What a pilgrimage means to me

I am not a religious or spiritual person, so for me, what falls near and dear to my heart is different than what others might find is dear to them. We used to live in a large metropolitan area with a ton of various resources available to us. It was easy to come by organic foods, or natural products, or a community of like-minded people. About two years ago we moved south, to an area that still has a "city," but it is much smaller and the vibe is a lot different. I found myself struggling to maintain the same type of healthy lifestyle we were accustomed to.

One of the things I found myself missing most was Trader Joe's. You have to understand.... I LOVE Trader Joe's. And where we lived before, it wasn't an issue of whether there was a Trader Joe's, it was a matter of which one was closest to your home and which one you most frequently drove past as you went about your life. So I frequented four different ones, and I had my favorites.

And then we moved. And there was no Trader Joe's, and I was sad. When my parents came to visit, my mom would bring me some things from Trader Joe's. Once she even mailed me Trader Joe's things! And when we went to a city near-ish by that had a Trader Joe's, we would go there and bring things back. And when we drove up north to visit family, we'd stop by Trader Joe's and bring things back. But when your vehicle is already loaded with four people and a horse of a dog and all their things, you can only bring so much back. Add to that a 10 hour drive and you're pretty limited.

But as mentioned in my last post, I bought a chest freezer. And with all that freezer space comes all kinds of options. So what else could I do this weekend but drive to Athens, Georgia and hit Trader Joe's?! I mean, really. What else could I have possibly done with my day? It's not like I have kids or school or anything else. Geez.

So off we went. Coolers in the back, rear seats folded into the floor, we were ready! And we got there, and oh holy saints alive, it was amazing! It was like being home again! People with dreadlocks, Birkenstocks, and tattoos! And happy employees! And teeny tiny carts!(why do they do that??) I had a list in my head of a couple of things friends had asked me to pick up for them as well, because of course everyone I know understands the wonder that is Trader Joe's, even here in the deep south.

We made it, literally, down one aisle before I had to get a second cart and recruit Kadin to push it. The wonderful thing about Trader Joe's is that nothing they sell has HFCS or food dyes, so as far as avoiding these for Ansel, I didn't have to check a single label. (FWIW, the same is also true for the store I shop at here, Earth Fare.) But the plan was to stock up on things that I, first off, love, and secondly, that are cheaper at Earth Fare than elsewhere, so that I would be 'stocked' on these things for three months. Which means my next pilgrimage is planned for January! Woot! I can hardly wait already!

It's worth noting that a few things happened.... The two carts were piled so high Kadin couldn't see over either one, and I had to direct him. We also killed their cash register... it freaked out and froze, the receipt was too long to print and we killed their printer, and two guys had to each push two carts full of bagged items out to our car. On the way out, the one guy asked, "Do you have a Mac truck for all this?" To which I replied, "Nope! Just a minivan." Trader Joe's employees being awesome, they even helped me dig out frozen items to load into my coolers.

Was it worth it? Oh heck yes! All $528 of it! (No lie, really.) It was summed up almost immediately upon driving away, when each child was given a fruit leather to enjoy. Ansel said, "I like this candy!" I didn't protest, even though it's not candy at all, and is only fruit, no added sugar. Why should I argue?

As we drove away. Kids have fruit leather, I acquire coffee, and I bask in the awesomeness of all that I purchased at the beautiful place. If you have one near you, appreciate it.

When we got home, I had to take a picture of it all. The other angle just didn't take in the magnitude of it.

Excuse the weird orbs that happened with my phone pictures. I'm quite sure my house isn't haunted. It's just glare. Really.

It's a good thing my counters were clear when I got home.(Because I cleared them before I left, no magic cleaning elves here! Or ghosts.) There were a lot of wonderful things to sort.

I don't like their white cheddar popcorn at all. Why do you ask?

