Giving thanks for the humble pumpkin

It's Thanksgiving Day, and of course I'm thankful for the usual things. To shake things up at bit, we all had to say one frivolous thing that we were thankful for. Today, after an amazing discovery, I've got to say pumpkin! The happy orange of a field of pumpkins always makes me smile, and what other food can be carved into a Halloween decoration? Best of all, you can eat it!

Today we took the kids to Cooper's CSA (CSA being Community Supported Agriculture where you buy shares in the farmers crop and get a weekly box of seasonal veggies, thus offering the farmer stability and the non-farmer seasonal, healthy food). It was a great day, and much less tacky and jam-packed than some of the "agri-tainment" closer to the city. Besides, it's Local Food Plus certified, and that gives me confidence in it's sustainability. Long story short, we ended up carting home a van-load of pumpkins because I discovered earlier in the weekend the amazing versatility of the pumpkin!

Why didn't anyone tell me before that it can taste so good? I know, pumpkin pie's okay...but that didn't seem very connected to an actual pumpkin. In my mind it was like the connection between dill pickles and dill pickle potato chips -a loose association at best. I now realize, thanks to a wine soaked Friday night tutorial from a pie-master friend, that you can make pumpkin pie from an actual pumpkin. Will wonders never cease? It got me thinking that if you can make pie from a real pumpkin, maybe you can make other things...which led me to this recipe for pumpkin bread. It is, to quote my mother-in-law, "to DIE for". It's similar to banana bread, only based on a local crop. You can substitute any type of squash, I tried a batch with butternut squash too- delish! Next step, pumpkin soup!

If interested, I played around with the recipe a bit, but this is more or less what I used:

1 1/2 cups flour (I used half white and half whole wheat)
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup agave nectar (or just use 3/4 c of sugar and ignore the agave nectar)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup mashed up cooked pumpkin (apparently the little "pie pumpkins" are tastier...just cut it in half, bake it for about an hour at 350, discard seeds and mash up pulp)
1/3 cup olive oil
1/3 cup plain yogurt
2 eggs
1/4 cup water
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Mix wet ingredients, mix dry ingredients, mix it all together. Bake in a buttered loaf pan at 350 for 50-60 mins. Enjoy fresh or freeze for later!

Garlic's in the ground!

Garlic is planted! I got my 20 pretty heads of Russian, Salt Spring, Tibetan and Persian garlic in the mail two weeks ago from The Cutting Veg. I spent a day last weekend adding bags of sand to the clay soil at my "allotment garden" at my dad's. Then coating it all with sheep shit.
This weekend it was ready to plant and then cover with leaves and wait a long 10 months til it's ready.
My experiment with patience is about to begin.

Pioneer Retro

Our Tomato Stock 2010 canning party was hard work, but left us all with a sense of accomplishment and community. I rarely spend time doing "work" with friends, and now I see that it can be an effective way to socialize and accomplish things. If only my friends would want to come over for a cleaning party... Anyway, 5 of us women (and my husband) managed to can 81L of tomatoes. That was 5 bushels, or 265 lbs! We learned some lessons about how we could be more efficient next year (ie. get an outdoor burner, invest in a tomato mill rather than blanch, seed and peel), it did take us a collective 43 hours. My husband (nerd), did a humiliating analysis of the cost of this exercise and let's just say it didn't save us much money, but we're already booking a weekend for next year!

Sauce Rage

A few weeks ago, I made salsa and tomato sauce. I did it late at night after my kids were in bed. Some evenings I started this ridiculous endeavour at 9:30 pm only to collape exhausted into bed at 1 am. Let me explain that I am on summer holidays and my husband is not. His alarm goes off at 6am and I have learned to sleep right through it. So when I got it in my head to start a canning binge on a Sunday night, my husband, while supportive in theory, was not particularly enthusiastic. So I did it myself.

The first day was fine. I made a test batch of tomato sauce. No problem. But that didn't even make a tiny dent in the massive pile of tomatoes in my kitchen. So I got to work on salsa, diced tomatoes, roasted tomatoes. Over the course of the week (one that also included taking the kids swimming, to the zoo, the beach, the library, and making 3 meals a day), the nighttime canning experiment began to get ugly. I began to vent in my head, I started to bang pots and pans around, I took to angrily elbowing my snoring husband when I crawled into bed late at night. I recall at one point being reduced to screeching something to the effect of "I'll remember that this is NOT YOUR FOOD and won't serve you ANY! Jackass!" when he made a comment about the mess in the kitchen not being his idea. Or something like that.

Turns out, I was suffering from Sauce Rage. Seems it stems from anger at the futility of spending countless hours to make something that you don't really need to make. And, for me, from some deeply instilled feminist voices in the back of my head.

After my first week of canning was done, and my mountain of tomatoes reduced to a mere molehill, I was able to think again. I was able to use real words to express what had been eating at me. And that was, "6 years of university and two degrees and here I am toiling for hours over a hot stove to make food for us that I could just buy at the store with the money I can earn in less than an hour of work?" Indeed, in all this waxing poetic about the joys of the "old ways", there is certainly a tense undercurrent of "there is a reason women wanted out of the kitchen". I still can't quite wrap my head around the gender politics of this endeavour, but I certainly found some food for thought (sorry) in an article by Peggy Orenstein, The Femivore's Dilemma. Despite the unfortunate title (femivore=one who eats women?), I found the article both inspiring and cautionary. It made me glad that I said " Next time, let's do this together so I don't feel like a harried hausfrau" and we agreed to use weekends instead of evenings. My next batch involved spousal assistance in peeling, seeding and chopping. It was kind of fun, and overall left me blissfully free of the dreaded Sauce Rage. Moral of the story, don't sauce alone. You'll want to kill someone.

