Baby steps toward better eating!

March 10th, 2012

Often it’s small changes made one at a time that add up to a lifestyle shift!  It’s less painful and is more likely to be something you continue with over the long haul too.

Here are some ideas from our Facebook page that are great baby steps!

We’ll start with the obvious:

  1. Get a Bountiful Basket Weekly and USE THE WHOLE THING!  If you have a family of more than four get two baskets.
  2. At dinner serve 2 vegetables
  3. Serve sliced fruit for desert
  4. Remove the soda pop from your life
  5. Make eating out the treat it should be!  Only do it once a week or less.  Choose a sit down restaurant with delicious food.
  6. Try out some healthy freezer meals.
    • Once a Month Mom – this website advocates for once a month cooking, but you can definitely take some principles from it and their recipes are great!  The even have gluten free, whole foods, diet, and vegetarian menus available!
    • Freezer Dinner – this website had some really fun recipes!
    • Stolen Moments Cooking – loved these recipes.  They looked fast and easy.  Remember you can substitute in fresh produce par boiled for frozen!
  7. Smoothies for breakfast (Check out Green Smoothie Girl’s blog for more info)
  8. Make after school snacks fresh fruit!  Go the extra mile; cut it up and arrange it nicely on a plate.
  9. Make a game out of not eating white food.
  10. Try lunches in Jars!  Yes, that’s right… Jars…
  11. Make a larger meal a couple times a week and freeze the extras so that when you run into a rough patch and have a food emergency you can save the day by whipping out one of your pre-made meals!
  12. Do a pantry clean out.  Donate/throw away all the foods that no longer fit with your healthful (or soon to be healthful diet)
  13. Eliminate MSG
  14. Incorperating more fiber via chia seeds, ground flax,sesame seeds, wheat germ. Keep a little sprinkle jar on the table with those mixed and sprinkle it on anything it will stick to!
  15. Portion Control.  Serve yourself a reasonable size portion and don’t go back for more!  If you are still hungry follow these steps:
    • Drink an extra glass of water
    • Wait 20 minutes
    • Go on a brisk walk around the block (15 minutes or so)
    • If after all that you are still hungry eat some celery raw, cucumber slices raw and plain, or half a green apple.
  16. Try two new recipes a week to keep all this change exciting and fun.  Check out our pinterest boards for ideas, right here on this blog, or our Facebook page!
  17. Eliminate Corn Syrup

Posted in From Tanya and Sally, Making Bountiful Baskets work for your family | No Comments »

Tangy Orange Ketchup

March 3rd, 2012

One of the blessings I’ve gotten from participating with Bountiful Baskets is the ability to change my family’s opinion about food. In the three years that I’ve been participating and volunteering (and running my own site, and facilitating many other sites in my state), my family has stopped eating at McDonald’s, started eating many more homemade meals, and finally – they’ve started requesting that I make staples for them.

Case in point:

My teenage son, who loves ketchup, used the last of the store-bought ketchup the other day. Instead of telling me we needed to buy more, he pointed to the orange tomatoes sitting on the counter from my contribution last week and informed me that we should turn them into ketchup.

*love*

I combined two ketchup recipes (one from Ball Canning, and the other from  Tart and Sweet: 101 Canning and Pickling Recipes for the Modern Kitchen) to come up with something that fit our taste, and this is what I ended up with:

 

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Tangy Orange Ketchup

Ingredients

  • 2 quarts chopped tomatoes
  • 1 yellow bell pepper, deseeded and chopped
  • 1 small onion, chopped
  • 1 cup packed brown sugar
  • 3/4 cup apple cider vinegar
  • 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
  • 1/2 tbsp salt
  • 1/2 tbsp ground black pepper
  • 1/2 tbsp yellow curry powder
  • 1/2 tbsp turmeric powder
  • 1/2 tbsp ground cumin
  • 1/2 tbsp ground fennel seed

