MamaPie

One More Notch

Every so often, I notice that I have stepped my family meals up a notch. It's gradual, but concrete. If you took a week of dinners from two years ago and compared it to this week's dinners, the difference would be clear: more greens, more vegetables, less simple carbs, less sugar and more fermented foods. It would be the same if you took the dinners from two years ago and compared those to two years before that. A slow, yet steady, upward trajectory on the healthy eating scale.

These past few months the change has been by a few different factors: the loads of interesting greens we get each week from our new CSA, conversations (and taste tests) with my brother, who has adopted a raw foods based diet, a desire to bring more fermented foods into our kitchen after Reuben was on a course of antibiotics, and, finally, my desire to lose a few pounds (my first ever "diet").

Day-to-day, and meal-to-meal, these changes look like this: less pancakes and waffles for breakfast and more fermented oatmeal and homemade granola, less pastas for dinner and a big salad and a vegetable along with our protein, less bread and sandwiches, more quinoa and garbanzo beans; more sauerkraut, more carrots, more kale, more sunflower seeds.

I'm getting inspiration from the following whole foods websites:

• The Whole Life Nutrition Kitchen
• The Nourished Kitchen

Do you step it up a notch every once in a while? What are you cooking these days?

On my Stovetop & In my Oven

What have you been cooking lately?

Around here, I have been doing my usual ratio of mostly old favorites (or old "easy's") with a few new things now and then. As always, there is lots on my "list" of what I want/hope/wish to cook, but, as always, reality doesn't often match up one's pinterest boards!

Old favorites include salmon cakes (I use Mark Bittman's recipe from  How to Cook Everything, with a little less onion, and a little more mustard and an extra egg), meatloaf, nutburgers (from Feeding the Whole Family), various soups and kale salad.

The new thing I've made recently that has my mouth-watering just remembering it is this. It was just the perfect blend of salty and sweet. Also, in the non-food category of cooking, I've been making elderberry syrup all winter long. I've only been introduced to the (supposed) wonder of elderberries this year, so I'm giving it a go. I say "supposed" because, with the exception of A., we've all been sick quite a bit this winter. I've used various recipes, but they are all pretty similar. Today, I'm using this one.

Hoping it's a good winter in your kitchen!