Bye Bye to Chinese Garlic

This summer I got my first delivery of fresh Ontario garlic from Mama Earth. I didn't recognize it...it tasted and smelled, well, fresh. It seemed barely related to the dry supermarket imposters (Product of China) I've been buying for years.
I started going out of my way to look for local garlic. It was nowhere to be found in supermarkets - the closest I found was Mexico, and that took some time. At my local farmers market there were plenty of choices, however, I had to be ready to pay up to $3.50 a head. Shocking to be sure...especially since I could fill my car with Chinese garlic for approximately the same price. But I bought it whenever I could find it. And now, I can't go back. Especially after stumbling across an article about how difficult it is for Ontario garlic growers to compete. How Ontario had 4000 acres devoted to commercial garlic production in 2001. Now there are less than 500. How Ontario garlic growers have been devastated by Chinese imports which flooded our market in 2001. But Canadians like me are beginning to get a taste of the fresh stuff, and we're excited to bring Ontario garlic back to the mainstream.
I just placed my order for 20 heads of organic "seed garlic". I belatedly discovered that you plant garlic in the fall (which explains why my spring planted garlic gave me cloves the size of TicTacs), let it "overwinter" and then harvest it the following summer. Fingers crossed, I'll have evil garlic breath this time next year. I ordered 4 different varieties from The Cutting Veg and can't wait till it arrives. It's going to get it's own bed! It's obvious now that I did not take the photo in this post, but I'm hoping it counts that it is my imagined harvest for next year...no? Photo credit here)
I also ramped up my weekly garlic order from 3 head to 15 heads of fresh organic Ontario garlic for next weekend's (hopefully) annual Tomato Stock. My backyard and kitchen will play host to a group of likeminded friends getting together to make tomato sauce and "put up" (haha..just testing out my new lingo) about 5 or 6 bushels of tomatoes. Since I've been experimenting this summer, I guess I'm the expert. Uh oh, I hope no one gets botulism.

Priorities

My university "sister", travel companion, bridesmaid, and confidante of many years was killed in a car accident last week. She was driving to the Yukon on a spur of the moment roadtrip, that's the kind of girl she was. She was 35 years old.

It is only in retrospect that I realize how many opportunities I missed to spend time with her, to send her a long email, or to find an hour for a real phone conversation. These are regrets I will carry with me. Rosie lived up to her name, she was always generous with her time and her affection. She was open, honest, and totally without guile. There are many lessons that I can draw from her examples, and I will try my best to live up to the honour of being her friend by working on these qualities.

Rosie's tragedy has made me ask myself (among other more common questions you ask in these times) why I have found time to peel and seed 53 pounds of tomatoes when I haven't had time to pick up the phone. It makes me question some of my priorities. Does good food trump good friends? Would I be a better mother if I was playing Snakes and Ladders with my kids instead of making them natural ice cream?

I guess the best compromise is to combine the two. Involve the kids in making ice cream, and invite friends to eat tomato sauce together.

The Elusive Organic Peach

All the markets and grocery stores are brimming with fresh, local peaches, so why not take a trip to an orchard and make a day of it? I got online to look for an organic peach orchard in the Toronto area. No such luck. I could find organic berry farms, organic spinach, broccoli and the like. But few tree fruits. My organics delivery box was even bringing me peaches from British Columbia. My grocery store's organic peaches came from the USA. Why?
I learned the answer at the East York Farmers' Market. For the first time, I saw a few baskets of relatively small organic peaches. Curiosity piqued, I asked the farmer. He said he's been experimenting with growing 5 acres of organic peaches because the demand is high. However, he explained that Southern Ontario's humidity makes the peaches very susceptible to disease. That's why almost nobody grows organic peaches. He said in the end, he's not sure if growing organic peaches is sustainable. Organic peaches are still sprayed, just with different stuff. And they require significantly more applications of the "different stuff" because of the climate. It was some food for thought. When asked which ones he'd choose to eat, he said he's perfectly happy with his conventional peaches. So, which to buy? I couldn't decide, so I bought some baskets of both and cut them up to freeze for those dreary winter days when summer fruit is a big treat. I'll let myself ponder the question of local conventional food vs. distant organic some other day.

How to freeze peaches: Peel, slice and lay out on a tray lined with parchment paper. Put them in the freeze until they are solid. Transfer to a freezer bag. If you just throw them in a bag without the tray step, you'll end up with one giant mass of peaches that you can't break apart!

Green Tomato Salsa Verde

Bad news: Most of my tomato plants got some weird blight and are dying fast.
Good news: I found a great recipe for Salsa Verde to use up my giant bucket of green tomatoes. I didn't even have to peel them. Usually salsa verde is made with tomatillos, but this one is good enough for me.

My Bernardin Home Preserving Guide redeemed itself with this one. It uses lime juice instead of vinegar. Maybe canning is getting a bit more popular with the under 80 crowd after all.

Salsa Verde:
7 C chopped green tomatoes
5-10 chopped jalepeno peppers
2 C chopped red onion
1 head of garlic
1/2 C lime juice
1/2 C chopped cilantro
3 tsp cumin
1 tsp oregano, salt, pepper

Wash and seed and chop tomatoes. Drain excess liquid. Put tomatoes in a pot, add all ingredients. Bring to a boil, simmer for 5 mins. Eat, or can. It makes about 6 250ml jars.

**(March 2011 update: Okay, so many months later, I can admit that this salsa is gross. Might as well soak your corn chips in lime juice and sprinkle with cumim. The hot-ness of the peppers disappeared over the months and it got bland and just plain ick.)**
argh.

Slow Roasted Tomatoes

My piles of tomatoes have been accumulating, and I've decided that the best, laziest, way to reduce the pile is to slow roast them. So easy.
Cut them in half, toss them in olive oil, salt, pepper. Sprinkle with chopped garlic if you want to (I do). Lay on parchment paper and roast at around 300F for 2 -3 hrs. Stick with 1.5 hours for cherry or grape tomatoes. They taste like sun-dried tomatoes, but jucier! Throw them in freezer bags or use them to make a sauce. No peeling, seeding, boiling required.
The only problem is that my husband had a bad episode of food poisoning years ago that he equates with sun-dried tomatoes (funny how he doesn't feel that way about the beer that was the more likely culprit) and won't eat them. More for me.

Old Lady Salsa

Okay, have you ever noticed that at every Farmer's Market, bazaar, fair etc, there is always at least one woman (usually old or old-ish), selling preserves? I've been suckered in before, partly because they are so nice, and their products have deceptively yummy sounding names. However, it seems that, with the exception of jam, regardless of what I choose (salsa, chili sauce, chutney, etc.) it all tastes the same. Part of my quest this summer was to find a recipe that tasted like my grocery store salsa. I looked up "Salsa" in my Bernardin Home Preserving Guide, and found recipes for things like "Summer Salsa" and "Pepper Pear Salsa". I spent hours peeling pears, chopping peppers and jalepenos. Duh! What was I thinking? I should have known it would taste like...sorry...Old Lady Salsa. That's because it's got vinegar and sugar instead of lime and cilantro. Unless you're over 70 (80?), don't do it. You'll be sorry.