Instructions

  1. Place tomatoes, pepper, and onion in a non-reactive saucepan and cook over medium heat until tomatoes start to soften. Remove from heat and process in a food processor or blender in batches until smooth. Return to pan.
  2. Add remaining ingredients and bring mixture to a boil. Reduce heat to simmer and simmer until the ketchup reaches desired consistency. I like mine a bit thinner - but it coats the back of a spoon. The mixture will thicken as it cools.
  3. Ladle ketchup into hot jars, leaving 1/4-inch headspace. Wipe the rims and seal. Process in a hot water bath for 10 minutes, adjusting for elevation.
  4. Yield: varies depending on how much you cook down the sauce. I ended up with 3 pints and a 10-oz jar that I stuck in the fridge.
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Bountiful Baskets Wisdom

February 17th, 2012

Are you familiar with Jennifer Lawson - aka "The Bloggess"? Juanita the Weasel is becoming an internet meme...

Val Wise shared this on our Facebook page, and it is too cute NOT to share!

Reasons to be a BB participant:

  1. Fantastic value!
  2. Someone else does my shopping for me!! (We adopted 4 kids, I can use all the help I can get) We now get our produce & bread from BB, go to the meat market once a month to buy a “package” of meat (all packaged, labeled and ready for the freezer) and Costco once a month for a few other things. Before I was going to a grocery store twice a week (and you know how that goes with kids, all sorts of things in your basket you didn’t intend to buy). So BB is helping to save even more money by keeping me out of the regular grocery store.
  3. Produce hasn’t been handled by a bunch of people in the grocery store poking and prodding to check freshness.
  4. Produce is fresher and lasts longer than what the stores sell.
  5. You get a great variety, I’ve been participating for a few months now and every week there’s been something “new” in the basket that I’ve never cooked before and have had a great time trying the new items.
  6. There are things that I don’t buy because I don’t like them (or are simply to expensive), but the kids do. With bountiful baskets they get those things (like mushrooms, YUCK!)
  7. The kids are grabbing a piece of fruit instead of a cookie
  8. Volunteers get a free workout :O)
  9. Meeting the other great volunteers
  10. Feeling like it’s Christmas every Saturday morning.

I imagine I’m forgetting something, but I’m sure people will add to my list (like Norman and his blueberry bacon)

Reasons NOT to be a BB participant:

  1. You like spending your time in the grocery store (especially those lines)
  2. You have money to waste
  3. You live in CA and have no choice

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Canning and Bountiful Baskets

January 30th, 2012

I am thrilled that Jeanne Gibbons, who participates with Bountiful Baskets in Arizona, is willing to share her experience with us when it comes to food, and especially, canning. Jeanne is a fount of knowledge when it comes to food preservation, which she often shares on our Facebook page. Without further ado:

One wonderful advantage of participating in Bountiful Basket’s co-op is the availability of flats of produce for canning.  Have you eyed that entry for apples or tomatoes and considered passing on them because you don’t have the freezer space?  There are lots of resources to teach yourself how to can that are safe and easy to follow.

So, where do I go to get safe, thorough instructions for preserving?  My first thought is to buy a book.  I strongly recommend buying a Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving, considered to be the bible of home preservation.  You can find them on Amazon for a very reasonable price.  I have used mine so much, the book falls open at the pages covering how to sterilize my jars and several of my favorite jam recipes.  It’s easy to understand and worth the investment.

Maybe I learn better by having a structured environment, and being led step by step with pictures?  There are answers for that type of learning, too.  The National Center for Home Food Preservation, hosted by the University of Georgia offers a free, self-paced online course. This class will give you the latest recommendations and explain the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of canning.

So now, I’m standing in front of a steaming vat of applesauce and I have questions I need answered.  I’d like some hand-holding, please.  How much cinnamon can I add to this?  Will it get bitter if I don’t eat it right now?  There are so many groups that will help you at this stage that I don’t think I can give justice to them all.  If you are on Facebook, SB Canning springs to mind.  There are lots of people there that will answer every question.  There are two of my favorite newsgroups on Yahoo!: Canning2 and Home Canning.  Both groups are very friendly to newbies, and their recipe files alone are worth your time to subscribe.  I will warn you, though, that both groups are very actively posting so if you subscribe, be sure to select the digest form of email notification or your in-box will be flooded!