No, I do not dream of their amazing frozen pizzas on really busy nights when I don't have time to, or energy to, cook anything more labor intensive. Ok, fine, I do. Pair this with a quick side salad and it's a great dinner for us. Next to it, you can kind of see some frozen fish. I bought enough for us to have these once a week until January. Amazing!

Phew! That was fun. I am so excited! So far we've finished a bag of the popcorn, the kids have eaten about half a box of squeeze yogurts, and we're working on a box of amazing cereal bars that taste like real things! And aren't fluorescent colors!

Oh, and I feel like I need to say... The bags will not be wasted. I use their bags for my paper recycling storage until I go drop it off at the recycling center. Yes, I do usually use reusable bags, but Trader Joe's has always been my exception to get the bags for recycling.

Attempting to educate myself

I have done a paltry job of putting anything on this blog except for stuff about food. I assure you, there has been more happening, but it's honestly not been as much the focus as food has. Food, for me, is a big deal. And being successful with such a big change is a big deal for me. And I have been overwhelmingly successful in my opinion. I have never been able to 'conquer' this one. And I haven't entirely. I still have my moments. But I am improving!

One thing that I have been working on is reading. I want to read more in general. But I also want to read more about healthy living and learn how best to feed myself and my family, and to do the best for us and our home.

I am currently reading Fast Food Nation. I admit, I have been 'currently' reading this book for two weeks tomorrow. It's a good book. It's great information. I don't dislike the book. But I'm having a hard time powering through it. I'm almost there! I have about sixty pages to go.

I am simultaneously juggling reading The Omnivore's Dilemma. This is my second time reading the book, but the first time I did not completely finish it. Again, for some reason, I have a hard time getting through it. It's a great book. I love the information. But I just don't feel drawn to, 'oh! I hope I can find time to read this book today.' And as such, I have conveniently not been finding that time.

I'm working on it. My goal is to finish Fast Food Nation today. I can do it!

Meal plans for saving! (money AND my sanity)

Dinner is a drain. There, I said it. I get really tired of making dinner. It happens every gosh darn day! Sometimes I wish we could take a day off from dinner. But alas, the kids and the husband won't hear of it!

I used to be a non-planner when it came to meals. I would buy staple ingredients every week and freeze whatever meats were on sale that week, buy shelf stable items as I could afford to stock up, and buy way too many vegetables that would end up going bad before I used them.

It was wasteful, but at that point we were eating all conventionally grown items, so we could 'afford' the waste. Now that I've placed a priority on natural and organic items, the price tag is higher. In order to make up the difference, we had to eliminate waste.

And that's where meal planning comes in. Each week, I plan out the next week's dinners. Lunches are easy.... Leftovers go with the husband to work, Ansel and I eat leftovers if we have them or we eat something easy like sandwiches, and Kadin takes a sandwich to school each day. Breakfast is basic staple items.... oatmeal, cereal, eggs, bacon, etc. So those are just a regular part of my shopping.

This has definitely simplified my life. Because I know what I will be making for dinner, I find it easy to start dinner preparations earlier in the day, or overnight if necessary. There is no last minute panic about what to eat. I also don't wait too long to start, then realizing what I had decided on will take more time than I have available. I can also plan the more time consuming meals for the days of the week when I have more time to devote to them. It is really a load off my mind, AND, I find myself almost never wishing we could just order pizza or go out to eat.

I think I'll start posting my weekly meal plans, and then updating the blog most days about how things have turned out. Here's this week's plan:

Wednesday: Rotisserie chicken(the store-made kind, our natural foods grocery has them on sale), baked potatoes, and steamed broccoli.

Thursday: Pasta with bolognese sauce and salad.

Friday: Chicken mole, rice, and corn.

Saturday: Chicken rollers(a sale item at the store), ravioli(another store sale item), and salad.

Sunday: Burritos(this is a big batch make ahead item) and salad.

Monday: Red lentils, palak paneer, and rice.

Tuesday: Thai pasta salad.

I made bread last night, and will be keeping up with that this week. I also plan to make snickerdoodles for the boys and granola snacks for Ansel, as well as protein bars for the husband.