I was relieved to read a post on the blog Seasonal Ontario Food where the author mentions her preference for salsas without vinegar. Ah hah! That was the problem. The salsa recipe I tried is incredibly tasty, very much like what I buy at the grocery store, and pretty easy. I won't say it's quick, but if I can do it, anyone can. I'll call it Chili Lime Salsa, and you can find step by step instructions here.

Two Toonies

I just got two lovely surprises this week in the form of my 5 year old's latest birthday party invitations. Two separate invitations to "two-toonie gift" parties. As discussed in previous post on this topic, the idea is that guests are requested to bring two toonies in lieu of a traditional gift. The birthday kid keeps half and donates half of the money.
It makes me optimistic. Partly because I won't have to feel like I'm making my kids social outcasts by not giving regular birthday gifts at "normal" parties, and partly because maybe it means alot of people are sick of the birthday scene and looking for a way out. And if so, maybe it also means that alot of people are sick of accumulating so much unnecessary stuff. And maybe they too are disillusioned with our culture of entitlement. And if little kids are willing to give up presents without any fuss at all, maybe there is some real hope.

That said, today I bought some gratuitous stuff.

Like a 1950s housewife enthralled with appliances, I somehow convinced myself that I needed both an ice cream maker and a food processor. My intentions were good. I'm doing a hell of a lot of chopping these days to preserve all my organic, local, and home-grown food. And for goodness sakes, all natural ice cream can't possibly be a bad thing, right? But you know what they say about good intentions. In this case, as usual, it's the path to hypocrisy. Two scoops.

Tomatoes!

We went away for a few days, when we came back...taa-daaa!

Walking the Walk...kind of

Earlier this year, I wrote a long rant about birthday parties. I swore that my own kids would have simple parties and we wouldn't even try to keep up with the Joneses. I took a "no loot bags" vow, and a "no presents" vow. That was easy, because neither of my kids had birthdays for at least 6 months into the future. But summer is birthday season in our house, and now I have to walk the walk. The results weren't as hardcore as I'd originally imagined, but we've just had two parties that kept (for the most part) to the spirit of my vows.
My son's was easy. He's just turning 3 and not so indoctrinated with neighbourhood birthday tradition. His birthday isn't until August, but we had a party for him in June to celebrate the beginning of summer with all of his daycare friends. He got it in his head that it was a birthday party, so we made a cake and he was totally satisfied with that. He was the only one who thought it was his birthday, so there were no presents or loot bags. Done.
5 year olds have been on the birthday circuit longer and thus have higher expectations. But we did okay with my daughter's party this weekend. We kept the guest list small, which granted, is easier to do with a summer birthday when school's out and you don't have to worry about too many people feeling left out. We had 6 friends and 1 little sister. Reasonable I think. We had the party at home (unusual in these parts since we all live in tiny houses), we made crafts (tissue paper flowers, beaded bracelets, and ahem, Froot Loop necklaces), we planted flower seeds in pots that the kids could take home, and we busted up some homemade pinatas (yeah, filled with candy- and each kid got a brown paper bag in which to collect their pinata winnings...so I guess that's a loot bag. Ooops). The birthday girl requested a Canada Flag cake, and we had pita pizza with organic dough, and a giant watermelon. All in all, pretty low key, easy, inexpensive and low waste. High sugar though...I'll work on that one for next year.
My favorite idea I found on someone else's blog (sorry, I can't reference it 'cause i forget where I read it), but we requested that instead of gifts each child brought two $2 coins. One for the birthday girl and one for a charity of the birthday girl's choice. At the end of the party, our daughter had $14 to take shopping, and $14 for charity. She chose a summer dress to buy, and after careful consideration, decided to give her charity money to a Conservation agency that works to save habitat for frogs and lizards. A little surprising for me, but hey, it's her choice! We were happy that our recycling bin wasn't full with toy packages and wrapping paper. All in all, the concept was a big hit and got great reviews from the parents involved.
I even got some feedback from parents saying that they are planning to try the 2 toonies birthdays too! Good luck everyone!

Colourful Harvest

This is what I picked from the garden today.

I'm pleased to say that we have been eating salad with our homegrown lettuce, making zucchini bread with our own yellow zukes, and getting totally sick of green beans. Awesome. I'm in awe of my beets, chard, and kale for their productivity and hardiness. The green and purple beans have produced more beans than 3 families could possibly eat, and I'm not sure what I'll do with 40 giant beets...but these are nice problems to have.

The downside is that my expected glut of tomatoes may be smaller than I had hoped. Many of the tomatoes are rotting on the bottom as they ripen (known, I discovered, as blossom-end rot)...but after a bit of research I learned that I only need to add "hydrated lime" to the soil and the problem should disappear. I also had a drainage issue in one of my self watering containers that has a couple of plants teetering on the edge of survival. The soil blight (virus...?) at my "away" garden is spreading and is affecting some of the cucumbers and squash plants. I have no idea what to do about this, but I'm sure the solution is very labour intensive! I kind of hoped that once I planted my little seedlings I could just put my feet up until it was time to pick stuff, but alas, it doesn't quite work like that!

My big step for this week will be buying and beginning to use a composter. Since I live in a city that composts for us, I'm in the habit of just throwing all my food waste into the green bin. But I guess this gardening thing gets under your skin because I now looks at all my peelings and think "what a waste to not have this in the soil".

Anyway, hope everyone is able to eat some fresh, local food this month whether from the garden or the farmer's market.

Corn Goo is Sometimes Fun

We had a party yesterday for my son and his friends. We made a Thomas the Tank Engine cake out of a packaged cake mix. We slathered it in Betty Crocker icing that we coloured with questionable food dye. We stuck on Oreos for the wheels.
It was awesome!
Sometimes you just have to go with the flow.

Revenge of the Killer Tomatoes

My thumb must be rated at least khaki now. Six months ago I was having trouble keeping my cactus alive and now I have grown tomato plants that as of today are taller than my almost 5 year old (seriously, she's not even crouching!). The veggie patch is a jungle of tomatoes, many already with green fruit. My pseudo-earth boxes on my porch are also doing spectacularly, in fact, I can barely see out my front windows. It's not even the end of the school year and we've already harvested spinach, bok choy, lettuce, chard, and a handful of peas and beans. My cucumbers are now visible, the zucchini and squash plants are set to take over the world.
And to think I doubted that my seedlings could ever actually produce food! Now I'm starting to doubt my ability to eat and preserve the glut I see coming down the pipe!

