Organic Olive Tapenade

While, technically, a tapenade has capers in it, capers are not one of the foods on my Mellman plan. So, I improvised.




I have a mini-cuisinart, which was perfect for this little spread. I put the following ingredients in the bowl: a can of organic green olives, a couple of tablespoons of the olive juice, the zest and juice of one-half of a lemon, 1 teaspoon of salt (a little much, I'd do 1/2 teaspoon next time), 1 teaspoon of pepper, and 3 tablespoons of olive oil.


I pulsed it on low until it was the right consistency. There were a couple of whole olives that escaped the blade, but they didn't escape my mouth.


I put some goat cheese and the tapenade on a rye cracker and made a perfect little snack. The tapenade was the perfect blend of salt and tangy, but still very light at the same time.

The tapenade would be delicious on fish or instead of pesto on pasta. Or, just as a dip.

Brief Hiatus and Budget Observations

I will be out of town for work for most of this upcoming week, which means there will be little to no blogging. Unless I post pictures of my hotel room. Stephen is going to be home alone with the kids.

Which means he's da man.

Which translates into: Easy meals and lunches are mandatory.

The kids will eat lunch at school this week. *shudder* I'm throwing Stephen a bone on this one.

Dinners will be a crockpot stew I will make ahead of time, spaghetti with butter and parmesan, and one night will be broiled fish with steamed veggies. I'm sure there will be cereal for dinner one night.

I'm headed to the grocery store for a few staples in the morning, but we have pretty much everything we need. I went over budget last week, but didn't keep track (or blog about it, sorry). I've figured out, though, why I haven't been able to stick to my original budget.

There are two very logical explanations. First, the kids aren't eating lunch at school. I'm packing their lunches. I figure this adds an additional $20 a week to the budget.

Second, I'm back on the Mellman plan. Which means my diet consists of very specific and sometimes expensive items. Like buffalo. And cashews. And goat cheese. I'm going to have to figure out a way to either spend less on these items, or as I add new foods, hope that the ones I add aren't uber expensive.

I'm stumbling along the way regarding the budget, but I'll get there.

It's all a journey, right?

Roasted Organic Potatoes, Broiled Buffalo and Homemade Cheddar Cheese Breadsticks

Buffalo. It's what's for dinner.

Along with some roasted potatoes and homemade cheddar cheese bread sticks. I used the bread machine and Texas Daily Harvest cheddar.

I have it on good authority (the husband and kids) that the bread sticks were delish. (They aren't on my Mellman plan, so I didn't eat them.) But, the buffalo and potatoes I did eat. And they were good.

Delicious and Super Easy Nut Butter Cookies

There's nothing quite like diving into a plate full of these:

These are so easy to make, and totally on my Mellman plan. Mix in a bowl one cup of sugar (I used organic cane sugar by Florida Crystals), one egg (Organic Valley) and one cup of any nut butter. I used cashew butter (Artisana), but since it's pricey, I substituted 1/2 cup of finely chopped cashews for 1/2 cup of the cashew butter.

Once you stir it up, it will look like this:

I added a dash of cinnamon and vanilla extract. Then used a small scoop to line them up on the Silpat (greatest invention known to cookies).

Then pop them into a 350 degree oven and set the timer for 14 minutes. About midway through, they will look like this:

Check them at the 14 minute mark. They may need another minute or two.

But DON'T GO FAR. Definitely don't get distracted by writing a blog post about the cookies. They burn to a crisp before you can upload a few pictures.

I wonder how they'll taste with that freshly burnt flavor.

Homemade Organic Egg Noodles and My Version of Fettucine Alfredo, Mellman Style

As I've mentioned before, I'm on a pretty strict diet, so the things I can eat are limited. I really wanted some pasta and wondered if I could make it myself using ingredients I knew I could eat. Turns out, if you're willing to experiment in the kitchen, you can pretty much make anything you want.

Off I went to Cooks.com on a noodle reconnaissance mission and found this recipe for Easy Homemade Egg Noodles. It called for 1 cup of flour, 1 egg and 1/2 egg shell of milk. I can have oat flour and soy flour, eggs and soy milk. Woo-hoo! I chose oat flour, because it's not as dense as the soy flour.

