For the love of Pumpkin...

First of all, I cannot believe it's October.  Is it true that the older we get the faster time goes?  I think of my life b.k. and a.k. - before kids and after kids.  I remember a time before kids that I was actually bored.  Life a.k. is insane.  I've heard "Mom, I'm bored" a million times, but I don't recall ever uttering, "Family, I'm bored." 

With fall comes back to school, back to sports, back to scouts, back to an insane schedule filled to the max.  But I have to admit, I love fall.  I love the smell of fire burning in a neighbors fireplace.  I love the look of the trees as the leaves change color.  I love the briskness.  The fact that I can wear jeans and sweaters again.  Mostly, I love the food!! 

Fall food is comfort food.  Pot roasts, soups, fresh breads, squashes and PUMPKIN!!  I could eat pumpkin at every meal.  Last year there was pumpkin shortage.  It was impossible to find in local groceries.  Luckily, a good friend of mine gave me a hot tip on some organic pumpkin at a nearby grocery outlet.  I bought two cases!  That was in the spring, and over the summer I didn't use much of it.  For me, pumpkin is very seasonal.  I have to be in "autumn mode" to fully enjoy it.

Enjoying it I am.  Here a few organic pumpkin dishes that you can enjoy this season as well.  Enjoy with a cup of Newman's Own Organic Coffee (on sale this week at our local Giant).  Also look for coupons in this past Sunday's paper for Tom's of Maine and Wolfgang Puck soups and broths. 

Crunchy Pumpkin Dessert Squares
1 can (30 oz) organic pumpkin
1 can (12 oz) fat-free evaporated milk (hard to find organic.  You can make your own - I've never been that ambitious.)
3 eggs
2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
1 pkg. (18 1/4 oz) yellow cake mix (I use Dr. Oetker)
2/3 cup chopped pecans
1 cup butter, melted
Whipped topping

1.  In a large bowl, combine pumpkin, spice, milk and eggs.  Beat on medium speed until smooth.  Pour into an ungreased 13x9 pan.  Sprinkle with cake mix and pecans;drizzle with butter. 
2.  Bake at 350 for 60-65 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.  Cool completely.  Garnish with whipped topping.  Store leftovers in fridge.

Pumpkin Pancakes
4 c. biscuit mix*
2 eggs
2 c. milk
1 c. pumpkin
1 tsp. cinnamon
Powdered sugar
Mix all ingredients, except powdered sugar, together. Pour batter onto hot, lightly greased griddle. Sprinkle pancakes with powdered sugar to taste

*Organic biscuit mix:

4 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups cake flour (although not organic, King Arthur makes a good quality cake flour)
1/4 cup baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 lb.shortening (I use organic shortening by Spectrum)

Sift together flours, baking powder and salt. When well combined, cut in Crisco using paddle attachment of mixer.

Store in refrigerator for up to one month. Can be used as a substitute whenever biscuit mix is called for in a recipe.

Sausage and Pumpkin Pasta (Yummy - but I don't tell the fam what's in it)

2 cups uncooked multi grain bow tie pasta

1/2 lb. Italian turkey sausage links, casing removed

1/2 lb. fresh sliced mushrooms

1 medium onion, chopped

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 cup chicken broth

1 cup canned pumpkin

1/2 cup white wine (or additional chicken broth)

1/2 tsp. sage

1/4 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. pepper

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1 Tbl. dried parsley flakes

1.  Cook pasta according to package directions.

2.  Meanwhile, in large skillet, cook sausage, mushrooms, onion and garlic over medium heat until meat is no longer pink; drain.  Stir in chicken broth, pumpkin, wine, sage, salt, garlic powder and pepper.  Bring to a boil.  Reduce heat; simmer, uncovered, for 5-6 minutes or until slightly thickened.