Grainstorm

Every time I bake cookies, I make the same variety. I don't even have a recipe anymore, I can make them from memory- my Grandma's famous "Cowboy Cookies". This week however, I mixed it up a bit and tried a yummy new concoction, with some help from Grainstorm.

My new food adventure has introduced me to alot of people doing amazing things, and the people at Grainstorm are no exception. As usual, I came across my new source for baking mixes by coincidence. I met Lark from Grainstorm while I was buying a train table for my son from her through Craigslist. She happened to live less than five minutes from me, and happened to have a van labeled "Grainstorm - fresh milled organic grains" (or something to that effect). I couldn't not ask about it, and of course we got to talking about "real" food. Turns out her business is organic baking mixes (muffins, cookies, pancakes) made from Ontario grown heritage grains like red fife and kamut. In the small world of local, organic grains, it turns out that Grainstorm buys their grains from Grassroots Organics, the same farmers who supply our weekly eggs and organic flour through Mama Earth.

This week I made the oatmeal cookies according to the basic recipe (add butter, oil, 2 eggs) and they were a big hit with me and my son (daughter and husband don't really eat cookies...yeah, weirdos). I took some cookies into work and they were given the universal thumbs up. I guess I should also admit that I ate the last 3 for breakfast before my son woke up yesterday. I didn't want to share...

If you're a reluctant baker, but want to eat some guilt-free but tasty cookies or muffins (or pancakes!), check out Grainstorm online or in store at various locations in Toronto.

Paying more for food...a good thing?

This is my spinach crop. We had our first homegrown spinach salad last night with sprouts and garden herbs. It was alot of work to coax this spinach out of the ground. I could have bought similar stuff for about $3. Almost too cheap to bother.
It leads me to a concept that I believe in deeply, but feel is heresy to speak aloud: We need to start paying more for food. What kind of moron wants to see prices for something as basic as food to rise, you may ask? Well, me. And the author of the article Why Is Organic Food So...Cheap?.
The fact of the matter is, in my mind at least, our current system of pricing is totally out of whack with reality. It ignores the "external costs"of things like obesity and diabetes, the potential costs we may face by exposing ourselves to pesticides, herbicides and GMOs (genetically modified organisms), and the environmental costs of reliance on fossil fuels to grow, package, process and transport food massive distances. Our current food economy asks farmers to work hard and take incredible financial risk for tiny slivers of our supermarket prices. We also maintain cheap prices by outsourcing our food production to the developing world, which once again keeps us feeling full by keeping people food insecure in the majority of the world. In the developing world, the best land is used for specialty export crops, leaving little land for people to grow foods they actually get to eat. Then they need to buy our cheap corn. And so it goes...

I like a bargain just as much as the next person...but cheap food is no bargain. Just a deal with the devil. I'm willing to pay more to make sure I get food that is not degrading the land for my kids, that is not putting farmers out of business, and that is not going to make me fat and sick. Last night we ate a whole chicken that cost about $6/kg. Not too cheap...but we bought it directly from the farmer and it was raised without a tiny cage or hormones and antibiotics. Good news all around.

Disclaimer: Yes, I have the luxury of not having to choose between rent or food. I have the good fortune of not being tied to a diet of white bread and $1.29 hot dogs. I did not forgot about the food insecure people of the rich world. Nooo, not at all. These are the people who are chained to the worst that the food industry has to offer. It is a complex issue that will require a variety of solutions, but at some point a first step must be taken. I say let it be a tax on highly processed foods of little nutritional value. Next, let's use the proceeds to subsidize fresh food for people who can't afford it. I am loathe to recommend much from Sun Media, but I have to agree with this article by Andrew Hanon.

Ups and downs of the urban garden

Here is my first tomato of the season. I guess my research paid off. This is a Stupice tomato, an heirloom variety from the Czech Republic that is supposed to be the earliest maturing tomato. Go figure, it really is. Hopefully this bodes well for the ones that are supposed to be the most sweet and delicious. I'll let you know if they also live up to their reputations! If you ever wondered where you find the details of seed varieties, you can peruse the seed catalogue from local, organic Terra Edibles.

In the "news-of-the-weird" category, I must also report the bizarre basil theft that occurred on my porch. It was a plump and aromatic plant purchased for the bank breaking price of $1.99 (at the convenience store at the bottom of the street to supplement my somewhat wimpy home seeded plants). It was neatly dug up, and the less robust plants were left behind. Racoons? Squirrels? I think not. Apparently there is a neighbourhood plant thief on the loose. Last year my next door neighbour had two shrubs go missing, down the street I saw a sign from someone lamenting the overnight disappearance of a favorite perennial. Weeeeeird. Where does one plant their stolen treasures? If you love basil so much, why don't you just spend the $1.99? Ahh, what's an urban garden without a little mystery?

Ode to Smoothies

Who doesn't love a good smoothie? I have a seasonal addiction that requires me to consume some sort of blender drink pretty much every day in spring and summer. I admit, some days it ends up being Kaluha, milk, and ice...but other days it's a touch more granola-ish than that.

I find my kids get excited for about the first two weeks of the smoothie season and then lose steam. However, I've found the cure to sustain smoothie enthusiasm. Popsicle molds. Feels like junk food, but isn't. Even better, I've started sneaking in veggies too - and they still beg for them.

While I think a recipe for smoothies is about as necessary as a recipe for a glass of water (my apologies to recipe hounds), here's a sample:

a banana
some strawberries (when organic ones go on sale, I stock up like a mad woman and freeze them for this purpose!)
some mango
enough fruit juice to lubricate the whole thing (orange in this case)
a few scoops of plain yogurt
a few ice cubes
a couple of carrots (blender will be happier if you slice them first) or a beet or both

Cheers!

Appliance Breakdown: The Mother of Invention

Our fridge kicked the bucket yesterday. The first sign was the curdling of 4 litres of ridiculously expensive organic milk. But it forced me to cook a meal using as many contents of the fridge as possible to prevent them from going rotten. What a surprise, it was our best veggie meal ever.