Off to the store we go! Let's hope I stay under budget again!

Its grocery Wednesday!

So my new grocery day is Wednesday, for a variety of reasons. So this morning, I spent about an hour planning the next week's meals, making a list, and crossing my fingers and hoping like heck that I would come in close to budget.

So off I go to the natural foods store, happy companion Ansel in tow. There were samples, he was happy.

And wouldn't you know it, I actually came in slightly UNDER budget! I mean, yes, that money did then get allotted elsewhere(what I don't spend on that week's "needs" I put towards staple items). And the great part is that the vast majority of our food this week, including meats, will be mostly organic, definitely "natural," and some local. No HFCS! Woot!

Here's the haul! $112. I promise you, it's quite a good deal for $112. What's hard to see is the four brown packages of meat, and the large bag of organic flour, and things along those lines. And that milk isn't cheap, but totally TOTALLY worth it!

I also have bread dough about to go into the oven, tomorrow I'll make cookies(promised Ansel) and banana bread(have overripe bananas). If I get on a good roll, I might go ahead and make protein bars, but we'll see. Can't put the cart before the horse!

It feels good to be back on the wagon!

Earth Day!

So, it's Earth Day. Yay! And, because my life is all kinds of crazy right now and I've been putting off some projects and thus had little to blog about, I figure I can post a bit on what I do to be earth friendly.

So, let's see.

The biggies..... We use cloth diapers. We didn't with Kadin. Heck, I had no idea they even really existed anymore. But we have with Ansel since he was born. And seeing how he's almost 3 1/2 now, that's a LOT of diapers we haven't thrown away. I won't lie and say I love it at this point. It's tedious. But I remember Kadin's last months in diapers being tedious, too, and all I had to do with those was throw them away.

(I will also add that Ansel wore this same diaper today, as a matter of fact. The color's lost some of it's brightness, but the diaper is every bit as functional as it was in this picture, when Ansel was a little over a year old.)

We breastfeed. Feeding artificial human milk(also known as "formula") creates a TON of waste. If you can possibly breastfeed, I highly recommend it!

This is about 3 days post-partum, our first outing.

I use reusable menstrual pads. I'll spare you a picture on this one. Really, you don't want to see. But I promise you it's NOT gross. And an unexpected plus of it has been that they're WAY more comfortable than anything disposable ever was.

One of our cars is a hybrid, and we LOVE it! It's fun and cute and spacious enough and gets great gas mileage! The blue one on the right. The grey SUV is my parents'.

We buy organic products and local products when we can. This is less strain on the environment, especially the local products. Organic products also reduce the amount of impact each crop has on the land itself.

There are a lot of other smaller things we do here and there, and a lot of other things we'd like to do, but at this point don't because of financial constraints or the time involved or other things. We're working on it, though, and doing what we can.

My weekly challenge

Every week, I get to solve a puzzle. The puzzle is how to fit this much stuff into two produce drawers. And lemme tell ya, it's challenging! Yes, we use this much fresh produce in a week, PLUS some! Not pictured are the week's pears, tangerines, bananas, and onions. (and frozen vegetables, which we eat probably twice a week)
The vast majority of this is organic, with only a few exceptions based on availablity and cost. Apples are always organic, because my kids eat so many of them. Potatoes always are, too, as I've heard they have some of the highest levels of pesticides among conventional produce. In this particular week, the strawberries were conventional, along with the cilantro and jalapenos. The tomatoes were local, but not organic.

And this is what we did, later in the day. It's Spring Break for Kadin, and this was about the most exciting thing that happened all week. Sad, I know, but we're(ok, I'm) still recovering from last week's time served at Disneyworld.
Ansel showing his true colors.

Just another day in baker's paradise

I decided to branch out on my bread making. Since getting the Healthy Breads in Five Minutes a Day book, I'd only tried out one master recipe. So, I decided to give another one a go. This time, I tried the Hearty Whole Wheat Sandwich Loaf. This recipe contained the same primary ingredients as the Soft Whole Wheat, but with a higher wheat ratio and no honey.
Here's the dough rising. It looked a little sad, in my opinion.

