Recipe - Fried Eggs

Do I really need to share a recipe for a fried egg? Probably not...but here are some tips anyway.

1. Use a cast iron pan and put a generous amount of bacon grease in it.
2. Let the pan get hot (on my gas stove I have high, 5, 4, 3, etc. I put it at 4).
3. Carefully crack a farm fresh chicken egg into the pan.
4. When that side is done (can't give you any hints there) flip it over. 
5. Count to 10 and serve with bacon, sausage or make a hamburger and flop it on top - now you have gravy for your burger.

There are a lot of good things about raw egg yolks. Cooking the egg this way gets the egg white crispy, but leaves plenty of gooey egg yolk. My daughter was absolutely disgusted by the way the egg looked. I made her try a bite (yes, she's 14, but I still make her try new things...) and now she asks for a fried egg often.

My cast iron pan isn't quite seasoned so I have to add a LOT of bacon grease. I really need to season it - any tips??? I've tried this in my teflon pan and it just doesn't taste the same.

I wouldn't recommend doing this with eggs from the grocery store.  By the way, I still have not mastered hard boiling a farm fresh egg - still cannot peel the silly thing!

If you want more egg info check out SimpleBites and KellytheKitchenKop.

This post has been linked to:
Grocery Cart Challenge
11th Heaven Homemaking Haven

Paleo Eating

A video for thought from PayNowLiveLater.

I'm not going to blog about whether the evolution theory is valid. As a Christ follower I have my own opinions, but not enough to debate the issue. I'm sure that there are blogs out there who love to debate issues if you want to discuss this with them :-)

I ask that you watch this video with an open mind about the food shown in the pictures. I'm not sure I agree with dairy - yet - haven't done enough research yet. I really enjoyed this 4 minute video.

Do you have a brain or has it been replaced with cauliflower? I admit, mine is cauliflower all too often!

Healthy Eating

If you've spent any time at all trying to figure out what is healthy to eat and what isn't, then you will see all of the controversies that are out there. Sometimes my head spins by the time I'm done reading. While I still want to know more information, I don't think increasing my stress level about what to eat is helpful.

About fifteen months ago our diet was based around grains - breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. To round out the menu, we ate a TON of fruit and dairy products, a little meat and a few vegetables.

Today it's based around meats and veggies. Little bit of dairy and fruit. Occasionally rice and pasta for my family. It's nice to see that we've made progress.

One of the best things that I have done is limit myself on how much time I spend researching. While I continue to learn, I try to buy whole foods as often as possible. So even if I buy store bought eggs instead of farm fresh eggs, my family is better off than they were when we were eating pancakes with a lot of maple syrup.

Check out Sara's new blog for some great info:
Raspberry Musings

Toilets

Last week I helped my friend clean the house that they just bought, helped stain some picnic shelters at church and worked on starting our garden.

Sometimes I wonder if I do anything around the house, but clearly I do a lot! It's not so clean right now, but the most important stuff is done. Laundry is done, we have food on the table, and the inside of the toilet is clean. Vacuuming, sweeping, mopping, bathtubs, etc will all have to wait.

That is a weird combination - but it works for me. I'm okay if people drop by my house as long as the inside of the toilet is clean.

Now you know the real me.

Anyone else have a weird issue like that or is it just me?

Grocery Shopping: Thrifty Timely Tip

I've been buying a lot of food, but haven't been good about posting. Not having beef in the freezer is killing me! It makes me think way too hard about what to fix for dinner. Our 1/4 of a beef should be ready soon so I'm buying just a few things at a time.

Sweet potatoes - do you love them or hate them? It seems like there isn't a happy medium there. I used to love them at Thanksgiving when we'd have canned yams with brown sugar and marshmallows on top. Okay, I really loved the marshmallows, but would eat a teeny tiny bit of the yam and call it good.

Today I eat yams/sweet potatoes a few times a week. Each sweet potato costs about $.65 each. Kind of an expensive purchase compared to other veggies, but so very good for you. I smother it in butter, celtic sea salt, and pepper. No more sugar for me. We also make baked sweet potato fries a few times a month, but I still haven't perfected the recipe yet.

