What do wet ducklings, fluffy organic chickens and eggplant steaks have in common? Absolutely nothing.

Once upon a time it was raining outside. Everyone inside was reading books, studying, playing quietly, screaming loudly, making messes exuberantly, and cooking meals that didn't have rice or beans in them (miracle, I know!).

Turns out the now very plump ducklings love rain and puddles and everything water. They are ducks, after all. What I didn't expect is for the chickens to love the rain. But they do. And when they ruffle up their feathers to shed all the water droplets (think shaking like a dog, chicken style), I almost die of the cuteness.

That's not to say I haven't been craving some Rosti Pollos lately. These chickens are devouring my gardens at astonishing speeds. I am not sure what compelled them to it, but the chickens have been jumping (did you know they can jump?) over the cages into my gardens and eating everything in sight. Grilled chicken is sounding really good to me at the moment.

My lovely and only eggplant, that ended up as chicken food :-(

But alas, it cannot be! We are now cooking all vegetarian (not to be confused with vegan - we still enjoy our dairy products and free range eggs!) at home in an effort to save some money. Because here's the deal - if we are going to eat meat at home, it's going to be organic, grass fed, free range, etc. Basically, we are done living in blissful ignorance about our food and we want to know the farmer (if it's not us). Think Portlandia, obviously.

Ok, never mind.

Anyway, since the price of organic chicken is rather, well, pricey (because treating your animals right and feeding them well tends to be more humane and costly), and since we are trying to save our pennies right now, we cut the meat out of our home diet. I say our "home diet" because while we aren't eating out very much currently, we will eat meat if it is served in others homes or if they bring it into ours. But otherwise, eggplant is the new in season steak.

Speaking of eggplant, Eggplant Parmigiana with fresh tomato and basil marinara is on the menu for this evening, crying out to be prepared.

**Tune in next time to read all about how your children and your parenting are probably way better than mine in the coming post, "The Epic Bedtime Battles!"**

Chicken before the Egg

Eggs! We finally have our own eggs!

Months of waiting paid off today when we stumbled upon a hidden nest of lovely brown chicken eggs in an incredibly hidden and hard to reach area of our yard. We were rescuing ducklings (again) from our neighbor's yard and found seven eggs in a pile back by where a bunch of ferns grow in between our house and our neighbor's fence. Eric has been suspecting for some time that they might try and lay there, but we have been neglecting to go on regular egg hunts.

After a tedious time of herding the rather brainless ducklings back into the coop (where they will remain locked up for the next few days while we come up with a better solution of keeping them from escaping from all the cracks in the fencing), I climbed back into the fern area and gathered all the eggs in the bottom of my shirt and brought them inside.

I did a float test to make sure all the eggs are still fresh and good to eat (Lyla did the lick test for me, as you can see), and then scoured the yard for other possible nests. I didn't find any, but will be on the look out. For now, I closed off the area to the back where they had laid the eggs and put some false eggs in the nest boxes inside the coop to help trick them into laying there instead. Luckily we had some Christmas ornaments in the attic that ended up looking pretty great with a light brown paint job. ;-)

It should be noted that when we rescued the ducklings the first time this morning I was unable to get them all back into the coop and had to leave the door open. Confident that I had closed off the area pretty well where they were escaping from, I proceeded to go about my day. Little did I know that I would have to herd them back into the yard FOUR MORE TIMES later in the day before I was finally able to get them all back into the coop without getting brutally attacked by the mother ducks. And good golly, are they vicious Moms or what?! There were ducklings EVERYWHERE. In the front yard, under the front porch, in the alley, in the neighbor's yard, behind the rain barrel, etc. Neighbors continued to ring my doorbell just to inform me of the antics of my ill behaved ducklings.

I finally, FINALLY got them all in the coop. Unfortunately, a chicken was in there as well, who I couldn't get OUT of the coop. Note that all this time I am also trying to parent two wild children who are climbing to scary heights on stacked lawn chairs and drinking dirty water out of the duck pool while Sami the dog is running around crazy trying to bite chickens. No joke. So the chicken in the coop won. I gave up, shut the door, and left them in the coop all afternoon while I did life and tried my best to keep us all alive. Apparently I failed a little since when I returned to check on them earlier this evening, we had a duckling fatality, most likely due to the chicken. Lexi happened to be with me when we discovered the duckling had, very noticeably, died. She has horrified, as was I, and we had a brief talk about life while I ushered her back into the house and made a teary call to Eric, who by the way, is out on business all week (of course).

