A few months ago, I bought the book Nourishing Traditions. I have several friends at my church who follow the book and cook the recipes inside. At first, I thought it was a great nutrition book and a new outlook on food, but wasn't about to prepare my food as the book suggests. It sounded complicated and time consuming. However, this my friends has changed. I love this idea of soaking my grains (rice, flour, beans, batters, etc), preparing my food properly so that it is best absorbed by my body, and enjoying the wholesome food I am eating.
I am becoming addicted to it actually. This week was the first of actually applying this. For example, on Saturday night, I knew that I wanted pancakes for Sunday breakfast. So, I got the whole wheat flour and soaked it with kefir ( an acidic median to break down the phytates in the wheat that our body can't naturally do on its own) overnight on Saturday. I made them Sunday morning and they were delicious. I also made my first soaked whole wheat bread and it is delicious! I got 3 loaves out of it. That recipe is here.
I am going to give a HUGE chunk of credit to my girl Shaye, who has the fabulous blog The Elliot Homestead, for inspiring this change in me. If you don't follow her blog, you should. She is funny and has wonderful recipes that are nutritious, budget friendly and made from scratch.
Some of my future aspirations include:
Getting my own grain mill
Sprouting and grinding my own flour
Brewing my own Kombucha (in the works)
Making all of our bread (sourdough, wheat, english muffins, biscuits, tortillas, etc.)
Soaking all of our beans and grains
Canning homegrown vegetables and fruit this summer
Making my own deodorant, chapstick, and whatever else I can
Find a local farmer where I can buy eggs and milk from, and a butcher where I can buy meat from
Get a dehydrator so I can sprout and dry granola, oats, wheat berries, and make yogurt
Sharing things with friends!
Some of my current projects in my new food freak journey are pictured here.
These are lentils that I started sprouting so that I could use them in lentil soup, which we enjoyed for dinner tonight, along with the soaked whole wheat bread. I soaked them overnight once, then for the last 2 days I rinsed them throughout the day until they grew sprouts that were 1/4 inch long. It worked!
This is my sourdough starter that I have going. It is very simple. I started with 2 cups of organic rye flour and 2 cups of warm water. For this next week, each day I stir in 1/2 cup of the rye flour and 1/2 cup of water and viola! Then I can make my own sourdough bread, tortillas, and whatever the heck I want. I'll share my starter with you if you want!
And this my friends, is the beginning of a great thing. Kombucha. Yep, that drink they sell in weird health food stores. The one that is raw, with live bacterial cultures in it and smells kind of like vinegar?? That's the one! And I am so excited to start making my own. If you want to learn about Kombucha, you can do that here. It is basically a fermented tea, filled with health benefits. I found myself a scoby, which is what is in the small mason jar. I found it at my local beer brewing supply store. And I bought a big glass iced tea jar to make it in and after its made, I can pour it out the spout! How nifty!
I plan on taking step by step pictures of my journey with this one, hehe, if we don't get taken over by the scoby growing madly in my pantry. I will keep you posted.
Alas, my sister graduated from cosmetology school! Yay Colleen! I just love her :)
Random things going on in our lives right now:
-Erin and I started going to yoga class together and we love it!
-I am working a lot more at Starbucks, raking in the dough!
-I am making huge messes in the kitchen
-We are getting our tax returns back and will be debt free by the end of this month!
-I am paying off my car soon, holla!
-We are currently on season 6 of watching Seinfeld and it has been such a fun journey watching it
-I am ready to plant our zucchini! We still have our tomato plant from last year that survived the winter and is currently still growing tomatoes, how crazy is that?!
-that's all, we aren't really that exciting. In fact, Erin and I are getting ready to play some yahtzee and probably watch some Seinfeld
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