3.  Drain pasta; add to the skillet and heat through.  Just before serving, sprinkle with cheese and parsley.

Onions for Lunch

Remember those sensors that would tell how much like was left in a battery?  I wish food had this same sensor, or some sort of scale, saying least pesticides, most pesticides, definitely gonna kill ya!  This week was a bad week for grocery shopping.  My wallet was LEAN (like ghetto poor lean) and I'm in the store trying to decide what warrants the gazillion extra dollars.  Do I buy the organic cheese sticks (6 for $3.75) or the non-organic (12 for $2.50)?? Is a cheese stick really going to affect my kids' lives?

I always try to buy grass-fed organic meats because of hormones and antibiotics that are given to mass-produced meats.  Plus the guilt factor gets me almost every time - images of videos I've seen of cows, pigs and chicken being raised for public consumption haunt me while I'm in the meat department.  I also always buy organic milk, but it really kills me to buy organic cheeses and butter.  Is that pat of cream cheese on my bagel going to make difference?  Even that $1.00 off coupon isn't really going to make a dent in the price difference.

Here's the list commonly referred to as "The Dirty Dozen" - 12 foods that you should buy organic if at all possible.  Of course most of my favorites are on the list...Why can't it have stuff like rutabaga, or beets?

• Beef, chicken and pork
• Dairy products: Milk, cheese and butter
• Strawberries, raspberries and cherries
• Apples and pears
• Tomatoes
• Spinach and salad greens
• Coffee
• Potatoes
• Stone fruits: Peaches, nectarines and apricots
• Grapes
• Celery
• Peppers (capsicums), green and red

Most of these items fall on this list because of their thin skins that don't offer protection from the pesticides.

Some items that we don't need to worry about are avocados (big whoop!), onions, watermelon, pineapple.  Think items with thick skins that will get cut away, or produce that wouldn't have many insects nibbling on them, like cabbage or broccoli.

It drives me nuts that we even have to make these decisions.  Why does a grocery store offer 20 aisles of garbage and 2 aisles of real food??  Why can't all foods just be safe, healthy, and free of GMOs??  Until it is, I guess my kids will be getting onions and cabbage in their lunches!

Tomatoes Out the Ears

Did you plant a garden this year?  If you did, and yours is anything like ours, we have a surplus of tomatoes.  Of all the veggies to have an abundance of, tomatoes are a great one - there are so many recipes you can create with tomatoes.  If you're overwhelmed with what to do with them, why not try your hand at canning them for use throughout the year?

I'm a canning geek.  Although I complain every time I can something, I really love the process.  This sounds so hokey, but I really feel like it brings me closer to my roots.  My great-grandmother "put up" beets, tomatoes, pickles, you name it, she canned it.  My mother taught me the love of canning, and every time I do it memories of our time in the kitchen come rushing back.  The taste of homemade grape juice takes back to being 8 years old. 

The process can seem overwhelming, but it truly is quite simple.  It can be time consuming, but if I can do it, anyone can!  And you really will save money.   For example, this week I bought a box of organic tomatoes from a local produce stand.  The box cost $8.00.  From this box I made a huge batch of salsa (I'm talking one of those big Tupperware bowls) and still had enough to can 7 quart jars of whole tomatoes.  A bushel of apples cost around $12.00 and will make several jars of delicious apple sauce, apple butter and you'll probably still have enough to freeze for apple pies!

Now is a great time to preserve all those fruits and veggies that you are sick of cooking.  If you don't have the gumption for canning, freezing takes a fraction of the time.  Most veggies just need blanched before sticking into a freezer bag.  Same with fruits.   

You can find step-by-step preserving instructions at Ball's website.   And don't feel like you have to buy any special equipment.  All you really need are the mason jars, a stock pot and a pair of tongs.  The kits you can buy do make it a bit easier, but if you're not ready to commit (or are just a cheapo like me) you can use what you have on hand. 

