Chia food

So we were wondering what kind of plant is growing on our Chia kitty.

Guess what it’s called?

Chia.

Well. That should have been obvious, huh.

Apparently, chia seeds are incredibly good for you.

Even Prevention.com says so.

Some sources say not to eat the ones supplied with a Chia pet, because they’re not approved as food by the FDA. But there are other ways to buy the seeds.

Interesting.

I wonder, if we bought food-approved seeds and grew them on the kitty, would they stay alive long enough to produce more seeds?

We’ll have to see how far the existing plants get in their life cycle. They already have leaves out.

And it was good

The split pea soup, a double recipe, made five meals — the other four are in the freezer. I was a little concerned about it because it looked so thin, but it tasted great and the blender made a nice puree. And Mark remembered we had leftover ham in the freezer, so there was a little meat in the soup, too. (I know, I could have cut apart the hocks and gotten one or two tiny pieces, but, no thanks.)

The bread was also pretty good, although it was a little sour / yeasty to my taste. Maybe I let the second rise go too long, or maybe the recipe really was crazy to call for a tablespoon of yeast (I had to check twice to be sure that’s what it said).

On the other hand, the “pour boiling water in a pan on the lower rack” method is apparently not safe for use with a baking stone. It cracked. Loudly. Fortunately, only three pieces, and the bread was unharmed.

And here we are, still awake, because my dulcimer acquaintance in Chicago, who has no little children and works a non-teacher job, and who is in the next time zone, called us at 10:15 to discuss our carpooling plans for the Chattanooga festival; Mark was already asleep and I was almost there. Oh well.

May I mention that Amy can count to twelve? Sort of. If you say “1″ she says “2″ and so on, and sometimes she strings together several numbers all by herself, often in the right order. And when she’s looking at a book she sometimes repeats phrases or sentences she remembers from it.

Split pea

My day has been focused on split pea soup, even though I haven’t started making it yet.

Set the bag of peas on the counter and the frozen smoked hamhocks in the fridge last night.

Looked up recipes this morning, realizing I needed an onion. Hmmm. Gas is expensive. Ask the neighbor? Or what else could I get done if I go to the store?

(Also got Amy up; after some naked time and breakfast we played in the music room (me practicing for the festival, Amy looking at scrapbooks and playing with Legos and my measuring tape). Somewhere in there I also washed and re-lanolized all of her wool pants.)

I decided to go to the store. I could also order some photo prints, post some YouTube videos at the library, and check my post office box, which has never contained any mail that’s for me. At least I don’t remember any. I could rattle off a list of names of previous boxholders, though.

So onto the computer to put the pictures and videos on a CD, then to the kitchen to make some lunch for us and eat it, and off we went.

Amy fell asleep for a few minutes in the car, so I decided to do the library first, so that she could nap in the sling if she wanted to. She didn’t nap, but she enjoyed being in the sling anyway.

Next door to the post office.

Back in the car and to Wal-mart, to choose one lovely Vidalia and to use the photo kiosk to order prints.

Home again, singing songs to keep Amy awake (if she sleeps in the car too close to naptime, she won’t nap), then a quick diaper change and into the bed.

Back to the computer to look up French bread recipes using whole wheat flour. I picked one, revised to make the flour ratio half and half; it’s rising now in the sunlight from the sliding glass door.

Soon it will be time to punch it down and shape it for the second rising, and to start the soup.

Mmm… soup and French bread…

All sweetness and light

Not me.

The banana bread — one loaf and eighteen delicious muffins. Whole wheat, oats, bananas, milk, butter, maple syrup, honey, baking soda.

Three things

Mark took this picture of Amy studying her catechism:

I tried to get one of her wearing another new pair of wool pants, these ones from a nice light merino sweater in medium blue, but she was too interested in the camera, so here’s an outstretched arm shot instead (notice the newly cut bangs):

And I impulsively made an apple pie, using the Gala apples in the fridge; smells nice, looks nice, I hope it tastes good, too:

Ground beef recipes?

What do you do with ground beef (or any ground meat)?

Labor intensive

Today felt labor intensive.

The morning was okay. We went to the library playgroup and there were a few more folks there than usual.

Lunch was okay, except Amy didn’t like the chicken or sugar snap peas, leftover from last night. She pretty much just ate the cheerios leftover from her breakfast.

Her nap was not nice. She might have slept a few minutes, I’m not sure, as I was playing a little dulcimer right at the beginning. Soon there was crying. I entered to find her standing and crying at the side of the crib, and one of her tea set spoons was on the floor — I guess it had been in the crib and got her playing and then she dropped it. I tried to settle her down and when she seemed calm I left. The crying resumed. After a while I returned and sang and settled again, and again left when all was calm. The crying resumed, off and on. When it resumed full force I gave up and got her out.

Meanwhile I saw that there is already noticeable dust on our dressers. And I haven’t done any cleaning (vacuum, bathrooms, etc) since last time I dusted, so it was one of those sinking “it never ends” moments. And it was just last night that I was thinking I don’t rest and have quiet time enough.

