How Our Family Operates

I cut and pasted this from an email I sent my sweet husband earlier today. He is usually in charge of getting dinner started since I get home last. He requires very specific instructions.

"Stephen-

Here is what is for dinner:

· Pork loin steak, in whole foods wrapper, top shelf of refrigerator. Just add some seasoning and either bake it on 350 until it’s done or cook it in a little olive oil in a frying pan.

· Use the steamer to steam broccoli (it’s already chopped and ready to throw in the steamer, in a baggie, bottom left drawer in refrigerator). Put a little lemon juice (bottle in door of refrigerator) and grated romano cheese (plastic sprouts container, top shelf of frig) on top.

· Slice up some pears (on the counter, they should be ripe).

The dogs are out of dog food, so I’ll pick some up on my way home."

He did an awesome job. The pork loin was the most tender thing I've eaten in forever. Stephen chose to bake it and it was delicious. I'm hoping to make it back to Whole Foods before the sale ends. I got it for $2.99 a pound, and the one I bought was slightly less than a pound.

Fabulous, it was, I tell you.

The Best Laid Dinner Plans

Doesn't this look good?

Tonight I was excited about dinner. I got something in my Urban Acres share and had to ask my friends on facebook what it was. I posted a picture and learned that I had received bok choy. Stir fry was in my immediate future.

I chopped up some veggies from my share and sauteed them in some garlic and olive oil. (I actually sauteed the buffalo stew meat first. I had marinated it in lemon juice and soy sauce.)Then I threw the veggies, bok choy and shitake mushrooms in the same pan so it would soak up all the juices left over from the meat.

I took a picture of the finished product before I cooked the rice. It's a good thing, too, because I totally scorched the rice. I know better than to leave rice cooking on a gas stove, but I got distracted with making something else and before I knew it, I had this:

That's not wild rice, folks. No, that's charred, burned, crispy brown rice. I ate it, but no one else did. Whoops. Everything else was purty tasty, though.

No complaining here.

$2 Lunch Challenge: Day One

Ms. Q from Fed Up With School Lunch and Liz Snyder started a challenge: to make a healthy, nutritious lunch for less than $2. The challenge was for this entire week, so I told my kids they weren't having hot lunch at school.

My son is a very picky eater, so you will see that his lunch is a little less well rounded than my daughter's, but it is food that is healthy and that he will eat.

I purchased all of the food you see at Whole Foods or got it from my Urban Acres share. It is all organic. The Urban Acres produce costs $50 for 30 pounds. I got a digital scale, weighed each item of food and multiplied it by the per ounce cost of the share to come up with the total.

The crackers (Wheat Thins) were purchased at CVS Sunday night (I was there getting the digital scale) when I realized that I didn't have bread and my son won't eat a tortilla. I could have gotten a better cracker at a better price at Whole Foods, but I was in a hurry.

My son's lunch, total $1.97:

• Crackers $0.51
• Peanut Butter (from the bulk food aisle at Whole Foods) $0.12
• Half of an organic granny smith apple $.30
• Half of an organic banana $0.27
• Sliced organic baby carrots $0.09
• Organic Popcorn (2 cups) $0.25
• The dark chocolate and strawberry yogurt covered pretzels from the bulk bin at Whole Foods $0.43

My daughter's lunch, total $1.91:

• Raw veggies (carrots, radishes, broccoli and grape tomatoes) $0.30
• Turkey and cheese rollups (tomato tortilla) $0.68
• Organic golden delicious apple $0.63
• Organic popcorn $0.25
• Ranch dressing $0.05

If I was able to send them to school with something hot, that would stay hot, that would expand the possibilities immensely. At this point, I don't think this will be that difficult.

Had they eaten lunch at school, they would have been eating this, which actually isn't that bad, but it would have cost $4.25:

Grilled Chicken Sandwich, 300 calories
Baked Beans, 176 calories
Carrot & Celery Sticks w/ Ranch, 189 calories
Fresh Sliced Apples, 36 calories
Dessert, 124 calories
TOTAL, 824 calories

Our school's food provider just recently started posting nutrition information with the menu items. In addition to posting what I pack for them, I'll post what they would have eaten at school. As far as their school goes, they are trying to make foods healthier, which is a very, very good thing.

Texas Daily Harvest

When I first visited the Urban Acres store, I picked up a gallon of fresh milk from Texas Daily Harvest. It was so fresh and unprocessed, the cream actually rose to the top of the container. My family loved it.

Well, Texas Daily Harvest will start making deliveries and we're signing up for one of their delivery groups. Here is the information for Home Delivery if you want to sign up:

Time to Find Your Delivery Group

Click here to go the the map of the Group Coordinators that have been set up as of today.

On the map, choose the drop location(s) most convenient for you. The green markers are confirmed, the blue are tentative. It would be best to have at least one green site on your list. Reply to this email with your name, phone number, and group choices in order of preference. Just use the group numbers for simplicity, please. I am working over-time getting the online ordering system ready to go. It will allow everyone to order and pay online. Group coordinators will NOT have to handle payments.