Preserving your own applesauce or salsa is time-consuming compared to buying a jar from the local grocery, but is very satisfying.  I find that knowing exactly what goes into my food gives me peace of mind.  There are no unpronounceable preservatives or potentially damaging chemicals leaching into my food from plastic containers and I control the quality of the produce I use.  I don’t have to trust a business conglomerate or a government bureaucracy to promise me healthful nutrition.  Canning is a hobby that is both useful and enjoyable to me.  If you decide to take the plunge, I hope that you find it enjoyable, too!

Print
Apple Pie Filling

Ingredients

  • 6 quarts blanched, sliced apples
  • 6 cups granulated sugar (or less, depending on the sweetness of the apples or your taste)
  • 1 ¾ cups ClearJel (see my note at the end)
  • 1 ½ Tb cinnamon, or to taste
  • 4 cups cold water
  • 6 cups bottled clear apple juice (not cider)
  • ¾ cup bottled lemon juice (again see my notes)
  • 1 ½ tsp ground nutmeg or to taste
  • ½ tsp clove

Instructions

  1. Wash, peel and core apples. Slice ½ inch wide and treat in Fruit Fresh while they wait to be blanched. In a steam basket, dip 2 quarts at a time into the boiling water for 1 minute (in a pinch, you can gently put them in the water and fish them out with a really big slotted spoon). Hold blanched apples in a large covered pot to stay warm until they are all treated. Meanwhile, combine sugar, ClearJel, cinnamon, nutmeg and clove in a large kettle with the water and apple juice; stir and cook on medium-high heat until the mix thickens and begins to bubble. Add the lemon juice and boil 1 minute, stirring constantly. Watch that it doesn’t scorch. Drain the warm, blanched apple slices and fold them into the sweet mixture, and fill hot jars, leaving 1 ½ inch (yes, that’s a big headspace. (It’s starch people! It expands as it cooks!) Cap with lids and rings and process immediately: 25 minutes for pints, quarts or half-pints. (This is a less than 1000 ft processing time; please adjust to your altitude) Turn off heat, let sit in the hot water for 5 minutes. Remove jars from water and let them cool, undisturbed, for 24 hours. Any jars that do not seal need to be refrigerated and used like fresh apple pie filling.
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http://blog.bountifulbaskets.org/2012/01/30/canning-and-bountiful-baskets/

Notes:  ClearJel is the FDA approved modified food starch that has the unique ability to stay liquid until it cools, which allows the heat of the kettle to thoroughly pasteurize the pie filling.  You *can’t* substitute cornstarch or flour or potato starch or anything else for this ingredient if you plan on holding the filling for *any* length of time on the shelf.  At the risk of picking a fight, I, personally, am non-negotiable on this point.  Yes, your Grandma canned apple pie filling using cornstarch. Yes, we all didn’t die.  But she also water bath canned green beans and sweet corn, which are low acid vegetables and need pressure canning,  for 90 minutes at the risk of causing botulism. Use your own judgment.  /end rant.

You can buy ClearJel online from My Spice Sage or Barry Farms.  Please be sure to purchase the cook type ClearJel, not the instant.

Regarding bottled lemon juice:  Personally, I detest the taste of bottled off –the-shelf lemon juice.  It reminds me of lemon Pledge so I prefer to buy Minute Maid unsweetened lemon juice from the frozen section of our local grocery.  It’s pricey, but it tastes like lemon and it’s standardized for acidity. If you’re really paranoid, add a half teaspoon of citric acid to each quart. There have been tests on fresh lemon juice that show that most, but not all, lemons are safe for this application (see Real Lemon vs RealLemon).  Use your own judgment here as well.
Jeanne

 

Jeanne has offered some amazing tips both here and on our Facebook page. Be on the lookout for future guest postings from Jeanne!
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Facebook Winter Squash Roundup

December 19th, 2011

Winter Squash Roundup – Oh MY!!! So many great recipes out there, and you all are so generous in your sharing! This post is a big one, so here we go!