 There are many other great reasons to can, as found on Balls' website:

Home canning supports sustainable lifestyles.  Canning locally-grown produce reduces the carbon footprint created by transporting vegetables around the world in off-seasons.  A study by Carnegie Mellon found that 11% of the average American’s household food-related greenhouse gas emissions come from the transportation of foods.  You can reduce that by growing your own produce or purchasing it locally, and then fresh preserving the harvest and re-using Ball® Jars year after year.

Good luck and Happy Canning!!

Breakfast for Champions

We've all heard the saying a million times - "Breakfast is the most important meal of the day."  I've always been a big fan of breakfast (okay, any meal, really, but breakfast is tops...)  Cereal is a favorite in our house, but I have to admit, the price for an organic box of cereal can kill me, especially knowing that between the six of us, it won't last long.  My kids also love frozen waffles and pancakes, and these are convenient breakfasts items for starting the school day.

I've found that making these items from scratch, with organic ingredients, costs a fraction of the cost of premade items.  Although I'm bummed to say I don't have a great recipe for organic Lucky Charms, here a few ideas:

Pancakes
1 cup flour (you can use half whole wheat/half white if you prefer)
1 Tbl sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg
1 Tbl oil
1 cup milk

Combine dry ingredients.  Create well in the middle, add wet.  Stir - some remaining lumps are okay.  Drop onto hot griddle.  When you begin to bubbles, flip.  Serve warm with maple syrup!
You can mix the dry together ahead of time to have pancake mix on hand.  And these freeze great.  I make a double batch and freeze them for breakfast all week! 

Waffles
1 3/4 cups flour
1 Tbl baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 3/4 cups milk
1/2 cup cooking oil

Combine all ingredients.  Stir until combined (might be a little lumpy).  Pour a cup of batter onto a preheated waffle baker.  Close lid quickly, and don't open during baking.  Bake according to your waffle iron directions.  When done, use a fork to life waffle off griddle. 
These also freeze great!

Oatmeal is an quick, easy (and cheap) recipe, too! 
1/2 cup quick oats
1 cup water

Microwave for 1 minute/30 seconds.  Add you favorite fruits!
Dice half an apple - add before cooking with 1/2 tsp cinnamon. 
Top with fresh peaches and 1 Tbl brown sugar.
Top with raspberries and 1 Tbl. honey.
This is much healthier than the oatmeal packets!!

Don't forget about eggs.  They take only minutes to make are an excellent source of protein.

Cleaning - Again!

With four children, there are days that I swear, all I do is clean.  I do have those moments when I decide to go on strike.  I'll look around at the clutter and think, "I'm done!  No more!  I just cleaned yesterday, I'm not doing it today, or tomorrow, or EVER!"  Eventually the clutter becomes chaos and I silently end my strike, picking up toys and washing the hand prints off the glass. 

While I was washing my floor (for what seems the gazillionth time this week) I started thinking about the chemicals I use around the house.  I recently read a great book regarding chemical build up in our bodies ("Body Toxic" by Nena Baker).  You might be stunned to learn that some of the chemicals our mothers have been exposed to have been transferred to us, and from us into our children.  There are chemicals we are exposed to that do not break down in our bodies (or in the environment) and then build up with each generation. 

Removing some of the toxic chemicals from our cleaning is a great way to reduce some of this exposure.  But it can be hard.  I've tried some made-from-nature cleaning products, like vinegar.  Ugh.  I'm sorry, but when you use vinegar to clean your home, it can smell like a stinky foot.  I know that clean doesn't have a smell, but I've become so accustomed to clean = lemony fresh (or something like that), that want my clothes and house to smell "good." 

I'm trying to break the addiction.  I've gotten rid of air fresheners (they contain cancer-causing naphthalene and formaldehyde).  And I recently realized that the ammonia I use to wash my floor is actually a derivative of gas!!  Some of you may be saying "Duh!" but I thought ammonia was "natural."  Recently, a natural cleaning company, Seventh Generation, has started cropping up in nearby stores, including Target, Walmart and local grocers.  The company offers a plethora of great cleaning supplies for a reasonable price - and most of them smell great!  The website also offers some great reading, as well as coupons.  Cheaper yet are household items like baking soda, vinegar, and borax - all in some way can be used to clean counters, floors and more.  A quick search on the web provides easy ideas.