In conclusion, I DID finally get the chicken out of there. I also took care of the duckling that had died and put up the partition in the coop, along with adequate provisions, which will keep the ducks safely in the coop for the next few days, and away from faulty fences and mean chickens.

To celebrate that I survived (and not without my sister's help with the kids this evening), I cooked up the most delicious free range scrambled eggs for dinner (after the kids were in bed of course), with sauteed garden tomatoes covered in fresh herbs on the side, a slice of fresh whole grain bread topped with cheddar made with raw milk, and a glass of cold, fizzy, home brewed Kombucha to fill out the meal.

To eggs, to chickens, to the survivors. 

To life. 

Squash and Chocolate

Anyone who has ever had a garden and grown zucchini or summer squash knows that no matter how many plans you have for eating it straight from the garden, you will always have WAY TOO MANY. I gleefully planted about six squash plants this summer, hoping for zukes and yellow summer squash galore. Well, I got 'em. What I momentarily forgot is that I really don't love zucchini bread (at all), and you can only eat squash in so many ways before you start fantasizing about playing baseball with a homegrown bat in hand.

Early this summer I read the book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, by Barbara Kingsolver. Easily my favorite non-fiction read this year. Hands down. In between the pages of her narrative describing how her family spent an entire year eating only local and homegrown goods (no processed foods, non-organic, or non-local sources), she also writes extensively about the food industry today, and basically how much we have been duped. Education brings enlightenment. We have spent the summer very happily not consuming any processed foods within our home. We are changing the way we eat and view meat and dairy, non-seasonal produce, imported goods, and of course, we cook and bake almost everything from scratch. 

This doesn't mean we can't eat cake. It simply changes what we use to make the cake. And how we think about vegetables. For instance, I want something sweet, but have a counter full of squash. Why not make the sweet with the squash? Light bulb!

I am not very good at making up recipes when it comes to baking (cooking is altogether easier, in my opinion), so thankfully the collaborating authors of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle already have what they refer to as a sweet "disappearing squash" recipe. I tried it, used one of my yellow summer squashes instead of a zuke and put it in a pan to make bars instead of cookies. It baked perfectly and is a huge hit!

Moist, savory, and much better for you than Betty Crocker's version (although eating a carrot is still much better for the body, obviously, but Lord knows sometimes we just need our chocolate!), I present to you the kids and husband approved squash chocolate chip cookie bars recipe, which you can also find here at the Animal, Vegetable, Miracle website, along with other seasonal recipes.

Zucchini Chocolate Chip Cookies

(Makes about two dozen)

1 EGG, BEATEN

½ CUP BUTTER

softened

½ CUP BROWN SUGAR

1/3 CUP HONEY

1 TBSP. VANILLA EXTRACT

Combine in large bowl.

1 CUP WHITE FLOUR

1 CUP WHOLE WHEAT FLOUR

½ TSP BAKING SODA

¼ TSP SALT

¼ TSP CINNAMON

¼ TSP NUTMEG

Combine in a separate, small bowl and blend into liquid mixture

1 CUP FINELY SHREDDED ZUCCHINI

12 OZ CHOCOLATE CHIPS

Stir these into other ingredients, mix well. Drop by spoonful onto greased baking sheet, and flatten with the back of a spoon. Bake at 350°, 10 to 15 minutes.

Fresh garden salad

It is perfectly lovely to live smack dab in the city and still be able to go outside and pick our dinner ten minutes before we eat it. That's what I call fresh, not to mention organic as well. 

 A few of our squash were finally ready, as well as some green bush beans. I didn't plant enough beans this year to satisfy our pallets (Lexi LOVES them raw - something I didn't anticipate back in February when planning the garden), but this growing season has been a learning curve enough as it is!