Here are some other pictures that I've taken and neglected to post:

I am planting 6 - 4X4X4 garden plots (square foot gardening). I've planted 3 so far. I was soooo happy to hear it rain last night. My body is completely wiped out. I'm comforted by the fact that next year will go so much easier - won't be digging out our horrible clay dirt and replacing it by layering top soil, compost, vermiculite and peat moss (lasagna gardening). Thankfully we had a friend come over and rototill up the grass for us - this saved a lot of time. In the books I've read, they say you can plant right over the grass, but I was worried about doing that. Anyway, once the rain stops I'll be digging again. Hopefully my achy muscles will recover by then.

For some reason the linking to amazon isn't working....you can google square foot gardening and lasagna gardening for more info.

This post has been linked to:
Money Saving Mom
Grocery Cart Challenge

Frugal Primal Diet

Random picture: Lake where we go camping at. My kids and husband are fishing.

Today's random thoughts on being frugal and choosing a primal diet (kinda/sorta the name of the way I kinda/sorta eat...):

I say "I choose not to eat the bread" instead of "I can't eat that I'm on a diet."

I say "I choose not to spend my money because I have other priorities" instead of "I can't afford it, I'm too poor."

Instant Oatmeal

I still haven't found a solution to easily make one serving of oatmeal for my husband. He doesn't care for it leftover and I tried a few microwave recipes that I didn't care for.

For now, I've made up individual baggies with the dry ingrdients and will prepare it on the stove a few times a week for him. In the baggies I put:

• 3/4 cup rolled oats (I don't use quick oats - supposedly they break down faster in your body)
• 1 T brown sugar
• sprinkle some cinnamon over the top

In the morning I dump in the baggie of goodies, add 1 cup milk and 1/2 cup water. Bring to a boil and then simmer for a bit. The milk makes it creamy and adds a bit of protein.

He likes cut up apples or raisins in his oatmeal.

I do anything I can to make our mornings go more smoothly - my brain doesn't function at 6:15AM!

P.S. I'll be posting more after I get my garden planted. No wonder vegetables are so stinkin' expensive - this is back breaking work. I have 4 tomato plants in the ground and now it's supposed to by windy and rainy the rest of this week. Hopefully my wall o' water doesn't fall down and crush my tomato plant!

Frugal Gardening

My frugal gardening tip:

Don't Plant a Garden

Isn't that horrible for me, a frugalite to say? I do not save a penny by planting a garden. In fact, I spend a lot of pennies in order to have a garden. I don't know if it's the area I live in or if it's just me. I love the idea of self sustainability though AND you cannot beat a home grown tomato.

So once again, I'm going to dish out more money so I can move my garden to a sunny location and try my luck again.

Check out MySquareFootGarden for a bunch of wonderful advice! Any other websites you can recommend?

Primal / Paleo Diet

NOT a fad diet....it's my diet, AKA the way I eat. Here are a few pros I have found now that I eat differently. By the way, I thought all of the following issues were normal because I was getting older.

Pros

• Brain farts are gone (I swear half the time I felt like I had a brain injury - just couldn't think of the right word for the sentence) I'm not sure if this is from food or from the magnesium supplements that I'm taking.
• Hypoglycemia is gone.
• Dark dark dark dark eye circles are gone....I wouldn't go out in public without foundation on and then they still didn't look good, just not as horrible as they did.
• Excessive energy now - used to feel like I needed a nap every afternoon because I was completely wiped out, now I just enjoy laying down and doing nothing for ten minutes a day. I wouldn't let myself do that before because I'd sleep too long and feel worse afterwards. Previously I had to plan my day around the afternoon slump.
• Lost 10 pounds without trying. Even though I've been fairly thin my whole life (skinny genes from my momma) I've always had a large waist compared to the rest of my body. That is gone now!
• Inflamed ear (everything sounded muffled in my right ear - told it was seasonal allergies) is almost normal. Occasionally when I eat something it flares up again (I think maybe peanuts, but I'm not sure - still working on this).
• Went off birth control pill for acne. I'm still working on a few acne issues...I know that I can't use many different oils on my face. I can't eat coconut oil (which is supposed to be wonderful for most people). Can't take fish oil, again supposed to be great for most people.
• Not going into personal issues, but several problems were fixed by eating a different diet.