Roasted Butternut and Gala Apple Soup from BYU

Oven Roasted Kabocha Squash from Tiny Urban Kitchen

Pasta with Butternut Squash and Pecans from Martha Stewart

Butternut Chili from Inspired Results

Maple Roasted Butternut Medley from Inspired Results

Butternut Squash and Lentil Soup from Creative Family Cooking

Slow Cooker Savory Chicken and Butternut Squash from $5 Dinners

Butternut Squash Soup from Food Network

Seven Spaghetti Squash Recipes from Martha Stewart

Butternut Squash Mac and Cheese from Eclectic Recipes

Sweet-Roasted Rosemary Acorn Squash Wedges from the Pioneer Woman

More Than Soup: 5 Must Try Butternut Squash Recipes from Foodista

Butternut Rancheros from the Post Punk Kitchen

Butternut Squash Lasagna from Food Network

Butternut Squash Pizza from Inspired Results

Butternut Squash Risotto from Allrecipes

Winter Squash Hash from Macheesmo

Butternut Squash Gnudi with Sage Butter from the Food Channel

Wheat Berries With Winter Squash and Chickpeas from the NY Times

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Butternut Ginger Soup from Carol Ehrman

Ingredients

  • 1 onion, diced
  • 1 tbsp minced fresh ginger
  • 1 clove garlic, minced
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • 4 cups peeled and cubed butternut squash (or flesh of a baked butternut squash)
  • 3 to 4 cups chicken broth
  • 1/4 tsp ground coriander
  • 1/4 tsp freshly ground nutmeg
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • optional 0 add 1 tbsp fresh grated orange peel and juice of one orange to make butternut ginger orange soup

Instructions

  1. Saute the onion, ginger, and garlic in olive oil over medium heat. Add the squash and chicken broth. Simmer until heated through. Add spices and blend in batches (be careful to put a lid on your blender as hot liquid can spray out and burn) or use a hand held blender in the pot. I like to add a few tablespoons of sour cream or crème fraîche to the top of the soup when serving and sprinkle with a little fresh ground nutmeg.
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Harvest Soup from Kandra Palmer

Ingredients

  • 2 butternut squash
  • 1 spaghetti squash
  • 1 bunch of celery
  • 1 lb carrots
  • 3 onions
  • 6 medium sweet potatoes
  • 6-8 cups chicken stock
  • 8 oz heavy cream
  • cooked bacon, optional

Instructions

  1. Split squashes and sprinkle with garlic salt, thyme, cinnamon, and paprika. Bake upside down until you can poke a for through it, let cool (Bake at 350°F for 45 minutes to an hour).
  2. Chop celery, carrots, onions, and sweet potatoes. Add to a large pot. Peel and cut squash; add to pot. Cover with chicken stock. Boil. Cover and reduce heat. Simmer until soft, about 25 minutes.
  3. Place soup in blender and blend until creamy. Return to pot. Add heavy cream. Top with cooked bacon, if desired.
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Facebook Apple and Pear Recipe Roundup

December 19th, 2011

“Surely the apple is the noblest of fruits.” — Henry David Thoreau, Wild Apples

Apples, apples, apples. Truth? I have to seriously be in the mood to just go pick up an apple and eat it. I do like apples, though. It’s just that they end up sitting around on my counter for weeks. Saturday morning I peeled, cored, and sliced the huge variety I had and made Freezer Apple Pie Filling (hint, I just combined ingredients and froze – it worked for me).

Here are the recipes participants have been sharing over on the Facebook page:

Top 10 Apple Recipes from Healthy Mom's Kitchen

Seckel Pears from USA Pears

Vertical Pear Salad from the Novice Chef

Ginger Pear Butter from Food.com

All Day Apple Butter from Allrecipes

Crock Pot Apple Butter from Home Cooking for Six

Carmelized Pear Bread Pudding from Eating Well

Cook Pears like an Iron Chef from Fruit Maven

Apple Butter as an Ingredient from Food.com

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Sauteed Apples from Jana Williamson

Ingredients

  • 1/4 cup butter
  • 4 large tart apples - peeled and sliced 1/4" thick
  • 2 tsp cornstarch
  • 1/2 cup cold water
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