 These are Thumbelina carrots. I'm sure you can guess why. They are super cute, and I ordered the seeds with Lexi's excited voice in mind ("LOOK MAMA, BABY CARROTS!!!!"). The voice IS cute, as imagined, but somehow pulling these out from the earth with their enormous leafy tops leaves you wishing for a little more bang for your buck. In other words, more carrot. On the upside, they taste delicious. All two bites of it. :-)

 We are eating everything from our garden raw right now. Eric isn't ever thrilled about cooked or steamed veg anyway, so everything gets chopped up and thrown into the dinner salad. Here we have the carrots, beans, squash, and zucchini tossed with our Bright lights Swiss chard and Red Russian kale. Sprinkle on a little balsamic vinegar mixed with honey, add a side of fresh bread smeared with goat cheese and voila! Supper. Fresh, fast, and super delish.

Swimming in Kale

It's July. And my Kale just keeps on growing and growing and growing and growing.

We are eating it in salads, drinking it in smoothies, sneaking it into anything cooked, and packing the freezer with pureed cubes for the off season. My freezer is so stuffed with bagged green cubes and homemade granola, there is not much room left for anything else.

My friend shared this recipe with me for Kale burgers - which happen to be both vegetarian and vegan. I made them last night and they not only fit the bill perfectly for real food, but they were also surprisingly delicious!!!

Kale Burgers

INGREDIENTS

1 large bunch kale, well-washed and mostly dried

sea salt

1 large tomato, chopped

1 tablespoon almond butter or tahini

1/2 teaspoon garlic or 1 clove garlic

1/2 teaspoon coriander

cayenne to taste (if you like)

heaping 1/4 cup almond meal (I ground my own and ended up using much more than they said here)

heaping 1/4 cup flour

olive oil (I used coconut oil instead)

[1] Remove stems and chop kale into very thin ribbons; sprinkle with sea salt and gently massage; let rest 15 minutes. The kale will turn a bright green and soften. Meanwhile in a food processor or blender combine the tomato, tahini or almond butter, garlic and coriander. If your tomato is not super juicy, add a tablespoon or two of water.

[2] In a large saucepan heat a little oil. Add the kale and sauté for a minute; then add 1/2 cup or so of water and cover loosely. Let cook 5 to 8 minutes (the fresher the kale the shorter the cook time) until it’s just wilting but not totally limp. Transfer kale (leave behind any remaining water in the pan) to large bowl. Meanwhile mix the almond meal and flour in a small bowl. If desired, you could add a little cayenne to this mix too.

[3] After it cools enough to handle, add 2/3 of the kale to the blender with the tomato mixture and blend. You don’t want it to get too smooth; maybe pulse on and off for a minute or two. Transfer this blended mix back into the large bowl with the reserved kale and mix it all together, adding a couple of tablespoons of the flour/almond meal mix too. You should be able to make patties from this mix that hold together fairly well. If too wet, add more flour/almond meal; if too dry, drizzle in some olive oil or water. Form six burgers and coat each burger in the remaining flour/almond meal.

[4] Heat a couple of tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat in a non-stick frying pan. Cook each burger for 4 minutes on each side, adding more oil if need be. They will get a nice crunchy outside with a hot, tasty middle. Serve and enjoy. (http://veggiegrettie.com/2011/03/18/kale-burger-guest-post/)

Here's how mine turned out, topped with goat cheese, real mustard, a tomato, avocado, and grilled onions and red pepper on a whole wheat bun. 

 Our vegan friends skipped the goat cheese, but they loved the burgers anyway!

 More kale burger love (and other kinds of love) going on at this side of the table...

I am loving finding new ways to prepare the food that we are growing. It makes cooking good food a lot more fun! 

Next up in the garden is zucchini and squash. Can't wait!

A walk through the garden

I somehow went from not being able to keep a plant alive to suddenly having the capability of growing food. Every day I view my garden as some sort of miracle. A gift of nourishment to me and my family. 

 These tomato plants are the very same ones that I started from seed back in March. I grew the seedlings in little egg cartons on my window sill. Now they are the biggest living things in the gardens. Eric cut the tops off of two of the beds in order to accommodate their size. No problems with squirrels so far.

