I hate to admit when my husband is right!

What does a sticker really guarantee?  Well, this evening I totally let a sticker win me over...that and the price tag.  In my home $2 does mean something.  $2 can be a little extra fruit, or a better cheese...

This evening I went to the grocery store for coffee and there I was trying to choose between my regular (non organic because I just can't always justify the price for something only I drink) and an organic 2lb. bag of coffee that was on sale for just $2 more.  I noticed a sticker on my regular brand that read "Rainforest Blend".  It said that it was blended with organic beans and that it was sustainable, plus it was only $12.99 for 2 lb., the same price as the regular Hills Bros. that I usually buy.

My husband was in the kitchen when I got home and I showed him the bag.  I told him that for now on when he goes to the store he was to only buy this bag with the rainforest blend sticker.  He rolled his eyes and I realized that I had been duped by a sticker.  No where did it say that it was certified organic or that it was fair trade.  Nothing was actually certifiable on the bag and when I got home I noticed that it was my normal bag of coffee with an added sticker.  He said "If you see 2 hookers and one as a sticker on her shirt that says 'STD FREE' and the other does not which would you choose?"  I said I would pick the one with the sticker.  He said "Why, they are both hookers?  At the end of the day both are going to f*@k you.

I totally get where he is going...Lately, it seems like no matter what you purchase in the grocery store, you are getting a terrible product!  Take Kashi for example, they are using GM products in their cereal just like General Mills!  It is getting to the point that we can not trust anything unless we have grown/raised it ourselves or we know the local farmers raising/growing our food.

Point and case...normally I would be skeptical about buying 6 chickens from a farmer trying to sell me "organic" pastured chickens for just $2.10 per lb., but I have been to the farm and my husband sold her the organic feed through the winter.  When I picked up our 6 chickens this afternoon that had just been butchered hours before I knew that I had a great, natural product in my hands.  When I go to our friends farm each week to get our milk, I speak to the farmer and ask questions and I see the cows and how they are living.

The lesson that I am trying to teach my kids and that I am still working on is to eat as locally as possible and to always know where your food is coming from.

Let's stop choosing between crappy and crappier!

Strawberries - Frozen, Fermented, Dehydrated, and Enjoyed

I am taking a little break from cleaning strawberries to write about our new experience of picking strawberries.  Since my husband works 10 hour days Monday through Friday and 5 hours every Saturday morning, when I want to do something with the kids it is pretty much all on me.  Me, myself, and I plus four kids.  Taking the kids to pick berries has always been something on my to do list but just the thought of it made me so nervous.  Finally, this year with everyone being a little bit older I thought I would give it a try.  After all, we did manage to survive picking our own apples last fall and they have become great egg hunters when we go to our friends farm to get eggs every few weeks.

Not only did we survive but we managed to have a fantastic time!  Everyone had a great time picking, even Peylyn and Taj.  I told them that we had to try really hard to not step on any plants and that we were looking for the really red berries.  As I started cleaning the berries I was impressed at how well they did.

So now what do we do with all of these strawberries????  I froze a bunch because we LOVE strawberry smoothies, as soon as I type this up I am going to sit down and slice a bunch to dehydrate.  I thought that would be a yummy change to our granola and oatmeal and also just to have on hand for a quick little snack.  After cleaning a bunch to put in the fridge and enjoy just as they are I have a small batch left that I want to ferment.  I have been searching the internet but I can't find what I am looking for, I may just have to ferment these as I have fermented fruit in the past and see how it goes.  At $1.25 per pound I think I can spare a few for an experiment that could turn out to be really delicious.  I did dump about a pint into my very first batch of mead.  I am super excited about this!  I keep looking at the recipe in Wild Fermentation thinking that I need to make this...honey and water, nothing could be more simple!!!  I will let you know how the mead turns out.

Family Reunion

While I have many pictures on my phone from our family reunion today, I feel like this is the one that really expresses who we are.  This picture is of my 2 year old that was about to kiss a frog that my 8 year old caught, at the last minute she decided that her bear should kiss it.  We really are the odd balls of the family, not just my husband's side but mine as well.  We are the family whose child has really chapped lips and we walk in with his lips coated in grey because he has bentonite clay all over them to heal the skin.  We are the family that pulls out the squirt bottle of homemade bug spray that is full of essential oils and distilled water.  We are the family bringing their own mason jars full of the reverse osmosis water and pastured deviled eggs.  The family that when I child trips and gets a huge bruise comes running for some arnica.  The family that sits at the park bench nursing an almost 3 year old and secretly hoping that the 4 year old does not start asking to nurse as well.  Yes, we are those people and I couldn't be more pleased!!!!

By the way, I wanted to take a half gallon of saurerkraut but my husband said that no one would eat it (hello, his family is German!!!).  Quite a few people that I mentioned this to were quite upset that I didn't bring my homemade sauerkraut.  Next year I will have a huge batch with us!

Little Moments

What a wonderful way to start my Saturday!  The kids are running around the yard, the sun is shining, and I am sipping a yummy cup of coffee from this gorgeous handmade coffee mug (1 of a set) I received from a trade I made with a local mama. 

*The coffee mug was made by a very talented local artist, Todd M. Richardson.

Probiotic Slushies!

We had a pretty long, hot day today.  We spent quite a bit of our day outside tending to 2 different gardens, waiting around my husbands office for our car to get fixed (it needed a new battery), and just enjoying ourselves in the yard.  After a good hour of all of us running around playing in the afternoon sun, I decided it was time for a nice cold snack so I came in to see what I could find.  My fridge was pretty empty but like usual there was lots of kombucha and water kefir and in the freezer I found some frozen fruit (it was a tropical fruit blend), so I decided to dump them into my Ninja and see what happened.

With what I put in I wound up with about 6 large servings:

4 cups of frozen fruit
2 cups of kombucha (this batch happened to be flavored with orange juice)
2 cups of water kefir (I used plain)

I dumped it all into the blender and ran it on high for a few seconds.
You can add a bit more liquid for a more liquid slushie or use less and have a sorbet.

My kids all went crazy for it and they all came back for seconds!  I couldn't help myself, I had to have seconds as well.

Next time I make this, I think I will sneak in some greens just to give it a little more of a nutrition punch.