Okay, have to get back to cleaning!! 

School Days

Although the thermometer is still reaching into the 90s, summer is officially over in our house.  School bells started ringing yesterday, and my first grader and fifth grader headed back to class.  Being in first grade, my middle son is looking forward to lunch in the cafeteria.  I think as a kindergarten student, the cafeteria held mystery and allure.  "What could be going in there with all the older kids?  Us little guys must be missing out on something good."

At our school, the only thing the little guys are missing out on is processed chicken!  The September menu reads like a Tyson product list - popcorn chicken, baked chicken patty, chicken strip sub, chicken stix, chicken nuggets, chicken parmesan sandwich.  Out of 23 days, 12 of those days some sort of chicken item is offered. 

I used to think that a chicken nugget was just a bite-sized piece of chicken, breaded and fried.  I think a lot of America thinks that as well.  I recently went shopping for a new oven and most of the newer models have a "chicken nugget button" - presets the oven to cook your nuggets perfectly!  Talk about convenient!  But a nugget is SO much more than chicken - it's actually mostly corn.

These two paragraphs are taken directly from The Omnivore's Dilemma regarding a McDonald's chicken nugget, (which is probably pretty similar to the chicken products sold to our kids at school):

"The ingredients listed in the flyer suggest a lot of thought goes into a nugget, that and a lot of corn. Of the thirty-eight ingredients it takes to make a McNugget, I counted thirteen that can be derived from corn: the corn-fed chicken itself; modified cornstarch (to bind the pulverized chicken meat); mono-, tri-, and diglycerides (emulsifiers, which keep the fats and water from separating); dextrose; lecithin (another emulsifier); chicken broth (to restore some of the flavor that processing leeches out); yellow corn flour and more modified cornstarch (for the batter); cornstarch (a filler); vegetable shortening; partially hydrogenated corn oil; and citric acid as a preservative. A couple of other plants take part in the nugget: There's some wheat in the batter, and on any given day the hydrogenated oil could come from soybeans, canola, or cotton rather than corn, depending on the market price and availability.

According to the handout, McNuggets also contain several completely synthetic ingredients, quasiedible substances that ultimately come not from a corn or soybean field but form a petroleum refinery or chemical plant. These chemicals are what make modern processed food possible, by keeping the organic materials in them from going bad or looking strange after months in the freezer or on the road. Listed first are the "leavening agents": sodium aluminum phosphate, mono-calcium phosphate, sodium acid pyrophosphate, and calcium lactate. These are antioxidants added to keep the various animal and vegetable fats involved in a nugget from turning rancid. Then there are "anti-foaming agents" like dimethylpolysiloxene, added to the cooking oil to keep the starches from binding to air molecules, so as to produce foam during the fry. The problem is evidently grave enough to warrant adding a toxic chemical to the food: According to the Handbook of Food Additives, dimethylpolysiloxene is a suspected carcinogen and an established mutagen, tumorigen, and reproductive effector; it's also flammable.

But perhaps the most alarming ingredient in a Chicken McNugget is tertiary butylhydroquinone, or TBHQ, an antioxidant derived from petroleum that is either sprayed directly on the nugget or the inside of the box it comes in to "help preserve freshness." According to A Consumer's Dictionary of Food Additives, TBHQ is a form of butane (i.e. lighter fluid) the FDA allows processors to use sparingly in our food: It can comprise no more than 0.02 percent of the oil in a nugget. Which is probably just as well, considering that ingesting a single gram of TBHQ can cause "nausea, vomiting, ringing in the ears, delirium, a sense of suffocation, and collapse." Ingesting five grams of TBHQ can kill."

Bet you never thought that was in your chicken McNuggets!  