Instructions

  1. In a large skillet or saucepan, melt butter over medium heat; add apples. Cook, stirring constantly, until apples are almost tender, about 6 to 7 minutes.
  2. Dissolve cornstarch in water; add to skillet. Stir in brown sugar and cinnamon. Boil for 2 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and serve warm.
  3. *Actually there is more liquid than necessary, probably could cut the cornstarch and water by half.
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Apple-Cranberry Crisp from Jana Williamson

Ingredients

  • 2 pounds Granny Smith apples - peeled, cored and thinly sliced
  • 3/4 cup cranberries
  • 1/4 cup white sugar
  • 3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
  • 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • 1/3 cup quick-cooking oats
  • 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
  • 1/4 cup butter, cut into pieces
  • 1/2 cup chopped pecans

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C.) Butter an 8 inch square baking dish.
  2. In a large bowl, mix together apples, cranberries, white sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg. Place evenly into baking dish.
  3. In the same bowl, combine oats, flour and brown sugar. With a fork, mix in butter until crumbly. Stir in pecans. Sprinkle over apples.
  4. Bake in preheated oven for 40 to 50 minutes, or until topping is golden brown, and apples are tender.
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Apple Pie Jam from Anne Powell

Ingredients

  • 4 -5 apples; peeled and sliced
  • 1 cup water
  • 5 cups sugar
  • 1/2 tsp butter
  • 1 pouch (3 oz.) liquid pectin
  • 1-1/2 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 tsp nutmeg
  • 1/4 tsp mace, optional.

Instructions

  1. Combine apples and water in dutch oven. Cover and cook slowly until tender. Remove apple mixture from pan. Measure 4-1/2 cups apples; return to pan. Save remaining apple mixture for another use (eat as a snack while making this).
  2. Add sugar and butter to pan, bring to a full boil; stirring constantly. Quickly stir in pectin, return to boil and boil for 1 minute, stirring constantly.
  3. Remove from heat; skim foam. Stir in spices. Ladle into jars and cool to room temperature. Give to friends and family.
  4. You may water-bath the jars for storage, if desired. I plan on giving as gifts for neighbors, so I am skipping the water-bath process.
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Orange Pear Jam from Anne Powell

Ingredients

  • 7 cups of sugar
  • 5 cups chopped peeled fresh pears
  • 1 cup crushed pineapple, drained
  • 2 tbsp lemon juice
  • 2 pkgs. (3 oz.) orange gelatin

Instructions

  1. Combine sugar, pears, pineapple, and lemon juice in dutch oven. Bring to a full boil, stirring constantly. Reduce heat; simmer for 15 mins. stirring frequently. Remove from heat and stir in gelatin until dissolved. Pour into jars and cool. Let stand overnight to set; no longer than 24 hours. Refrigerate
  2. I am going to give my neighbors bread and jam for Christmas and will definitely be adding this jam as one to give.
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Facebook Orange Recipes Roundup

December 19th, 2011

Our participants have been sharing some awesome orange recipes this week, and we wanted an easy place for you to find them. Here’s what we have:

 

Candied Citrus from Cooking Debauchery

 

Garden Fresh Tomato Basil Soup (uses orange zest!)

 

Orange Juice's secret ingredient worries some moms

Recipes Using Oranges from Healthy Mom's Kitchen

Orange Julius Recipe from Food Renegade

Homemade Gifts: Orange Marmalade

Pink Grapefruit Pomegranate Marmalade from Simple Bites

Laura Anderson Beller posted: Found a good use of many of the oranges from our recent case of oranges. My Girl Scout troop made pomanders with oranges, cloves and ribbons just like Juliette Gordon Low would have done 100 years ago when she started Girl Scouts.

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Facebook Chestnut Recipes Roundup

December 19th, 2011

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire….Jack Frost nipping at your nose….