And the finished product. I have to say, not wildly impressed. It was too hard on the outside. And the inside was too dense and too crumbly to be good for sandwiches. It was ok as toast, but I'm not going to bake bread specifically to use as toast.

I thought perhaps there had been some error in baking on my part, so when I used the second half of the dough, I skipped the steam portion, and cut the baking time. But same problem. Too hard, too crumbly. Iwon't make this dough again, at least not as sandwich bread. Maybe as garlic knots or some of the other suggestions for the dough. But we'll see. With so many available options, no point in spending too much time on one that doesn't work for me.

The same day as the bread I decided to make chocolate chip cookies. I LOVE chocolate chip cookies. But, I know they're not all that good for you(although also not all that bad if you know what you're putting in them).

As I've mentioned before, we don't use any Nestle products, or any products owned by Nestle(like Gerber, betcha didn't know that one!). But there is something to be said for the Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe. And I have no problem using the recipe so long as I'm not using any of their products. Upon suggestion of another site, I decided to modify the recipe and use half the amount of butter it called for. And, as usual, I skipped the nuts.

Very nice looking cookies! And guess what?! They tasted really good, too!
Now that I've tried with half the butter, I don't intend to go back. The taste was not affected negatively. The cookies were able to bake without overly browning. The other blog(if I remember it, I'll post the link), also suggested using half wheat flour, so I'll try that the next time. Can't hurt!

Snacking..... It never ends.....

My boys snack constantly. As soon as they finish one thing, they're on to the next. Ansel, who is 3, is actually the worst of the two of them. And his appetite for fruit is insatiable. For example, this morning he ate a pear, an apple, and two and a half bananas. And that was all before 11 am! It's no wonder I buy as much produce as I do.....

This is an example of a snack that Ansel ate one afternoon, and he did eat all of this, along with a cup of water(he likes a lot of ice in it). It's quite pretty, which I think I appreciate more than he does. But I do take some pride in being able to prepare simple, attractive foods for my family.

It's carbolicious!

Bread day! I don't really intend to make copious amounts of bread in one day again, but that's how it all happened and to be honest, it really wasn't that bad..... I made three loaves of bread, all different, yesterday. Wow! And two were 'real' bread.

I started out by making another loaf of the white bread I posted about last time. This time I made it for my neighbor, who is scared of using yeast. I've told her it won't bite her, but she doesn't believe me.

As that dough was rising, I started my next dough.

I purchased this cookbook, Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day a couple of weeks ago and have been slowly gearing up to start following their plan. There's a pretty lengthy chapter in the beginning about ingredients and materials and supplies, and yes, I actually do read things like that.

The basic idea is that they have master dough recipes that you make and store in the fridge until you're ready to bake. The dough will stay in the fridge for up to five days. As you need to, you pull off a certain amount of dough, manipulate it slightly into what type of bread you want to make specifically, let it rise, then bake. No kneading! (in almost all cases) And it only takes five minutes when you actually use the dough. Making the master recipe does take a bit of time, but really not even all that much.

Now, if I can manage to just set up my routine to do this, we'll be golden. You can make anything. There's different variations to the master recipe in this book. Some use all whole wheat, some a combo of wheats, some use various other grains as well. The one I decided to start with was the Soft Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread. It makes four pounds of dough, which makes two loaves of sandwich bread. We mostly use bread as sandwiches and toast, so this is perfect for us. It also shows an easy way to make hamburger or hot dog buns using the same dough, so that's great.

I'm not going to post the recipe, because these aren't available online. There are some on their website which I linked above, and a lot of libraries also have their cookbooks.

This is what went into the master recipe.

Here's the dough, all mixed up, before it rose.