I don't blame the school for offering this to my kids.  They have a budget to follow, and they probably make what sells, and kids LOVE processed chicken.  But parents can change this.  For one, we can pack our kids healthy meals.  I do allow both the boys to buy once a week (they usually choose pizza day).  We can also contact our government representatives and voice our concerns, demanding our kids get healthier, fresh-ingredient lunches.  I'll make it easy - sign Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution petition.  And while you're at it, show your kids his video about how chicken nuggets are made - they may never eat another nugget in their lives (let's hope!)

Pizza Night

Friday night has always been pizza night in our house.  By Friday, I'm usually so tired of cooking dinner, and coming up with something to make, that we'd just hit our favorite pizza joint.  Eating out has definitely become one of our generations' past-times.  Growing up, eating out was a treat for our family.  Most nights my mom cooked.  Going to a restaurant was big deal, even something as casual as McDonald's was a momentous occasion.  Today, my kids are jaded.  They don't get excited at the prospect of getting ice cream, or going out for a bite to eat, because it's so commonplace for them. 

Until now...My husband and I are trying to budget our money better and have decided to limit eating out (or ordering in) to once a month.  We've issued this decree before, but we're serious this time (didn't we say that the last time?)  In the process of making more meals at home, I can also have more control over what my family eats.  I know what goes into everything I make.  I don't know what's going into that pizza made down the street.  And the horror of reading the Sunday paper's restaurant inspections and seeing a bad review of somewhere we've recently frequented - not going to happen when we're eating in!

We can still have pizza night, and we can even turn it into organic pizza night for less than a frozen pizza from your nearest grocer.  Homemade pizza is super easy to make, and great fun for the kids.  You can cut your dough into several small pizzas, giving everyone the chance to create his or her own dinner.  Put some toppings on the counter (like uncured pepperoni, peppers, onions, mushrooms (all organic of course)) and you have a pizza bar...

I've tried a ton of pizza dough recipes, and this one has become the one I use this recipe almost every Friday.  It's quick, simple and yummy!

Quick Beer Pizza Dough, from King Arthur Flour
2 1/2 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
1 1/2 cups semolina*
1 tablespoon Pizza Dough flavor, optional (I never use this)
2 teaspoons instant yeast
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 cups room-temperature beer
*Substitute unbleached all-purpose flour if you don't have semolina (I never have semolina)

Directions
1/Mix and knead together all of the dough ingredients - by hand, mixer or bread machine - until you have a smooth, soft dough.  (I use the bread paddle on my Kitchen Aid mixer)
2/Cover the dough, and allow it rise for 30 minutes, or for up to 2 hours.
3/Preheat oven to 500 with the pizza stone (if you're using one) on a lower rack.
4/Divide the dough in half.  Shape each half into a 10" or 12" round.
5/Place the dough on a lightly greased or parchment-lined baking sheet.
6/Transfer dough, parchment and all, to the baking stone. Or place the pans in the oven.
7/Bake 3 to 4 minutes.  Remove from the oven, top as desired, and bake for an additional 10 to 15 minutes, until the bottom crust is crisp and cheese is bubbly and browned.

Sauce
You can use a store-bought pizza sauce, or make your own organic sauce. 
1 can (14 oz) organic tomato sauce
1/2 can organic tomato paste
Oregano, basil, garlic, salt and pepper to taste
I simply mix this together in a small saucepan, bringing to a light simmer, allowing the flavors to blend.  This will make enough for two 10" pizzas. 

A little bit about King Arthur's Flour (my favorite line of baking products!)
They are America’s oldest flour company, founded in 1790. To put it into context, George Washington had just been elected to his first term in office.
King Arthur Flour became an employee-owned company in 1996, when Frank Sands instated the employee stock ownership program (ESOP). They are now 100% employee-owned, and have always been 100% committed to quality.
Their headquarters in Norwich, Vermont, is a 16,600-square-foot timber-frame structure called, appropriately, Camelot. Vermont Public Radio also calls Camelot home.