If you're looking for a stupidly quick, easy, and kick-ass vegetarian meal, try some variation of this:

1. Heat some olive oil in a frying pan, add some beans. The equivalent amount of about 1 can I guess (I used a mix of organic turtle and kidney beans which I had soaked and cooked the previous day)
2. Add a whack of salsa. I used about a cup. (I've tried this with other salsas, but have got to say Garden Fresh - Jack's Medium was the best. I know it's at Loblaw's but not sure where else. I like hot stuff, but if you're sensitive to spice, you should definitely go with the Mild since the Medium has some kick)
3. Throw in some chopped green pepper and a bit of extra tomato (especially if you're trying to clean out your fridge!)
4. Cook it all for 5-10 mins. While it's cooking mash up an avocado (I just added in a bit more salsa to it for pretty much instant guacamole)
5. (Optional- slater tortillas with some cream cheese. Really, I probably would skip this step if my fridge wasn't broken, but it was extra tasty this way)
6. Put a scoop of the bean mixture, a scoop of guacamole, and some shredded cheddar into the tortilla.
   
7. Eat the big sloppy mess, grinning the whole time!
   

Next step, learn to make homemade salsa that exactly replicates Jack's medium, OR find the equivalent organic salsa.

Cheers!

Garden Update

It's growing!!! Above you can see my tomato plant collection, the experimental "self watering" container system, trellised peas and beans, and my earliest crop - spring onions and garlic grown on my deck (more successfully than in the ground surprisingly)

We've been eating lots of green onions this spring already. Chives and mint from the garden made their way to my salad last night. My spinach is just teeny tiny, so I'm supplementing with some hearty garden centre plants. I forgot to plant kale, so I'm doing the same with that. And I had the nice surprise of finding some sturdy looking baby bok choy plants yesterday which I will also plant this weekend. My indoor spring grow-op has yielded some presentable tomato plants which go into the ground this weekend.
I did get around to building my "self contained garden boxes", which are homemade versions of the commercial EarthBox™. They were reasonably easy, though not quite as cheap as I had hoped. I planted some cucumber seedlings in them which just sat and sat without really growing, so they have been replaced with tomatoes and peas. Hopefully my earthbox luck improves.
We'll be heading over to my pseudo allotment garden at my parents' place this weekend to check the progress and plant the tomatoes.
My dad warns me that his next door neighbour's garden is suffering from some sort of weird blight. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it's not spreading, since it is only separated from "my" garden by chain link. Geez, imagine if this was your livelihood. Gotta hand it to farmers. They work hard, and face financial risk and ruin if they encounter bad weather, drought, blights or infestations. Makes me think of the bumper sticker "Eat today? Thank a farmer."

Taking Stock and Taking a Blog Break

When I my kids ate 3 raw beets and 4 purple carrots after school for their snack one day, I knew something major had changed in our family. Since then I've had writer's block. Maybe because this blog has served it's original purpose for me. It has made me follow through on things I might never have done otherwise - and now I'm hooked, I don't need the cyberspace motivation anymore. Our progress has been beyond my wildest expectations. Thank you to those who have read the blog, commented, emailed or debated with us for the last several months.

In the last 4 months, our changes have focused on food, chemicals, and consumerism. But the more I learn, the more I confirm that all of these components are interconnected. As I change my food patterns, I discover community. As I change my shopping habits, I contribute to a more fair, sustainable economy. It's been eye opening, and surprisingly easy. It turns out that an average, somewhat lazy, but socially conscious mother can actually drastically change her habits in just a matter of months.

If you're interested, here's my inventory of changes:

• purging all processed foods from our diets, with a few exceptions that allow us to function socially!
• switching from about 10% organics to about 90% when it comes to fruits, vegetables, wine, baking supplies, oils, nuts, cosmetics and pretty much everything else except clothing (one of these days...cotton uses an insane amount of pesticides). We aim to choose local products where possible.
• switching to organic meats, with particular attention to grass fed beef and dairy (avoids feedlot agriculture, and provides a more healthy balance of omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acids) and cooking meals with smaller meat portions.
  
• eating more vegetarian meals with beans and lentils to make up for our expensive meat
  
• phasing out new toys for birthday parties and baby gifts (unless they are very needed). We recently gave an "e-charity gift" from Plan Canada. Our choice was a "Birthing Kit" (to be used for a woman with no access to clean medical facilities) to honour the birth of a friend's child. For the new big sister, we chose the gift of a year's worth of school supplies for a girl who would otherwise have no access to school.
• vowing to avoid loot bags and dollar store toys that don't last. Vowing to have gift free (or recycled gift, or charity gift) parties for our own kids, at least until they're old enough to really fight it.
  
• making way more foods from whole grains, and from scratch (ie. bread once or twice a week, muffins and cookies occasionally). We love our Ontario grown and milled Grassroots Organics flours. When we're stuck, we buy Stonemill wholegrain breads - they even bake with 100% green power!
  
• phasing out refined sugar and replacing it with agave nectar when possible
• choosing Fair Trade certified products when possible. Ten Thousand Villages makes a good shopping adventure for this, and stores are carrying certified goods more frequently than they used to.
  
• working towards homegrown food, even on our deck (and shared garden at my parents' place) where we're hoping to grow our own huge tomato crop so we can make our own tomato sauce, diced and stewed tomatoes to get us through the winter. We're also growing herbs, peas, beans, carrots, cukes, melons, and squash, some of which we will can, pickle or freeze for winter.
  
• teaching our kids about healthy foods, and watching them start to get excited about heirloom tomatoes, atomic red carrots, stripey beets, and kale chips (and actually eat these things!)
• avoiding canned foods (because the linings leach phthalates -endocrine disruptors)
• getting rid of most of our plastic containers in favour of glass
• buying less packaging (including finding products in refillable containers like Harmony milk in glass bottles and "NatureClean" laundry soap)
• replacing all of our chemical filled soaps, shampoos, and detergents with more natural ones. We're particularly avoiding parabens and phthalates. While I'm still not crazy about my natural shampoo, I'm trying different brands until the right one works for me. We've also avoided all fragranced products to reduce our exposure to phthalates.
  
• chucking my aluminum based anti-perspirant in favour of a crystal...even though I still sometimes get panic attacks about my aroma.
• reading more non fiction books (for fun) than I have in my life about organic gardening, container gardening, whole foods cookbooks, food industry critiques, politics of food, and the eye opening Anti-Cancer book. I've learned some really compelling reasons to follow through with our changes so far.

The result? We're all working harder and spending more time in the kitchen and the garden...but it feels like an adventure instead of like a chore for a change. The kids are being great about this, more and more adventurous with new foods each day. I feel like I'm finally doing my best to keep my family healthy, safe and socially conscious instead of using my old excuse about not having enough time or money for these changes.