I doubled the recipe and my daughter and I went to work. First, we put all three of the ingredients in the bowl.

This is the part she really likes, mixing it all up:

It was still a little dry, so we added three caps of soy milk (we used the cap on the soy milk container). She was off to the shower, so I made it into a ball and put in on the floured cutting board. This is after I'd flattened it out a bit.

Listening to the background music of a six year old and almost eight year old making an unholy mess in the bathroom, I rolled the bad boy out. It wasn't very sticky, which was sort of surprising. I was able to use the rolling pin no problem.

Pay attention, you'll want to write this down: (a) I had a rolling pin; and (b) I was able to find it. It's a miracle. November 2010.

As I was rolling strips with the pizza cutter, two very wet kids were suddenly at my side. Ooh, kitchen tools. They wanted in.

Mostly, my son wanted to know why he had to hold the pizza cutter so I could take a picture.

Umm, helloooo. Look at that picture. What day job? Just kidding.

Once the dough was all cut up into strips, I put them in a pot of salted boiling water along with some olive oil so they wouldn't stick to each other. I added them one at a time and made sure to stir frequently. They cooked for about 30 minutes on a low boil.

The recipe calls for chicken or vegetable broth to cook them in, which would be great, except I can't eat those. So, for now it's water.

When they were done, I strained them and put them in a big bowl.

I wasn't done, though. Oh, no. I didn't want to eat plain noodles. So I added a little bit of olive oil, goat cheese, salt, pepper and some fresh chopped parsley. My own version of fettucine alfredo. My kids didn't care for the noodles, which are a far cry from the processed bleached semolina noodles they're used to. That's okay. I liked them and I'll keep introducing them to the kids until their tastes evolve.

Right now I'm just excited to have a pasta that works for me. And one that's easy to make and tasty. Can't go wrong with that combo.

The Tough Question: How Do We Become An Organic Family On A Budget?

It's been in the back of my mind for years maybe. What we eat. What I buy. I've known it wasn't the best, but a more than full-time job, the kids' school schedules, and my husband's return to school full-time increased my stress and decreased any extra energy I had to think about it.

Over time I got tired. Bone dragging tired. So tired I could barely make it to the end of the day. And cereal and pizza seemed to make sense. "I don't have time to cook," I said. "I need sleep."

But it didn't matter how much sleep I got. I was still exhausted. So, I went to my regular doctor. "There's nothing wrong with you," he said.

My hair started to fall out. Like, covered up the bathroom floor in a dark shag carpet of the stuff that was still supposed to be attached to my head, falling out. So, back to the doctor I went.

"There's nothing wrong with you," he said.

"Yes, there is."

So he did a full blood work-up. Four vials of blood to check my thyroid, white blood cells, cholestorol, lupis indicators, and a whole page worth of stats. The prognosis?

"There's nothing wrong with you."

To say I was frustrated would be a monumental understatement.

Desparate, I turned to non-traditional methods. My husband and I talked long and hard about it. We tapped our savings and I signed up for the Mellman plan. Nowhere left to turn, we invested in my health. Quite honestly, it was a last ditch effort. We had no idea what to do, but we had to do something.

Not long after I started the program, my hair stopped falling out. And I had ENERGY. And I felt better. I was preparing my own healthier foods, the ones I could eat, but I was still feeding my family the same stuff I had been cooking before. In other words, crap. This quietly, unobtrusively gnawed at me, a silent hammering away at my subconscience.

Then I watched Food, Inc.

Insert several hours of contemplation. Then anger. Then resolve. And hours of research.

I was exposed to new vocabulary words, like free-range, organic, locavore and grass fed. But I also remembered words I already knew, like budget, depleted savings and the phrase "full-time working mom."

I had hard questions and wanted answers Google couldn't give me. How do I feed a family of 4 a healthy, organic, local diet without blowing my budget? What meals can I prepare that won't require hours in the kitchen? Can I do it without making a zillion trips to thirty different stores? How will the pickiest eater on the face of the planet, my eight year old, deal with these changes?

How do we become an organic family on a budget?

This blog is my attempt to answer that question. I'm not naive enough to think it will happen overnight or that I won't make mistakes along the way. But I have to try.