Two weeks ago Eric built a triangular ladder trellis for the squash and cucumbers. What we didn't consider when planting, is that not all varieties of zucchini and squash climb....adding it to the very long list of things to remember when planning the garden next year . Fortunately it does help keep the huge plants a bit more contained though, which is incredibly helpful in such a small space.

The peas are climbing up the twine that is attached to the rafters above this bed. Interestingly enough, my plants only climbed as high as the top of the cage, even though there was nothing stopping them from climbing higher. The sugar snap peas we have harvested so far are the sweetest I have EVER tasted. Unfortunately the yield is quite small, giving us probably about a salad bowl full if we were to harvest them all at the same time. Right now we are enjoying snacking on them straight off the vine.

 And because I can't NOT post pictures of my chickens, I will let you know that I may or may not be owner to ten of the silliest chickens in all of Chicago.

And, perhaps, the two silliest girls as well.

Leafy greens

Just an evening's harvest! Kale, spinach, lettuce and chard.

It is really exciting to know that most of what is at the Farmer's Markets right now are growing right in my garden. This won't last much longer, but as of right now, we are overrun with greens! We eat huge salads twice a day, pack the greens into our morning smoothies, give it away, freeze it, and still can't harvest fast enough. Our Arugula already bolted a few weeks ago, turning bitter and ending it's life as an edible. Our spinach bolted shortly after, shooting up to over three feet tall and blooming funny little yellow blossoms. The leaves aren't as sweet and succulent as they were at the beginning of the season, but luckily they aren't bitter either. 

Not wanting to let anything go to waste if I can help it, I have been harvesting the spindly spinach (with an occasional taste just to be sure it's still edible) and pureeing it, freezing it in ice cube trays exactly the same way I make my daughter's baby food.  

Leafy greens are PACKED with amazing nutrients - making it onto the list of "super foods" several times!

Gotta love the green foam! My girls won't eat spinach in leaf form (still too hard to eat leafy things), but they drink green smoothies like there's no tomorrow. As Lexi told me this morning, "Mama, I WUV 'sinach!')." Drop a few spinach cubes into the blender with your other ingredients and you're good to go. I also stir one spinach cube into my 14-month-old's oatmeal every morning, and she gobbles it up happily (one of the few foods left that she won't fight me over).

Tools of the trade. My Vitamix blender has turned out to be one of our better investments. I use it daily for so many things. Though because of it's amazing wonders in pureeing, I do think we may be needing a bigger freezer soon...

Parenting with chickens

My girls are endlessly creative.

My 14-month-old is especially creative when it comes to food. I think the Hunter-Gatherer in her has begun to come out now that we are pretending to be farmers in the city.

Do you see this face? It's not innocent, let me tell you.

In the past few days, she has hunted, gathered, and eaten (what I wasn't able to scoop out of her mouth) varying quantities of the following:
- grass
- egg shells (fished out of the compost)
- dead bugs
- leaves
- dry chicken poo
- wet chicken poo (she finger painted in it first, then gave it a lick)
- duck feathers
- dirt
- burnt wood
- an old apple core
- fresh oregano (good choice, I must say)
- rocks
- bottle caps
- plastic wrappers
- dog poo
- seeds
- dog food
- cat food
- and the list goes on...although I do think she may have a taste for poo. No wonder she's becoming such a picky eater. Good thing it's organic poo. (LOL)

Just for the moms out there, I DO worry sometimes that she is going to come down with some crazy disease related to her poo consumption. It's not like I encourage her to do this. Like I said, she's endlessly creative. And for those of you who are wondering why on earth there is so much poo in my yard, that's what happens when you turn your city lot into a "farm-yard"?

Lexi is equally creative, like the other day when she thought it would be a good idea to sit on a chicken. Do you already see how this ends? After the sobbing stopped, we cleaned up the three inch scratch on her arm with the slightly obvious, but none the less needed wisdom, "That's what happens when you sit on a chicken." Both the chicken and the girl are doing fine, albeit slightly scarred (pun intended) from the event.

And she shall be called "Beady Eyes!" Taken in early June, both the chickens and the gardens are now much more plump and full.