So what's next? More of the same. My next project is to build some homemade test models of the Earth Box to see if they can help me produce even more food. And to continue to find more options for foods like kale, chard, fresh herbs and other veggies. And to learn how to can and pickle stuff. And to switch to baking soda and vinegar for cleaning. And to compost in the backyard...the list is endless, but the focus remains the same. I think I will need my blogging time this spring to tend to the garden, bake bread and soak beans. I'll post updates as things come along, but for now, I think I need a break!

Thanks for reading!

Mama Earth Organics

We've been working on eating more organic foods. At first, we just switched the greens, apples, oranges, and bananas. Then we moved onto dairy, now we're on board with flour, rice, beans, nuts, and pretty much everything else. I've been ordering a lovely little organic fruit and veg basket that arrives on our doorstep every Tuesday, but have still done the bulk of my shopping at Loblaws.

I've been feeling good about buying organics now that the initial sticker shock has passed, but I wondered if it was possible to have more access to locally sourced products than I could find at the grocery store. When I finally spent some time browsing the selection at my online organic store Mama Earth Organics, I was excited to find it's possible to find local flours (rye, wheat, spelt), beans, and even popcorn. I realized there was a better selection of local stuff available through this service than at the grocery store. And the prices are on par - sometimes cheaper.

So, we're taking a leap away from the grocery store and are going to start ordering most of our stuff from Mama Earth. One reason is we like the produce we're already getting. Another is the convenience. There's also the lack of temptation to buy shiny packages of crap. But mostly it's because we trust them to source their products as locally as possible. I don't have time to drive to Grey Country every week, so I'm happy to let Mama Earth do the work for me.

Can't wait til Tuesday!

The seeds you sow

Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you sow.
- Robert Louis Stevenson

I'm sure that if I took a moment to think about it, I could extract a meaningful life lesson from this quote. Today I prefer to take it at face value. That way I can judge these last few weeks as very successful since the seeds I've sown are sprouting.

This week I added lettuce, melons, beets, zucchini, and dill to my herd of tomatoes and herbs. My tomatoes are coming up beautifully, especially my funky Rainbow Blend and the early ripening Stupice.

Before I start peeing myself with excitement over my hypothetical harvest, I suppose I must remind myself about last year. Last year I purchased five huge pots of the most gigantic, healthy and unfailable cherry tomato plants at the garden center. Within weeks I had killed them all. I think we got about three tiny tomatoes for the bargain price of about $40. This year I'm hoping for a slightly better ratio.

But I suppose if I heed Robert Louis Stevenson, the harvest doesn't really matter.

Yeah, right.

Highjacked Organics

Batter Blaster is an aerosol can of pancake/waffle batter. Seriously, it exists and it's organic. I thought it was a joke, but apparently it's not. It's been profiled on Regis and Kelly and is apparently carried by Loblaws, Sobey's and Metro (though I've never actually seen it in real life). My husband forwarded me the website (www.batterblaster.com) when he stumbled across a magazine ad and thought it was just too funny to pass up. Unfortunately, alot of people must not get the joke. Over 3 million cans were sold in 2008. It's marketed to "make breakfast a blast", and as a healthy, mess-free breakfast. While the ingredients are organic, there is nothing natural about a food you spray from a can.

This is where things break down a bit in the whole organics industry. I've been weighing the arguments for and against corporate organics (lower cost, more marketing power, greater efficiency VS. circumventing the "spirit" of organic agriculture, redefining the rules of what is considered organic, and continuing to promote processed foods). Batter Blaster makes me wonder what organic food will look like in 5 years. And it makes me wonder why we ever bothered with organic waffles.

Our family has recently switched to making our own organic pancakes (without aerosols) and then freezing them to be heated up for quick breakfasts later in the week. It works and doesn't take much time. In fact, I'm quite sure it's less than if we sprayed them into the pan.

Squirrels in the Ointment

The recent "clean food" kick I've been on lately has led to a relatively surprising turn of events. I've become a reader of gardening blogs, magazines and seed catalogues. I've become familiar with Chioggia beets, Rainbow Chard and Riesenstraube tomatoes. I have been growing seeds under grow lights that must have my neighbours wondering if I'm running a grow-op in here.

The only irritant in this new idyll is squirrels. Yesterday I planted onion and garlic bulbs. This morning I saw a squirrel munching one, chased it away, then realized the rest of the bulbs were already gone. I've been warned by many experienced gardeners - squirrels will make me crazy.

Tomorrow marks the beginning of operation Red Hot. I found a recipe for homemade squirrel repellent which calls for Murphy Oil Soap, Cayenne Pepper, and hot sauce. You spray it everywhere and the squirrels are supposed to dislike the taste - you have to reapply after each rainfall. It apparently doesn't hurt the plants. We'll see, it stinks and makes my eyes water...so hopefully it will do the trick. Racoons chewed a hole in our roof last year causing $4000 of water damage - I am likely to lose it if "urban wildlife" attacks my garden too! If anyone has any tried and true squirrel repellent ideas, I'd love to know about them.

And no, the squirrel in the picture is not real.

Urban Garden

I don't have much of a garden. It's more of a postage stamp with partial sun. My gardening attempts have never amounted to much, and I blame it on only partial sun and my watering neglect. I figure I need somewhere sunny to plant, and someone to help me keep up with watering. An arrangement has been brokered with my parents to make use of part of their expansive suburban backyard, apply my dad's vigilance with the garden hose, and share the harvest (assuming there actually IS one).

Today was a glorious early Easter Sunday. We had one of the best family days in my recent memory, even thought it included digging up a 12x13 foot patch of lawn, getting blisters, and aching muscles. The great parts were heat and sunshine, camaraderie, worm hunting, listening to my son boast that he's "digging just like Daddy", and watching my daughter pretend to be a pig rolling around in the dirt.

Ahhh.

Sunscreen

The weather is getting warmer and the winter layers are coming off. Soon instead of cold, it will be the sun that we will have to protect ourselves against. Like me, my kids are so pale they are almost transparent. I've lost count of the number of blistering sunburns I've had in my life. My daughter has had a few, the most mortifying one occurring when she was just 3 months old and lying under an umbrella. My son has fared a bit better, mostly because by the time he came around, I'd become a freakishly devout sunscreener. In the last little while though, I've wondered what the hell I've been smearing all over everyone.

