The biggest waste of my time thus far.

Pasta making. 

Ok, that isn't all true, because making lasagne noodles was fine, I would do that again.  It was making spaghetti and fettucine that was awful.  It may be the limitations of my pasta maker, but being as this is only a year-long experiment, I wasn't about to go out and buy a fancy electric one. 

I decided, for the first few batches to do a somewhat traditional pasta, with eggs and flour.  So, I put a pile of flour on my counter... made a well and dropped in some eggs.

I took a fork, and started mixing it up, gradually bringing more flour into the egg mixture...

Once it was getting stiffer, I just mushed it in with my hands until I got a ball of dough.  This is a very imprecise method.  I did it twice and both balls of dough were completely different.

Foolishly, I thought the smooth one was better, but when it came to actually rolling it out, the lumpy one seemed to go through the machine better (after kneading it a bit more).  I ended up having to knead the smooth one with more flour, otherwise it was too sticky.  I suppose this method works well if you really understand pasta, and know exactly what it should look like, but for a novice, it was too much trial and error.  The subseqent batches I used a recipe:

2c flour

2 eggs

1 tbsp oil

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 c water

and dumped it all into my food processor and ran it until it formed a nice ball.  I found it still needed to have a bit more flour, but you have to knead it with flour anyway.

Rolling it through the machine was fun...  (if by "fun", you mean tedious and annoying).  You push it through the largest setting over and over, folding it up and doing it again,

...until you get a nice smooth noodle.

Then you do it many more times, decreasing the thickness by one step each time.  I got to the 6th of 7 settings and thought that was fine for lasagne.

I spread them out on a floured surface until I was ready to boil them and assemble the lasagnes. 

Where spaghetti and fettucine get annoying, is that you can't just run the dough through the cutters after you've made it thin enough.  It needs to dry out a bit first.  It can't be too soft, (it won't cut through) or too dry, and the edges can't be dryer than the middle, or it'll be a gigantic mess.  Needless to say I did a lot of muttering under my breath before I got enough noodles for 3 meals of spaghetti.  It also took me most of the afternoon and made a mess of my kitchen.

There, I did it once, and I'm not planning on doing it again.  Yes, it does make really cheap pasta (about $1.25 for a double batch which yields more than a box of lasagne noodles), but if you factor in the time and frustration, even fresh-made pasta at the local italian deli is a bargain.

The rest of my day.  3 lasagnes, and 8 meals of spaghetti sauce.  Grand total, under $30 for a minimum of 11 family meals. (it will likely give us some leftovers too).  Under $2.75/meal

Goodbye food

I packed it all up this weekend and passed it along to someone who would use it.

My cupboards look a little weird.  I'm used to having more condiments, boxes and bottles.  Now, my cupboards have a lot more of this:

I went grocery shopping yesterday and while it was odd to skip entire aisles, It was interesting to look in my cart and know that there wasn't a single person in the store who would have any idea what I was actually going to be making to eat this week (possibly me included). 

Easy Granola.

Take a big bag of oats (Rolled oats are fine, even quick oats are ok, especially if you like a finer texture), dump them in a bowl.  I have very large bowls, so therefore can make very large batches, but even something like an ice cream container works in a pinch.

Dump in brown sugar and cinnamon (or whatever other spices you like) to taste.  Then, take some apple juice and pour it in, mushing everything around until everything starts to stick together.

Try not to put in too much apple juice.  Nothing bad will happen, but it'll take longer in the oven.  I personally like using the apple juice, because it adds some extra sweetness, but water will work too.  I would also think brown sugar Splenda would work for those who can't/don't eat sugar.  I've never done it, but it's not rocket science...  get sweet stuff to stick to oats. 

At this point I added some raw sliced almonds.  If you only have toasted nuts, you can add them at the end, because they will get toasted in the oven. 

Once you have everything mixed together, dump it onto cookie sheets and into a low-ish oven (250-300ish).  The main thing you're doing here is drying it all out. 

Check on it every 10 minutes or so, and toss it around, especially if you're like me and made a large batch that piled up pretty high on the pan.  That way, you can toss it around and make sure it's all drying evenly.

Once it comes out of the oven, you can add any toasted nuts/seeds, dried fruit, etc.

Tada!  Granola! 

I made 2.7kg of it for about $7.50 (with almonds and raisins, if it was plain it would be cheaper) You're usually looking at a minimum of  $.75/ 100g if you buy it at the store, so about $20 for as much as I did here. 

Try it, it's great on yogurt, you can mix it with corn flakes or bran flakes for a tasty cold cereal, and this morning Husband experimented and used it in place of plain oats for oatmeal and said it was fantastic hot too. 

Bump in the night.

I felt a little sick to my stomach last night.  I don't know if it was the perogy pizza and cactus cut potatoes I had eaten for my last official non-scratch meal, or if it was a little bit of terror. 

