Healthier Eating

In an effort to improve our eating habits and drop our grocery bill, I've been doing some experimenting in the kitchen.

After years of "primal" eating where I've avoided sugars and processed foods, I'm trying to slowly move the rest of my family in that direction. (I also avoid grains, but Joe and the kids are not so interested in that whole idea...) I feel better and am certainly healthier and stronger as a result of these changes. I'd like to ensure the same for my family.

To achieve some of these healthy goals, I've started baking whole grain breads regularly. I highly recommend Baking Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. This method has made regular bread-baking something that is do-able for me, despite my zany mothering, homeschooling, and chauffeuring schedule. I'd retitle the book "Baking Artisan Bread in Ten Minutes a Day" (and then it wouldn't sell so well), but seriously, this is a ten-minute a day thing. Pretty do-able!

Additionally, I've been experimenting with naturally fermented foods, such as kimchi. I made our first batch of kimchi with a plethora of cabbage that came from our garden. I zipped it up with some jalapenos (yes, I'm mixing Mexican food with Asian), and it was de-lish!

Recently, I perfected two recipes that I'd been trying to turn sugar-free for some time: Baked oatmeal and granola bars. The kids love the recipes, and although we sweeten the granola bars with dried fruit and add maple sugar to the baked oatmeal for a little sweetener at the table, the resulting foods are much more nutritious than your granola and oatmeal recipes.

Some of my favorite books that have kick-started us toward healthier eating include Nourishing Traditions, Primal Blueprint, Eat Clean, & Wild Fermentation.

On that note, I'm off to start some sprouts in our little sprouter thingy...


Homemade pita bread.


Fermenting veggies, on their way to becoming a big batch of kimchi.


Six jars of kimchi!