An email request and the warm weather got me started on some research. As usual, my starting point is the amazing cosmetic safety database of the Environmental Working Group (www.cosmeticsdatabase.com). According to the EWG, your best bet is to avoid sunscreens with oxybenzone (links to cancer, endocrine disruption, and a host of other issues), fragrance (often contains phthalates which are endocrine disruptors), parabens (preservatives linked to cancer), bug repellant (too much absorption of the pesticide), or that come in a spray or powder form (to avoid inhalation). Instead, choose fragrance-free sunscreens in a cream or stick with zinc oxide (at least 7%) or titanium dioxide as their active ingredients.

The EWG recommends California Baby, Badger, and Soleo Organics. They even seem to like Coppertone Babies "Pure and Simple" (though they trash many other Coppertone products). Today I ordered the Soleo Organics online, since their product reviews say it doesn't give people the "ghostly" look of other zinc based sunscreens. My skin can do that all on its own.

Overenthusiasm

I can't deny the fact that I sometimes go overboard on new projects. I've mentioned my black thumb, the photo above is one of my most recent plant kills. But every few years I decide to start a garden. It never works for me, but this time, I'm willing to work for it.

I almost universally hate non-fiction, but I've spent the last week savouring "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life" by Barbara Kingsolver. Kingsolver brims with enthusiasm (about things like heirloom seeds and seasonal asparagus), and I couldn't help but catch some. I found myself researching and ordering seeds, buying seed starter kits, and generally getting ready to have a clue what I'm doing.

I'm hoping part of the fun is in the trying. And if not, maybe it will teach me patience.

Not just Coffee

I went shopping over March Break, and it was completely guilt free. I stumbled into a Fair Trade retail store and came out with as many shopping bags as Paris Hilton. Ten Thousand Villages is a Fair Trade Organization run by the Mennonite Central Committee (I guess there is no coincidence that I keep stumbling across Mennonites in this quest, they are a group that works hard for social justice and sustainability - see Fresh from the Farm, Feb 21). They ensure fair wages for artisans and farmers and work with local non-profit groups. So I supported a womens' cooperative in Burkina Faso by buying some Shea Butter soap, street kids in Vietnam with my pretty handbag, and Indian artisans with my funky silk scarf.

It's easy to shop responsibly when the products are this lovely.

Crystal Mystique

One of my failures in this endeavor has been deodorant. I abandoned the natural deodorant after about 3 weeks just like the other 5 times I've tried to quit antiperspirant. I felt slimy and stinky. I run, do yoga, walk alot...and each time I'd have to practically boil my clothes. Okay, maybe not that bad, but still, if you keep sniffing your armpits all day, you're going to be shunned whether you smell or not.
The good news is, I've found a new candidate. It's a crystal - which I have until recently associated mostly with new age music and windchimes. However, after three days of the new regime, I'm liking it. No sticky ickies like the other stuff. It's supposed to last for a year and it was only $4 to begin with. How "natural mineral salts" keep the stink at bay is a great mystery to me. Maybe if I listen to some pan-flute and light some incense the answer will come to me.

Health Food?

Aha! I was right. I love those words.
My husband has been nagging me to break the kids' maple syrup habit. Too much sugar. But you know that our mornings are rarely complete without syrup. Get a load of this, maple syrup may be the new blueberry. As reported in today's Toronto Star, a study (granted, it's just preliminary, but I only hear what I want to hear) suggests that maple syrup has antibacterial, anti-cancer and anti-diabetic properties. They have lignans (the good stuff in flax) and phenolic acids (the good stuff in berries and coffee).
To celebrate the good news, I'm marinating a (hormone free) pork loin in sesame oil, tamari, garlic, and maple syrup. Bring it on!

Road Trip Success

Okay, let it be said avoiding fast food while on a road trip with kids is a massive undertaking. That's why I'm tickled pink that I managed to do it. We used the facilities, but didn't succumb to the timbits and cheeseburgers. I packed a huge bag of healthy snacks on the way, and used my friend's kitchen to restock my supplies on the way home. My air popped popcorn bags were snubbed, but the orange slices were golden. Carrot sticks were actually crunched, almonds were popped. The only complaint I heard about food was from my 2 year old. Apparently he was disappointed in the lack of hummus. There was the issue of the "alligator" crackers I bought in a moment of weakness. They didn't wreck our roadtrip goal though - luckily they got spilled all over the floor of the van.

Of course, the kids promptly proceeded to turn their noses at most of the healthy food they were served for the rest of the weekend.

An aside: We had a great brunch, browse, and wander in Wakefield, Que. It's definitely worth a visit if you're in the area. Chelsea too has lots of little local food treasures if you're lucky enough to have someone tell you where to find them.

March Break Pit Stops

Simplicity at it's finest. Buckets, rocks, sand, water. I had to post this because it's March and this is Canada and we were at the beach. Without coats. Last year we were still shoveling. Ahhh, an early spring - the balm for whatever ails our Northern souls.

Anyway, the kids and I are making the 428 km (I checked) trip to Ottawa tomorrow. Usually this trip involves multiple stops at road stops along the way. Snacks, bathroom breaks, leg stretching. Trouble is, every rest stop has a McDonald's, Wendy's, or Tim Horton's. So, how does one pee (and seriously, what kid can go more than 100km without a pee?) without buying fries, donuts, or ice cream? My goal for tomorrow is to find out.

I have armed myself with a big snack bag with little individual bags of organic home air popped popcorn, 2 pounds of apples, water bottles, and a few granola bars when the call of packaged food gets too strong. Wish me luck, I'll need it.

Making Connections

The blog led me on a rural adventure today. Allow me for a moment to illustrate the power of cyber space, and the smallness of the world:

Helen is my mother in law. She recently reconnected with Judi, a friend from elementary school. Helen forwarded a link to this blog to Judi who happens to have a neighbour who raises organic livestock. Judi invited me and the kids to her place to sample some "clean" breakfast meats, and offered to introduce me to her farmer friend, Scott. Turns out, Scott is a retired teacher, who (wait for it...) used to be my middle school art teacher. Okay, let me make it clear here, we don't all live down the street from each other. I don't live in a small town, nor have I ever. These connections are hundreds of kilometres and several decades apart. Often I think the world is small, and then some days it shrinks even more.

This bizarre series of connections led us to the hills of the Oak Ridges moraine today where we were spoiled with a delicious brunch complete with organic sausage and maple leaf shaped pancakes, a walk in a sugarbush to watch the sap flowing, a (re)introduction to my teacher/farmer, and an exhilarating moment for my son when he got to sit in a tractor. Scott gave me a full explanation of the life cycles of the animals he raises. He showed us around, invited to come back and take a hike with the cows. And I started to understand what people in the "food movement" mean when they say it makes a difference to really know who and where your food comes from.