This is the part of the dough I used(half of the total) to make one sandwich loaf last night. You simply cut off the amount you need, flour the outside a little, shape it into whatever you're making, then put it in/on the pan to rise.

And the finished product! I am seriously amazed every time something comes out looking the way it should. I expect failure, and am totally impressed with every success.
I am happy to report that today the boys and I had sandwiches for lunch using this bread, and it's GREAT! Tastes like fancy bakery shop bread. So exciting! I used to spend $5+ for something like this up in Virginia without batting an eyelash.

After mixing up the master recipe dough yesterday, and after baking the neighbor's bread, I got started on banana bread. My whole family likes banana bread, and I like not wasting things(like overripe bananas). It also makes for quick snacks or breakfast, so that comes in handy.

The recipe I usually follow is pretty simple. I don't put nuts in mine because the kids tend not to like nuts in things. I was the same way, so it doesn't bother me to accomodate this one.

Banana Banana Bread

One of the tips I picked up somewhere along the way, which is useful and I actually used this time, is if you're short on banana per the recipe, fill in the difference with applesauce. I was short about 1/3 cup of mashed banana, so I used one individual serving size of applesauce. You can't taste the applesauce, but it continues with the appropriate moisture and texture, so it works very well.

And the finished product! Making banana bread is super simple, so I didn't bother with step-by-step pictures. You just mix stuff together, pour in a pan, and bake it!

Rising to the occasion

And I'm back! I took a couple of days off from the blog(but not from cooking and baking) for my birthday, which was Monday. But yesterday, I was right back on to baking and taking pictures and posting! Glad to be back, but a break is nice, too!

In trying to stay with my once a week grocery shopping plan, I make a concerted effort to not run to the store for "just one thing." When does it ever end up being only one thing? And what a waste of gas and time anyway to go out just for that one thing. So we were out of bread, but I send a sandwich to school with Kadin every day for his lunch. Not having bread is a bit of a problem!

Now, realize, I've never MADE bread before. I've made banana bread or pumpkin bread, but not just bread. And I did try a cranberry swirl loaf real bread back in January, but I killed the yeast in the first step, so it was really dense and didn't rise right or anything. It tasted good, but the texture was alll wrong.

I just knew that if this whole foods thing was going to work, I was going to have to conquer bread. So I bought a bread book, and I'm working on figuring out how to implement it, but I was missing a significant ingredient for it's main recipe. So Google saved the day! It took a long time because a lot of things called for stuff I didn't have(like skim milk) or made two loaves(I only need one at a time and only have one loaf pan anyway). So I found one that used things I had, and sounded manageable.

Super Easy Bread for Beginners


I would have included pictures of the ingredients and the beginning of the process, but, I was on the phone with my mom at the time and to be honest, it just didn't even occur to me. But here's the dough, all mixed up. This is the point at which the dough was "chasing" the spoon around the bowl. I liked that description!

This is the dough in the buttered bowl, next to the heated oven(I was about to start granola bars) so it can rise. Sorry for the monotone here, didn't even occur to me to use a colored bowl. But ceramic Pfaltgraff does conduct heat well, so maybe it was actually a good idea.
Here's the dough an hour later, about to be punched down and kneaded. I was so ecstatic to see it had actually risen in a way that looked right to me! Yay!

And the finished product right out of the oven. When it came out, it was really hard, and I was a little bit scared. But after an hour or so, the top started to soften, so I was really thrilled. I wanted to make sure it turned out right, so as much as I wanted to test it, I didn't slice any off until this morning.

And..... this morning, I had to make Kadin's sandwich as usual. I sliced the heel off and, whaddya know, it was soft bread! And the crust was chewy, not hard like I'd feared. And it tastes.... good! I will definitely make this again sometime, but I will bake it a little less and see if that makes the crust even better.

My other project yesterday was granola bars. This is what I made while the dough was rising.