And there was ground beef in the fridge for dinner, and I felt sick of ground beef. I decided to make Tamara’s grandma’s noodles, and meatballs, both of which are not exactly quick to prepare, plus a creamy sauce (butter, milk, flour). I made my noodles with a cup and a half of whole wheat flour and a cup of white — I don’t know if it’s the wheat flour or the fact that our eggs are medium, but it took four eggs instead of the suggested two to make the dough feel right. They tasted good — a little grainy from the whole wheat, but not bad — I just needed to cook them longer.

Rolling and cutting the dough was challenging. My solution was to roll the dough into a thick pancake, then cut the pancake into strips. Then I’d roll out each strip to the right thickness, dust with flour, and stack them. Then cut the stack into noodles.

Bad food

I’ve come across something called intuitive eating. The idea, it seems, is that there is just food, not good food vs. bad food; and that if we listen, our bodies will tell us what to eat and when and how much.

I like this approach for its appeal to nature — that our bodies are designed in such a way as to cue us to eat, even to suggest what kind of food we need at the moment. And that if we really pay attention, we will learn that we don’t necessarily want as many potato chips as we think we do, and that if we get all the messy psychological garbage about food out of our heads, we might find we really do want an apple instead.

I think it’s obvious that dealing with the psychological stuff isn’t always possible through intuition alone — for some folks therapy or other external help might be necessary before this approach can work.

I am not sure that I can live with the idea that there is no bad food.

However, that may depend on what we mean by bad food.

I agree that it’s wrong to consider food choices sinful, or make food choices in order to punish or reward ourselves.

But I do think there are harmful food options, harmless but non-beneficial options, and beneficial options, to varying degrees.

If you have a food allergy, eating that food is a harmful option.

Eating donuts may be harmful or harmless, depending on how they were made and what research you believe about the effects of processed sugars and flours and artificial ingredients and such. But unless they’re very unusual donuts, they’re not beneficial. Not nutritionally, anyway.

A donut now and then in moderation? Sure — why not? Preferably a donut made with good ingredients and good processes.

One of the things that I hate about the modern food industry is the divorcing of taste and appearance from the substance — making oranges more orange, meat more red, regardless of what’s inside or how fresh it really is; inventing artificial ingredients that have appealing tastes and slapping them onto otherwise empty foods; and so on.

Good food should look and taste good — bad food should look and taste bad.

Feelin’ ugly

I’m not 100% down in the pit over all of this — it’s just some of the stuff floating around. So no need to get all concerned or anything — just share in this little bit of my musings if you like.

I have been feeling ugly lately.

(Picture taken by older sister at Sophia’s party.)

Ugly especially on the inside — a little paranoid about my friends, because why would anyone want to be my friend? Surely they’re all just humoring me, being polite, that sort of thing. Second-guessing many of the things I did or said at Sophia’s birthday party, or at church, or anywhere else. Disliking things about other people and therefore assuming other people dislike me and hide it, too.

Ugly on the outside, too, as I had to buy a swimsuit four sizes larger than I thought I was, and Eddie Bauer’s Original Loose Fit jeans, also four sizes too big, are so tight I can’t zip them up. My belly looks like Amy’s birth was last week instead of last year.

Ugly in the pathways that connect inside and out, as I can’t seem to resist the donuts at church, the cookies at the dining hall, an extra bowl of cereal as dessert at home. No, I don’t eat like that every day, but I was much better at making healthier choices when the not-so-healthy options were not in plain view.

Ugly because I could exercise, I could eat better, or I could accept my body as it is, but I don’t want to do any of those things. I’m busy doing other things. I don’t want to punish myself. I don’t have the stamina or want the commitment it would take to really make a difference.

Last night I dreamed I was beautiful.

What to eat

When I first thumbed through Nourishing Traditions at my in-laws’ house, its basic messages really rang true for me: what we eat should be as un-processed as possible, natural, whole, slow, all that sort of thing. Meat from an animal that lived a healthy life eating what it was meant to eat. Plants that haven’t been modified or sprayed with poisons. Sugars from fruit, honey, maple syrup. The lack of evidence for the “fact” that saturated fat and heart attacks are linked. Stuff like that.

Nourishing Traditions is rather strident in its tone, though, and unforgiving and uncompromising. That kind of attitude can make it hard to take its suggestions (commands) seriously.

I just came across this book review, and I’d like to borrow or buy the two books mentioned (In Defense of Food and The Omnivore’s Dilemma, both by Michael Pollan) — they seem a bit more of a moderate approach, arriving at similar conclusions.

The author also has this interesting post on food and finance. I would love to someday be able to buy most of our food at farmers markets and that sort of thing. Mark doesn’t really care whether he eats a block of Kraft cheese or a piece of cheddar from the fancy (real) cheese section, a loaf of store brand bread or an artisan loaf from the bakery, but I drool over such choices. (Am I a snob? or have more taste buds? or does my brain just tell me I have these preferences because of what I believe about food?)

It drives me nuts that eating well can cost so much more than eating fairly or poorly.