What a day. Thanks to J for her incredible hospitality, and to Scott for his openness and for the work he does to provide people with good food. And to Helen for reading the blog and setting things in motion.

This one's a keeper

I do the weekday cooking, my husband does the weekends. I am very pleased to say that my husband, the diehard carnivore, is on board with our new semi-meatless regime. He's started soaking and cooking big batches of chickpeas for me to use throughout the week. And here's what he made us for lunch today.
Not sure the proportions, but chickpeas, chopped fresh beets, cucumber, carrot, tomato, walnuts, sprouts (homegrown!), and olive oil with balsamic vinegar.
He's a keeper. The salad is good too.

Another one bites the dust

It's only been a week since we got rid of most of our processed foods. It's been easier than I thought. Especially since one of my exemptions was pancake mix. Like waffles, these bready discs are a mainstay at our weekend breakfast table. We add flax seeds, blueberries, bananas...whatever we're in the mood for. But apparently we also, without thinking about it, have been adding corn flour, soybean oil, sodium aluminum silicate, dextrose, and dried egg white (which apparently contains the same sodium lauryl sulphate as my toothpaste).
So, today we learned how to make pancakes and threw out the mix. Of course, I was so excited about my pancakes, I forgot about Daylight Savings Time. Oops.

For others like me, who forgot it was possible to make pancakes without a mix, here's how:
1 1/2 c Whole wheat flour
1 tbsp sugar (organic cane sugar seemed to work)
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg
2 c milk
2 tbsp oil

Mix wet ingredients in one bowl. Mix dry ingredients in another. Combine. Add any extras (blueberries, flax etc). Cook. Eat. I'm giving it a try to freeze a few extras and see if I can sub them in for the waffles. It will be a hard sell, but who knows.

Ready to Eat

Woohoo! It worked. Homegrown sprouts, easy as pie. (Actually much easier than pie) This is a "Spicy Lentil Mix", it's pretty yummy. I'm going to try a crunchy mix and a broccoli mix next. I'm ordering my sprouts from Mumm's, (www.sprouting.com) a rural Saskatchewan source for organic, non-GMO sprouting seeds and pretty much anything else you'd ever need to grow sprouts. They even sell a little starter kit, but really all you need is:
1 Mason jar
1 square of fine mesh netting (large enough to cover the opening of the jar)
1 elastic band
sprouting seeds

Here's what you do:
1. Wash the jar.
2. At night, put a couple of tsp of sprouting seeds in the jar, cover the opening of the jar with mesh, secure netting with elastic band.
3. Fill with water and soak overnight.
4. In the morning, drain the water, and fill the jar to overflowing for a few seconds to rinse the seeds. Then drain again. Leave the jar on an angle (sit it in a bowl on it's side) to avoid standing water.
5. Repeat this process in the evening and morning for a few days.
6. Eat!

Food Inc. Fallout

Movie night madness again. We watched Food Inc. on Sunday. Then we purged our cupboards. We packed up almost everything that was packaged, prepared, or otherwise processed. Our cupboards look so neat and tidy now, though much less colourful. Now it's mostly nuts, beans, seeds, grains and other varying shades of beige and brown. So very granola of us. It makes me feel a bit extreme, but then I just ask myself, would my great-grandmother even recognize these purged items as food? She managed to feed 11 children every day without Fruit Roll-Ups and Lipton Sidekicks. I only have 2 kids to feed, surely I can do this and stay moderately sane, right?

If you're tempted to think that I've always been a processed food hater, think again. I love it. I can't resist it. But I want my kids to know real food. I want them to like it, and I want them to know how to cook it. How else to do this except rid my kitchen of temptation?

I had two successful days, then I got the stomach flu. Who feels like a well planned week of spinach, sprouts, and lentils when your stomach is a raging animal? So I dragged myself and the kids to the store and bought a supersize box of popsicles instead. Partly to keep them quiet so I could curl up in the fetal position, and partly so I could eat my favourite flu food. There is an exception to every rule. And to be honest, our current exceptions include: ketchup, pasta sauce, pasta, maple syrup, waffles, pancake mix, rice cakes, raisins, bread, mayo, dark chocolate, bbq sauce, and, and for bribery, jellybeans.

Tomorrow we'll get back on track with baked falafel made from actual chickpeas and fresh herbs, and homemade tzatziki. Yum.

A Sprout of Fancy

My next step is pretty exciting for me. I've always been head over heels with the idea of growing food, but the sad truth of the matter is that I have a very dark black thumb. All my houseplants are cacti, since they're the only ones I haven't succeeded in neglecting to death. So the concept of growing food that doesn't require soil, weeding, watering, etc, is very appealing. Starting today, I'm growing my own "crunchy lentil sprout mix". I bought a little organic sprout starter kit with the best of intentions about a year ago. I found it in the cupboard today and thought, I can do this! You just put them in water overnight and then drain them and rinse them every day. Should be ready to eat in 3-4 days. This meets my need for instant gratification in a way that actual gardening simply can't do.
I'll let you know what happens in 3-4 days.

One of those weeks...

"Serenity Now SerenityNow SERENITYNOW".... Remember that one from Mr. Costanza on Seinfeld? I think I might benefit from that chant this week. Both serenity and simplicity are evading me. Mostly it's just your garden variety life/work/parenting balance. But it all began with cracking my head in my kitchen while putting on my boots. Since then, work has been piling up. I blame my lack of productivity on my embarrassingly acquired concussion. All I really want to do is stay late at work and catch up. Or go in early. Or think clearly. But I continue to be foiled. Today, my early start was hampered by a 25 minute stop by the police complete with a $110 illegal left turn fine. Tuesday my workday was rudely interrupted about 30 mins after it started by a call to pick up my daughter from daycare. She had some emergency phantom fever that disappeared exactly 3 minutes after getting home - but she couldn't return for 48 hours. More time off work to fall behind. My son's daycare is closing early on Monday, and staying closed the remainder of the week. Today I got out of my car at work and noticed my son's boots in the backseat. That means I delivered him to daycare without shoes or boots. My hot water tank is on the fritz so my shower was chilly. Shall I go on?

Despite this, today I still managed to feed my kids an organic breakfast (even if it was waffles and maple syrup), and cooked a healthy vegetarian dinner. But then I sent hubby and kids to McDonald's to get industrial ice cream so I could have some serenity. And so it goes.