I wanted to try a new recipe. But I sort of had a heck of a time finding one to try. So many call for things like Rice Krispies, which is exactly the sort of stuff I'm trying to avoid feeding my kids(and myself). So finally I found this one, and I thought I had all the stuff for it, so why not. As it would turn out, I didn't have the peanut butter chips. I forgot I had used them in cookies that Fawad took to work. So instead I used all chocolate chips, which was really fine with me anyway.

Peanut Butter Granola Bars


Again, I know some of this stuff isn't ideal. I'm still using up that peanut butter(this is the last jar). And when I'm baking, I use regular honey, not local.

The dry ingredient and the wet ingredients. I love when things look good along the way.

All mixed together. I taste a little, really good!

All done, out of the oven! It said to bake just until the edges were browned, and that's exactly what I did.

The recipe says it makes three dozen. I can't imagine how small they would have to be to make that many out of one pan. I cut it into 18 bars which were a more normal granola bar size.

Now, I'm not sure if I'd make this one again. They taste good. But they're really crumbly. I think it's because they're so thin, and it just doesn't hold together. Maybe it would be better in a smaller pan, but I'm not sure if that would be enough to take care of the problem.


And this is what I made for the boys in the middle of all of this. The husband I were having leftovers from the night before's dinner out, so I didn't want to exert a lot of effort just cooking for the boys. So, half a box of whole wheat organic spaghetti, about a third of a jar of organic marinara sauce, some parmesan cheese, and a quick spinach salad. Voila! Dinner!

Tea cookies and muscle fuel

I'm getting back on the baking bandwagon. I didn't get anything done while I wasn't feeling well, so it was a good thing we had enough on hand to get through without taking too desperate of measures.

This week I wanted to make a non-chocolate cookie as I have it in my plans to make peanut butter and chocolate granola bars(probably tomorrow). So I did some internet browsing and came up with a recipe for Swedish Butter Cookies from Taste of Home. Now, I have no idea if there is anything remotely Swedish about these, but that's what they call it.

The nice thing about this recipe is it calls for only very basic ingredients that you're likely to have on hand all the time.

Swedish Butter Cookies Recipe

I started with the ingredients. As I said, very basic. Do notice that I'm still using white sugar and regular white flour. I'm working on using up my more 'conventional' ingredients. I don't want to just throw things out, but I won't be rebuying things like this if I can help it.

He loves to mix. I would almost say that Ansel lives to mix! We did eventually have a melt down when the dough got to the point that he couldn't mix it.

The dough. It was sort of dry, but I packed it down and it got sticky enough.

Dough rolled out. It was sort of like rolling playdough, but not as forgiving. This would be fun for an older child(Kadin would have been ok with, but no way Ansel could have gotten it to stick together).

The cookies baked, cooling, and sugared. I would have taken a picture when it came out of the oven, but one of the tips I read said to cut the cookies immediately, so I made sure to do that.

They're basically crispy, buttery sugar cookies. I think they're good, but I don't know that I'd remake them. Not when there's so many other cookie options. I like that they're small, so I don't feel bad letting Ansel eat one or two here or there.

My husband has a thing for protein bars. His favorite has actually been more of a nutrition bar, namely the Zone Perfect Strawberry Yogurt Bar. I'm now left to wonder.... has he read the ingredients on that? There's actually a couple of things in there that are rather alarming. So, of course, I wanted to make this myself. I think the idea originally occured when I was watching Alton Brown. So, of course, I tried his recipe first.

Alton Brown's Protein Bar Recipe

This is a lot of stuff. I had to go out of my way to buy a couple of things to make this, like oat bran(which I never would have thought to buy) and soy protein powder. And yes, that IS plain old Skippy peanut butter. As I mentioned up above in reference to the cookies... I'm using up some things I have already. I got a heck of a deal on Skippy peanut butter a while back and stocked up. I used the end of this jar making the protein bars, and then I have one more jar. After that, I'll be buying fresh peanut butter from the store I buy most of our food from.

The other interesting thing that happened is that we discovered Ansel likes to eat plain, cold tofu. Who knew?