Thankfully though, when it comes to food she has a more sophisticated pallet that prefers goat cheese spread on toasted crackers and cherry tomatoes dressed in balsamic vinegar rather than animal poo. Love that kid. She is crazy, though. One minute, a room in the house will be tidy and have that "just cleaned" satisfaction, and thirty seconds later, I look in and can't see the floor. This morning I was watering the garden and came into the house to find that my kitchen had been turned into an imaginative space, where Lexi was mixing up her own concoction of leftover green smoothie in my salad bowl, and picking greens to put in it from off the floor....
Yes, the kitchen floor was now growing grass.
Kidding.
It was just covered in freshly picked grass and oregano leaves.

You might be wondering why she was in the house alone? You can ask her the same question. Clearly it's way more fun to be creative when Mom is distracted with something else. This happens, um, a lot.

I can't get this pic to turn for me. Either way, she's an alive one!

In farm news, Ice Cream is continuing to woo the ladies with his manly waddle and swaggle, and Oreo and Cookies & Cream are continuing to lay eggs. I believe in the two nest boxes, we now have a total of 12 eggs. By the looks of things, we should have ducklings by the first week or so of August! And speaking of babies, LOOK AT MY CUTIE BABY PEAS!!! In a mere handful of days, they emerge from their flowers and dangle on their vines like little green Christmas ornaments.

Also, this steaming beauty came out of my new bread machine (yay for Craig's List!) today. One more check off the list to make Real food a daily reality. Love.

Truth from the Pantry

Remember the comment that my husband made the other day about wanting to eat food without all the added preservatives?

He wasn't kidding.

Rather than brushing him off by saying, "That's too hard," or "We already eat healthy enough already," I decided to take it very seriously (once I got over my bad attitude, that is, and really thought about it). I have so much information at my fingertips, including plenty of blogs, websites, ebooks full of real food recipes (that I already purchased a few weeks ago), and the desire to eat and live well.

Instead of continuing to convince myself that buying items without High fructose corn syrup was enough, I decided to actually take a walk through my pantry, freezer, and refrigerator to see what I already and regularly buy that has unhealthy added preservatives.

The result wasn't as bad as I thought, but it wasn't very good either.

Here's a disclosure and breakdown on what I found in our house that has ingredients (as preservatives) that we are not ok with eating. (Keep in mind that this is our personal decision - we in no way think less of you for eating deliciously moist and yummy brownies from a box! But in case you are interested in our journey, or just want to laugh at our pain, here ya go.)

Refrigerator:

Ketchup, French style salad dressing, Dijon mustard, Sweet Baby Rays BBQ sauce, Hoisin Sauce, soy sauce, light Mayo (disclaimer: Eric and I hate mayo with a passion...my parents left theirs in my fridge. I read the ingredients label and turns out this low fat processed stuff is packed with ingredients that your body doesn't know how to handle.)

The processed meats we have all contain Sodium nitrites: Smoked polish sausages, Processed turkey meat (any lunch meats, really), pepperoni.

Flour tortillas, vanilla yogurt, chocolate frosting, can of whipped cream (love this on cake and pies, but the preservatives list is sooooo looooong!) all have preservatives that are intended to give the food a longer shelf and fridge life, while compromising your health at the same time.

Freezer:

Hamburger buns. Holy smokes. I am kind of in shock. Same goes for the long potato rolls (buns for the polish sausages). I don't know if I can ever buy those again with a clear conscious. You know something is wrong when the ingredients list is still going at item 20.

A really old store bought pecan pie was packed way back in there. I think this was left at our house and got stuffed into the freezer for later use. Let's not go into all the ingredients and preservatives in that one...I disposed of it anyway.

More flour tortillas, whole wheat bread (no high fructose corn syrup, but this bread has so many other preservatives to give it a longer shelf life, which is very unnatural for bread in the first place...).

I was very very happy to discover that my Ghiradelli dark chocolate chips made the cut, as well as my homemade chicken stock, frozen veggies, chicken breasts, ground turkey, and venison (my sister brought it back with her from Alabama).

Pantry:

This is where I have the most of my problems...