This morning, under the cold harsh light of day, I wondered why I would be scared.  It is just food after all.  Perhaps my relationship with food isn't that healthy.  I had always thought we had a good give and take relationship...  a good balance of health and junk, but maybe not.  Maybe I am too dependant on the things I eat.  It is just a year after all.  It's not like I'm giving up my family, or my friends.  I'm not even giving up all food.  Just some of it.  The part of it I take for granted and eat mindlessly. 

I suppose it's true.  Just like the shadows under the bed, everything looks a lot less scary in the morning.

I love my baby.

Sometimes, Girl just makes me smile.

I know some people crave the newborn baby stage...  but I think I'd give that up in a heartbeat for the stage Girl is in now.  She's amazing!  I love the way her brain works, and her little observations of life.  I love that she refused to wear the cute black "converse-style" high tops I bought... until I put funky laces in them. I love that she's starting to say "I love you", and "goodnight" on her own and thinks that calling "WAKE UP NOW" from her crib will make me think she doesn't actually need a nap. 

I love that she calls herself a shortened version of her own name, even though she can say the whole thing, and can say "Oh my goodness", albeit with a southern accent.

Girl...  you are the light and happiness of my day.  Let's skip right over those terrible twos ok?

The Official Rules.

With one day left, I figured I'd do a rundown of the rules:

1.  Everything we buy/make as food for ourselves will be made only from "whole ingredients".  Packaged food must only consist of ingredients that are readily available, and would be recognizable to the average consumer and our grandparents.  (eg, peanut butter made from 100% peanuts.) 

2.  When guests of someone else, we will eat what we are fed.  We do not expect others to follow the same diet and we are not willing to make our friends and family stressed and cranky.

3.  When we have guests, they will eat as we do. 

4.  When away from home on vacation, (or in Husband's case, away on business) we will try our best to follow the diet, but realistically without cooking facilities, or knowledge of local restaurants, we give ourselves some leeway.

Q&A

Two days left, and I figured I'd answer a few of the questions I've gotten.

1.  Why are you doing this?

As I mentioned before, it was kind of a whim, a challenge to myself.  I assumed Husband would think it was crazy and that would be the end of it.  He didn't though, and here we are.  My idea came from a bunch of different sources.   Recently I have been more curious about what goes into the food we eat, and I grew more so when I read that Americans get 90% of their sodium from processed food, and only 10% from the salt shaker (pretty much regardless of how much you use it).  I was shocked.  I like my salt shaker.  So it made me wonder what else was buried in food. 

The other reason is that I truly think we can pull it off.  I like to cook, and I enjoy a challenge. I think we can do it, inspire other people to cook more of their own food rather than relying on pre-made stuff, and only kill each other a little in the process. I'm partially doing this for the other people out there like me who don't buy into every "healthy idea" and just want to read about this from someone who isn't trying to push them into one fad diet or another.

Oh yeah, and Husband thinks Slurpees burn holes in my brain. 

2.  What is your agenda?

This is another reason I think we are the perfect people to do this experiment.  We don't have one.  I  nap with my eyes open when people blather on about toxins.  I snicker on the inside when people tell me they shop at farmer's markets because everthing there is organic (only if it's an organic farmer's market folks!).  "Supersize Me" made me crave a Big Mac.  I have no problem eating animals, and we're not health-food-junkies by a long shot.  I think most organic products cost more than they are worth.  We are a normal family who eats an average North American diet.  I likely cook from scratch more than the average, but I love me my KD, and my ketchup chips and movie theatre popcorn (I even get the mystery butter). 

Because of our lack of motive, I think we are the perfect people to try this.  I'm not trying to find an excuse to beat the rest of society into thinking my way, I was just curious, plain and simple (hmmm, curiosity DID kill the cat....).  I wanted to know if it would change anything in our lives, health, finances, energy levels, time, etc.  And who knows, it might be interesting.


3.  Isn't this going to cost you a lot more?

That's a question I'm setting out to answer.  Remember I'm not eating an organic diet.  I will likely only buy processed organic products if they follow my plan of only real, normal ingredients.  (If I can't make it in my kitchen at home, I can't buy it.  This also goes for non-organic products.  I can buy canned corn because it only has salt, water and corn in it.  If it had xanthan gum and monodextrose sodiphite, it's OUT.)  This means that the vast majority of what we eat will be made here at home, using plain ingredients.  Salt and sugar are cheap.  I can make a loaf of bread cheaper than I can buy it.  My partially educated guess with be that it will take more time but less money, but we'll see. 


4.  What are some of the other radical ideas you had that Husband shot down?

Chicken farming.  Swimming the English Channel and Professional Eating.   Heh.  To be honest, Husband doesn't actually shoot down my dreams, he's usually just my sober-second-thought.  The person who thinks logically while I'm wrapped up in a wonderful idea.  I have a lot of ideas and Husband is a great support.  Some of my ideas are great, and some are crazy.  Unfortunately, I secretly hoped he'd deem this one crazy.


So, there you go.  Other than a few questions, I have had overwhelming support.  Some, I'm sure, by people who wish they could try it, others from people who are curious and waiting to see how this all shakes out (I'm with you).   Thanks for the support.  I'll try to be as detailed as possible so you can make your own decisions.