There was a lot of mixing. Ansel got to help a lot. And I could have taken pictures, but.... the majority of time, it all looked like vomit. And... it was terribly unappetizing. You never would want to try any of this. I even thought about giving up at some point. So here's the dough right before I spread it in the pan. Oh! And here's a picture of the unfiltered apple juice I used. I forgot it in the ingredient shot.

These looked pretty good coming out. That's all fruit, not chocolate, by the way.

And cut and wrapped up. I actually cut it into sixteen servings. I froze some of them since there's no way my husband will eat sixteen in a week. And I'd really rather my kids not get too used to meal replacement items. They have the time to eat "real" food, and I'm the one who has to prepare it for them anyway. So why the heck not?

And that's it for that! I did actually manage to also make dinner on this day. We had steak, baked potatoes, and salad. Very imaginative, don't you think?

The weekly haul

So I know I've been slacking. But, I was sick, so I think I'm excused.

Being sick threw things off again, so I didn't go shopping on Monday, my usual day. I went on Tuesday.


First order of business was to make the list(and drink coffee). Sometimes the list is easy to make because I keep a whiteboard on the fridge to write down things we need as they come up. Then I just rewrite my list so it makes sense for going through the store.

Ansel was.... excited? About.... shopping? I'm not sure. But I do know he has egg on his face.

In a perfect situation, I would go shopping first thing in the morning and be back for lunch. But this week I didn't leave until the afternoon, so I wanted to put dinner in the slow cooker. Chili won, because it was a lousy rainy, cold day.

This does use a lot of canned items, but eh. Someday I'll get past that, but for now, I'm ok with it.
Nicole's Chili Recipe:

1lb ground beef
2 15oz. cans diced tomatoes
2 15oz. cans tomato sauce
15oz. can pinto beans, drained and rinsed
15oz. can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 large chopped onion
1/4 cup chopped green bell pepper
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper(I use more, but we like things spicy)
1/2 teaspoon white sugar
1/2 teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons cumin
1/4 chili powder(I make my own)

Brown the ground beef. Combine everything else in slow cooker. Cook on low 8 hours.

Everything in. This smells soooo good as it's cooking.
And.... then we went to the store. On a nicer day, when I get started sooner, I'll take some pictures of the shopping excursion, too. But for now, pictures of the haul will have to do.

This is a pretty normal shopping trip for us. I didn't buy any meat because we had a lot in the freezer already. I didn't do as much cooking when I was sick as I normally would have, so there was enough that I skipped it for this week.

This cost $99. Everything is organic or at least pesticide/hormone/HFCS free.
The dairy. Two gallons of local, non-homogenized milk. It comes from here. I got to meet the man who owns the farm once at our local store. He had just started selling his products there and he was very nice and let Ansel have a LOT of samples. That won me over. The price for organic, non-local milk is the same as this milk. It's not the "organic" status that pulls me in so much as the idea of a more conscious product, so knowing the background of this product and the way it's produced is plenty for me.

The produce. Pretty normal for a week. We'll eat all of this, except maybe a couple of potatoes, by the time I go to the store again next week. We'll also use more apples, but we still had a bag and a half. Everything is either organic or local/pesticide free.

The other grocery items. I think everything is organic except the mayonnaise and the curry sauce. I replaced all the canned items I had used to make the chili earlier. I like to keep things like that stocked so I can use them as needed. The boys also begged for this cereal, and there was a coupon and a sale, so... I said ok.

The laundry stuff. I just started using this detergent, and will post about that soon in more depth. I also use Bac-Out for washing diapers, and will post about that at some point I am sure. Both of these items had coupons, so I wanted to take advantage of that even though I didn't need more right now.

When we got home, dinner was done! My husband was already eating as he had to get off to work. The boys ate as soon as it had cooled down enough. It was really good(always is). I think I might start aiming to have a slow cooker meal on all my shopping days just to make life easier.

Now it's really late, but I wanted to get this up tonight before it goes too many days in blog silence.