Cheerios, chips, can of iced tea powder (used for summer cook outs), tomato soup, dehydrated potato gnocchi, Pasta (still not completely sure about this, but am looking into it), sweetened coconut flakes (for baking), angel food cake mix, brownie mix, Wyler's instant beef bouillon granules, gel food colorings, sprinkles.

And then I started finding my archived food stuffs...real treasures here.
Mole, with a best by Oct 2009 date.
Thai curry simmer sauce, best by Aug 2010
Ranch dressing mix packet, best by June 2007. 2007!!! Really, Beth??!? 2007? sheesh. You would think that after five moves that thing would be long gone by now, but nope! Saving it for the zombies.
Old easter candy (which promptly went into the garbage)
Gravy packets (which I have never used, since I always make my own, but they have still definitely taken up residence in my pantry...)
Onion soup mix. The American girl's best friend. Not this girl. This packet also went promptly into the garbage can after reading ingredient number two.
Whole wheat bread (As you can see, we keep a lot of bread on hand). Looks like it's time to bake my own. I am currently scouring Craig's List for a machine to make it a little easier on myself.

In order to make this work for our family, we have to take it gradually. My plan is to eat what we already have in our home (minus the old stuff...and a few of the items that made it on my "from the devil" list) and then gradually introduce the healthy alternative when the supplies are diminished. For example, the packaged breads will be replaced with homemade breads, or with the fresh pita that comes from our local Middle Eastern bakery (and contains only the four essential ingredients, no preservatives or syrups). The lunch meat will be replaced with natural peanut butter (which we already eat regularly) or freshly cooked chicken. Salad dressings can be easily home made (and taste better too), and I already have a yogurt culture to begin making my own yogurt with. Breakfast cereals can be replaced with my granola (that I simply need to be more consistent about making) and other snack foods can be replaced with fresh fruits and vegetables.

I will be writing about the changes that we make as we go, but this will definitely not be something that happens overnight. You know what I am really looking forward to (more than giving up processed, preservative packed food)?

Getting fresh eggs from this chicken.

There is something brewing in my pantry

Things are getting a little weird around here. 

Aunt Alli has been brewing interesting healthy concoctions in our pantry for the past two weeks. After a week of sitting fermenting in my dark pantry, the Kombucha was ready for drinking.  You can read more about Kombucha and it's health benefits here. There are also numerous places on the internet where you can learn about how to make it once you obtain your very own "Mother." (And if you are really interested in a "Mother," my sister will sell one to you and then mail it.)

Alli is showing off the "Mother" to Lexi. To me it kind of resembles a slimy mushroom.

Separating the new "Baby" from the "Mother." A new "Baby" grows with each fresh batch you make. Now we have two Kombucha batches going at the same time.

 Here is the Kombucha ready for drinking and looking very delicious. Don't be deceived by the bright sun and green plants. It is FRIGID outside today. Not even making it to 20 F. I feel like we are in Little House on the Prairie's The Long Winter book...minus the snow and endless prairie.

Lexi LOVES Kombucha!!! Here she is guzzling hers from a mug. She was much too absorbed to look up at the camera. The result from our Kombucha was a fizzy sweet drink that resembled a fruit cider. It was remarkably delicious and is excellent for probiotic health. 

We are also brewing Water Keifer at the same time. Not quite as appetizing, let me assure you. However, it IS fizzy. And better if you lace it with juice (or rum, perhaps?) or some other fresh fruit once it's done brewing in the pantry and is ready for drinking. Lexi, of course, BEGS me for it. I find this funny, but for a little girl who almost exclusively drinks water, anything fizzy or flavored is the biggest treat EVER in her opinion. :-) That's probably why I can still get her to drink my green smoothies most of the time too. 

Here's the Water Keifer ready to go back into the pantry. It has raisins, a lime, and a few dried apricots floating in it. 

Next on the list is to get the beginnings of our "urban farm" underway. We are planning out the garden this week and will be ordering some seeds. We aren't starting everything from seed this year (we had too much going on and should have started weeks ago), but things like herbs, zucchini, beans and cucumbers, etc, we will sow in the ground. We are starting small this year, with the hopes that we can keep the squirrels out of it. If we succeed, we may go bigger next year.