That’s seriously what I think about when I hear chestnuts. It was exciting to hear that they would be in the hostess pack, but I think most of us are clueless when it comes to what to do with them. Thank goodness for all you imaginative participants out there, and thank you for posting them! Here’s a roundup of the recipes that were posted on the Facebook page:

Roasted Chestnut Sausage Dressing from Food Network

Roasted Chestnuts from allrecipes

The M & P Chestnut Peeling Method

Roasted Chicken with Chestnuts from Whole Living

How to Roast Chestnuts from Start Cooking

Blanched Brussels Sprouts with Chestnuts – Tyler Florence

 

Wikipedia – Chestnuts

 

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Food Swapping and Apple Cranberry Conserve

December 10th, 2011

Have you ever participated in a food swap? This idea is something I first came across on the Bountiful Baskets Facebook Page. Someone had mentioned starting one up in Texas, and it got me a bit curious, so I started googling “Food Swap“. It turns out that food swapping is something we’ve probably all been doing all along, just in a more formal setting. The basic premise is that you bring your homemade, home-grown, or foraged food, and swap it for other people’s homemade, home-grown, or foraged food.

It sounded like fun.

I happen to be a board member of the Moapa Valley Educational Farm Foundation, and a food swap sounded like just the sort of thing our organization would love to support, so I brought the idea to them. So, long story short (Ü), we now have a quarterly food swap where I live. Our first swap was in November, and I had just gotten some cranberries in my basket (along with some apples and pears!), so I made some of this conserve. I made a version of each – one with pears and one with apples. Both quite tasty (and great for our holiday table!)

Cranberries are one of those provocative fruits that you either love or you hate. It’s pretty much a draw in my house.

My goal was to create something that might appeal even to some of the cranberry haters out there (or at my house). I’m not sure I created something that cranberry haters would love, but I did manage to create something that they could live with, at least according to the cranberry haters in my family.

Apple Cranberry Conserve

 

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Apple Cranberry Conserve

7 pints

Ingredients

  • 8 small to medium apples
  • 16 oz of cranberries
  • 4 cups brown sugar
  • ¾ cup orange juice
  • ½ cup water
  • 2 tbsp lemon juice
  • 2 tbsp finely shredded orange peel
  • 1/8 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1/8 tsp ground allspice

Instructions

  1. Peel, core, and chop apples. Place in a heavy pot with remaining ingredients. Stir to coat apples. Bring to boiling over medium heat, stirring until sugar dissolves. Boil gently, stirring frequently for 30-35 minutes, or until mixture is thickened and sheets off of a metal spoon.
  2. When it is the right consistency, the liquid will slide off the spoon in sheets rather than drips.
  3. Ladle hot mixture into hot, sterilized half-pint canning jars, leaving ½-inch headspace. Wipe jar rims and adjust lids.
  4. Process jars in a boiling water bath canner for 15 minutes (start your timer when the water resumes boiling). Remove jars from water, cool on wire racks. Makes 7 half-pints.
  5. Instead of using this just as a cranberry sauce, here's an easy salad dressing: Take 1/4 cup of the conserve and whisk it together with 2 tablespoons of white wine vinegar and 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Super yummy vinaigrette!
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Butternut Squash Soup

November 13th, 2011

One of the many things I love about the cooler weather is the change in vegetables. I really love the earthiness from the root vegetables and winter squashes that are making their appearance in the market.

One of my favorites is butternut squash. I think that may be because it is so versatile. I’ve roasted it, pureed it, and frozen it for use later in the winter. It’s made appearances in pies, soups, stews, and plain as a side dish. It can be sweet or it can be savory.

This particular soup is a favorite in my house. I think it is because it is creamy without being heavy, and the sweetness comes solely from the squash and the apples.

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Butternut Squash Soup

Ingredients

  • Roast 2 large butternut squashes (375° for about 45 minutes)
  • 2 tbsp grapeseed or olive oil
  • 1 onion, diced
  • 4 stems celery, diced
  • 1 1/2 cups apple cider
  • 6 cups vegetable broth
  • 2 cups coconut milk (not light)
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1/4 tsp pepper

Instructions

  1. Drizzle oil in a large pot. Add onion and celery. Cook over medium heat until onion is translucent, about 5 minutes. Add apple cider and vegetable broth. Scoop roasted butternut squash into the pot. Heat through. Using an immersion blender, blend soup until creamy. Alternately, process in small batches in a blender until creamy; add back to pot. Add coconut milk, salt, and pepper.
  2. Serve. Enjoy. 8-10 main dish servings.
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