new world of freedom. That car lasted about a month before it broke down. And so began my experiences with cars and the multitude of troubles they bring with their so-called convenience. Now I feel like not having a car would be freeing.

Considering that we already walk to church instead of drive. It's about a 12 minute walk. When we drive, we're so close that time goes backward. We only drive if we're really gonna be late. As in, church starts at 10:30 and it's 10:35...

I walk to my weekly bible studies (the ones that aren't at my house) and I generally walk to my friend's pottery studio when I'm going to hang with her. To go to her house would be a quick bike ride too.  I generally don't walk to the library, because I'm not fond of carrying so many books back and forth and it's a bit more of a time and energy investment than I want to put into a quick book refreshing trip, but I could. It takes me about 30 minutes one way.

Basically, if I have time and it's relatively close, I walk. I'd much rather walk than drive, when I have the option.

So when do we use our car?

Of the two of us, I use our car much more regularly, since John's work provides him with a truck that he uses all day long. I use our car, on average, about seven or eight times a month. I drive to the grocery store, because it would take me a good hour to walk there, and then back with groceries.... ergh, not gonna happen. I drive to a friend's house occasionally to help her out in her garden and herb studio. She lives pretty far, about a 20 minute drive. I drive to our local spring to refill our water jugs. The spring is not far; I could bike there in 15 minutes. The tricky part would be transporting six gallons of water home on a bicycle.

John and I drive when we visit his parents, they're about a 40 minute drive away. We drive to the airport to pick up friends and family (when that happens). We drive to the beach transporting a surf board. We occasionally drive to other friends' houses if they've invited us for dinner. And we enjoy having the option to drive to John's family's lake house for summer frolics.  We also frequently volunteer to give church folk rides and if my friend needed me to help her in teaching her pottery class again, I wouldn't be able to get there on my own steam (the school at which she teaches is a 45 minute drive).

If we were to give up the car, we'd work out groceries and water fairly easily, by simply having John pick up what we need on his way home from work. When John is on call, one week out of three, his company prefers him to drive his truck so he'll be free to use it any time on those weeks.  Those would be the weeks when we could visit friends or family, or take a trip to the lake house, but there's also be the threat of him being called out, since that's why he's allowed to use the truck anyway.

Trips to the beach to surf would be right out unless John's surfing buddies were also going and willing to give us a ride (a distinct possibility.)  I definitely won't be helping my friend in her garden this year, unless she wants to pick me up and take me home (not very likely). We'd also be in the "needs a ride" group rather than the "can give rides" of our church, which I wouldn't be too frazzled about.

My final thought on this for the time being is that we could live without a car, but it would limit us a lot. It would take some adjusting to simply not have the option of hopping in the car and going somewhere any time I liked.  And while I hate driving and prefer walking whenever possible, the loss of that optional ease does scare me a bit. But I also like the idea. Cars can really be a hassle. Plus, it would be nice to feel like I'm doing more of a part in being environmentally friendly (even though I hardly drive the one I have now.) For emergencies, we really could use John's work truck, though his company might not like it much.

I also think it would be a lot more difficult to live without a car when our baby comes along. But we have till late summer to figure that out. And that's just as well; going without a car in the winter would also be trickier, since bicycling would no longer be an option with snow on the ground. We walk to church all year long anyway.

The verdict on the car isn't totally out yet. We're checking with some other mechanics to see if it will actually cost as much as the first guys said. We'll also look into how much used cars are running in our area. We might go without a car for a few months and see how it feels, and if the perfect car comes along we'll buy it.

Could you go without a car if you had to? Anyone local who can replace steering racks?

In which I eat my friend's Christmas tree

I should have posted about this a couple months ago... Actually, I should have done this a couple months ago. But it happened that a couple months ago I was in Florida and don't forget that I'm a bit of a procrastinator. It's worth the wait, however, as its awesome. Like foraging from your living room!

My own Christmas tree

Next Christmas, if you find yourself feeling rather sad about paying money to cut down a tree to be a temporary decoration in your house and then feel sad about throwing it away a month later, then here is something you might want to consider:

Pine is edible.

And it's actually pretty yummy. It tastes a lot like it smells, on the astringent side, and with a dash of bitter. It may be an acquired taste, but I find myself liking a lot of strange-ish things.

If the taste doesn't suit you, here's something else to consider:

Pine is antiseptic, antibacterial, high in vitamin C and other nutritious minerals. You can use your Christmas tree to make health elixirs, cough and cold remedies or even as an excellent cleaner if nothing else interests you. I've read from Susun Weed that pine vinegar can even clear up a lung infection. This is some good stuff, folks. Seriously!

And if one doesn't suit your fancy, try another variety. The taste can really vary, so don't give up if you try one that isn't so yummy.

This year my friend* had a beautiful Christmas tree of a variety I had never seen before. It's needles were long and wide. They reminded me of rosemary. I asked her if I could taste it. Heh heh. Thankfully, my friend is used to me and my weird ways and told me to have a go if I really wanted.

Well I did, and it was actually quite pleasing to the palette. Up until now, the best tasting pine I've been able to find is White Pine. Her pine tree (and I might have this wrong but I think she said it was called a Scotch Balsam) was lemony, slightly minty, spicy and (of course) piney. It delighted me. I asked her if I could have it when she was done using it as her temporary decoration.

She happily obliged me, saying "I'm glad my super expensive Christmas tree is getting more uses than one!" And then I had a large bag of pine branches hanging about my  house for about a month before I finally got around to turning them into things.

Pine vinegar, pine simple syrup and a jar of pine needles

So far, what I've made is: Pine simple syrup, for flavoring beverages and maybe even making candy.. (I think it might be fun to make pine lemonade, though John thinks it'll taste like cleaner....) Pine vinegar, which I intend to use in cooking as one would use balsamic vinegar. And pine soda.