If you have friends who might be interested, please forward this information to them. Post to Facebook, Twitter, your neighborhood message board, anything you can think of to help us get the word out, please.

We are delivering in some outlying East Texas areas, too, as you can see from the map, so if you know anyone in the Tyler, Longview, Marshall area, please send this to them, also. We have milk, yogurt, and cheese available now.

We will have beef in the next couple of weeks, then pork around February, then produce, chicken and eggs next Spring/Summer.

We need more group coordinators, so if you think you might have any interest in being one, please call Kent at 903.335.1758 or reply to this email with your questions. We are really excited about getting home delivery up and going. Thank you for your interest and support of our farm.

Ramy Jisha
Texas Daily Harvest
www.TexasDailyHarvest.com

Month 2, Week 2 Budget and Menu Planning

I learned three very important lessons this weekend:

1. Do not take your kids to Whole Foods with you to shop.

2. Do not shop without a specific list or plan.

3. Do not shop when you are starving and haven't eaten all day.


That being said, I spent $50 on my Urban Acres share. It included tons of yummy produce. I'm not yet sure how I'm going to prepare the napa cabbage or the bok choy, but everything is cleaned, prepped and put away.

Here are the totals (I'm already in bed and not in front of the scanner, so no picture of the receipt):

Whole Foods, $118.71

Organic salted popcorn, $1.99

365 Corn Flakes (Whole Foods Brand is 365), $2.69

365 organic chicken broth, $1.99

Organic vanilla soy milk, 1 gallon, $5.69

Muir Glen fire roasted tomatoes, $1.50

Canned tomatoes, $1.49

Chocolate strawberry yogurt pretzels from bulk bin, $2.66

365 organic pinto beans, $1.49

365 organic crushed tomatoes, $1.99

365 organic red kidney beans, $1.49

365 organic cage free eggs, 2 dozen, $7.98

365 raisin bran, $2.69

Cinnamon crunch cereal, $3.79

Bulk peanut butter, $2.11

Bulk long grain brown rice, $.67

Organic valley milk, 1 gallon, $5.99

Beef stew meat, $6.69

Buffalo stew meat, $4.47 and $4.63

Pork shoulder steak, $2.66

Buffalo London Broil, $7.10 and $6.92

Pork Chops, $3.79

Organic string cheese, $5.99 (See Learning Point Number One)

White American cheese, $1.10

Honey maple turkey, $4.44

Salami, $4.95

Slider buns, 8 pack, $1.99

Tortillas, $1.99

Tomato tortillas, $2.49

6 mini cupcakes, $3.96 (See Learning Point Number 1 Again)

5 granny smith organic apples, $2.99

avacado, $2.49 (Learning Point Number Three, I was jonesing for Mexican food)

Lemons, $1.91

Tomato, $1.72

I also picked up a box of Wheat Thins at CVS for $4.89. (Outrageous, I tell you.)

The total for this week was $163.60. This means that next week my budget will be $56.40. That shouldn't be a problem, though, because I got tons of meat this week and still have a lot of fish and chicken in the freezer, too.

Saturday night we had mini-buffalo burgers with fresh fruit. I used the ground buffalo from last week, the slider buns and cheese from this week, and sliced up some fruit from the share. It was delicious!

I made beef chili today, using the beef stew meat, crushed tomatoes, and canned beans I got this weekend. I added a can of tomato sauce, cannelini beans, garlic and chipotle chili seasoning we already had. We ate it for lunch, Stephen will take some to work this week and I put some in the freezer for later.

Dinner tomorrow night is going to be stir fry with brown rice and lean buffalo. I'll stir fry red bell pepper, carrot, celery, shitake mushrooms, broccoli and bok choy with garlic and soy sauce. If there are any leftovers, they will go in someone's lunch.

Have a great week everyone!

Organic Banana Bread

We had a bunch of organic bananas in our Urban Acres share. We ate some, but the rest were starting to get overripe, so banana bread was the solution.

I again broke out The Joy of Cooking and found this recipe:

I didn't know what the word "Cockaigne" meant, so I looked it up. 'Cause I'm a dork like that.

From the World English Dictionary: medieval legend an imaginary land of luxury and idleness. Also, from Old French cocaigne, from Middle Low German kōkenje: small cake (of which the houses in the imaginary land are built); related to Spanish cucaña, Italian cuccagna.

Alrighty then.

I substituted 1 cup of whole wheat flour and 1/2 cup of oat flour for the all-purpose flour. I also used 1 and 3/4 cups of mashed bananas (because that's what we had). Instead of using white sugar, I used Florida Crystals organic cane sugar.

The bread is great for snacking or for breakfast.

Homemade Pizza: A Fan Favorite

The kids love pizza and with this homemade version, I like the price and the ingredients. Sprouts sells frozen balls of pizza dough that are seasoned with herbs like oregano. It's only $1.79, which is a bargain.

You have to thaw the dough and let it rise for a few hours, but it's definitely worth it. We add a can of organic tomato sauce and some fresh shredded mozzarella, bake it for 10 to 12 minutes, and Voila:

Yummy pizza, reasonable price, healthy ingredients and happy kids!