Yup! Pine flavoured soda. It's kinda wild tasting. I carbonated it using a fermented wild yeast starter that I learned to make here at Learning Herbs. Instead of flavoring my soda with blueberries, as in the linked recipe, I made a sugary pine decoction and turned that into soda. Good stuff!

I also stripped most of the left over branches of their needles and intend to use them as an herb in cooking, the way one uses rosemary. But I could also put it in tea and blend it with other flavors. I'm thinking of chopping up the remaining needle-less branches and slow steeping them in olive oil for some piney oil. Which has many uses in and of itself! Salves, salads, wood polish...

I love that I can eat my cleaners and skin care. No toxins here!

For the simple syrup, I combined 2 cups sugar and 1 cup water in a pot. I added a bunch up pine needles and some of the smaller branches and stirred and let simmer under a lid for about 15 minutes. I probably could have let it go longer. The more pine you use, the more piney it will taste, (obviously). I thought mine was a little too sweet and not as piney as I hoped. I was following the Simple Syrup recipe in Joy of Cooking, but next time I think I'll use less sugar and more pine.

For the vinegar, take a glass jar and pack it with pine needles and branches then fill the jar with apple cider vinegar. Put the lid on (if it's a metal lid, place something like wax paper or several layers of plastic between the jar and lid because vinegar really corrodes metal) label it with the date and wait 4-6 weeks. Then you can strain it (or not) and use as you please, on food, or your toilet! You might want to make two jars, one for each, you know, so nothing cross-contaminates, eh...

So next time you have a Christmas tree, or someone you know does, try it out. Not all of them taste as good as others, but they're all edible and useful in so many ways. I was particularly delighted to find a tree that tasted so dern yummy, but there's loads to do with even the not-so-yummy varieties. You can even just go out to your closest woods and bring home some pine today if you can't wait till Christmas. Go ahead and try it!

I wonder if pine ice cream would be any good...

* I didn't actually get to use my own Christmas tree this year for a couple reasons - it was not nearly as tasty as my friend's and I didn't want a pine overload in my house, and we actually forgot to water it most of the time we had it, so by the time we got to taking it down there wasn't much left to it.  Don't let this happen to you!

I made yogurt

You'd better believe it, bucko.

In my recycled storage container. Resourceful, eh?

 Isn't it beautiful?

And it's yummy too. And cheap! Now I can eat yogurt on a more regular basis and not feel guilty at how much money I'm currently eating.
You see, I buy (or used, to, hehehe) Stonyfield's delicious whole organic yogurt. I love that they are organic (and honestly, I don't buy a lot of organic because it's very pricey, but this was one of my few exceptions) They have live cultures and are delicious. But at $3.69 a quart, they were one of the most expensive things on my receipts every shopping trip (unless I happened to buy meat, that time 'round). A gallon of (non-organic) milk is $2.49. So.... a gallon of milk can make me 4 quarts of yogurt for 2.49. That's a lot cheaper! I might even be able to justify buying organic milk for my yogurt making processes at a price like that! But we'll see about that.

You know, we're kinda trying to save money to buy a house right now.

I'm not going to go into super detail about how I made it, because there's quite a few picture by picture directions on the internet. The one I followed is here, with a few back up researches just to make sure I had everything in a row. But it was so easy and successful I could explain it to you in, like, three sentences.

Ready? Here goes.

Take yer milk (and you wanna go whole, because it's the best, you know? I heart fat) put it in your crock pot, heat on low for 2.5 hours. Turn your crock pot off and let sit 2-3 hours. (The directions say 3, I did 2, because I was impatient, I think you mainly want it warm but not TOO warm) Add a little yogurt (I read the ratio was generally 2 tablespoons of yogurt per cup of milk) stir it up, replace the lid on your crockpot and cover with a towel to keep things warm. Let it sit for 8-12 hours. I went to sleep and in the morning: amazing! Yogurt!

Well, maybe that was a few more than 3 sentences, I wanted to put my own spin on it, you see?

I also chilled mine before stirring it or disturbing it at all, because I read that it can help make it thicker. Not sure if this is true or not, though, because I never tried not doing it. But it's only my first batch, so maybe we'll try some right away and see if this is so...

Some good things to remember:
*save a half a cup or so of your yogurt so that you can use your homemade kind to start your next batch. *I've read that it lasts 7-10 days in your refrigerator, so only make as much as you can eat at a time. I have a feeling it will probably last longer, and if I find out, I'll let you know. But just in case, I only made 3 pints. One of which is already gone....and I just finished it yesterday!

Even though I now have a method that works, I'm kind of curious to know the how behind it all. Why heat it up and let it sit? Why not just heat to the temp you need first and then add your yogurt? What happens in the milk that makes this step necessary? I'm kind of food-scientist in this area. I love just doing things that work, but I really love knowing why it works. Then I can change things all I want, so long as I know the rules.'

So if I find out, I'll post about it!

I also bottled my first batch of komboucha a few days ago.  Sometime around lunch I'm going to break one open and taste it. I'm SO excited about it. I'll update you on that too, sometime soon.

tehe, love the empty vodka bottle.

Meantime, I want to give a little shout-out to one of my favourite blogger's new blogs. Even though she has no idea who I am (I'm not much of a commenter, see?), I've been a pretty regular reader of Kathleen's previous blog for about a year now. She just launched a new one that sounds sooooo interesting. So check it out at Becoming Peculiar. If you're interested in Christianity, being kind of radical, or just like reading new ideas or new spins on old ideas, you'll probably find something that catches your fancy. I'm eating it up right now.