CONS
Of course, there were a few cons when I started eating differently. While I had excess energy for the first time in years, I also dealt with what people call low carb flu and/or candida (google for more info). This foggy feeling lasted for weeks and weeks and weeks. I think depending on how badly you ate before determines how long low carb flu and/or candida lasts. Since I ate "healthy grains" for the majority of my meals I think it lasted longer for me than it does for other people. Some people don't go through this at all - maybe you'll be one of the lucky ones.

The other major con is trying to figure out what to eat. Everything we ate was based off a carb - it was frugal and healthy to do so right? I'm still figuring this out. For example, take the carbonara recipe I posted previously. If you just skip the pasta it doesn't seem like it's enough to eat. Surprisingly it is! It's hard to describe, but it's almost as if you eat until you aren't hungry anymore instead of eating until you have a full feeling in your stomach.

Eating with other people always presents a challenge as well. In the beginning when I changed my diet, I didn't bake bread at all because it was way way way too tempting for me. Now, I make it weekly for my family and I don't really care about it. Occasionally I think I want to eat it, but really I think I just want the butter LOL! If my husband ever stops eating grains, then I won't make bread anymore...just because I've changed my mind about how bad I think it is, doesn't mean he believes it and I refuse to try to force them to eat the way I do. I try not to serve too many pasta dishes (ie. spaghetti)  because of this.

Body Fat Percentage
Note: My husband was a personal trainer (in another life LOL) - that's where these figures are coming from:

• Body fat percentage is now 15.5690%
• pre babies in 1995 was 18.42%
• post babies in 2005 was 17.7%

Eleven years ago in May 2000 I weighed a few pounds more than I do now, but my body fat percentage was 13.8%...I ran a lot, lifted a lot and ate about 1200 calories a day. I was STARVING all the time....I ate low fat everything and thought meat was terrible for you.

I ate a lot of grain carbs during this time. My youngest child was a year old at that time. November 2000 I weighed a few more pounds and added more body fat, May 2002, weighed a few more pounds and was 18.4% body fat. Dieting/restricting calories is NOT a sustainable lifestyle.

Food Allergies
Back in 2004 I had food allergy testing done - I was not allergic/sensitive to wheat; fast forward to 2010 I was definitely sensitive to wheat and dairy.

Current issues I think are diet related:

• my knees creak/grind when walking up the stairs....not sure if this is hereditary or not - a lot of family has issues with their knees
• acne - still working on
• occasional ear inflammation - not sure what is causing it.
• sugar/fruit - trying to figure out what I can eat right now. As my body heals, I know that I'll be able to eat more foods. I might have to adjust the timing as far as when I eat some fruit or honey. Right now I know I NEED a burger in the morning or I am starving after a few hours. Even if I eat enough protein/fat from eggs, bacon, pork, nuts etc. I still get hungry after a few hours. A burger with melted butter is what keeps me satisfied.

"Conventional Wisdom" says don't eat fat or you'll get fat. They are WRONG!

"Frugal Wisdom" says don't eat very much meat or you'll spend too much money. They are WRONG!

Here are some success stories that I find encouraging.

Where to begin?

1. Read the PerfectHealthDiet (book and site)
2. Jack Kruse - leptin issues (difficult to understand, critical to your health)
3. Read Kurt Harris at Archevore.
4. Research the controversies.
5. Read Primal Blueprint 101.
6. Read the blogs listed at Mark's Daily Apple "18 Underrated Blogs You Should Be Reading."

Most importantly, do what you think makes sense. I read what others were saying about the primal diet curing hypoglycemia so I decided to start testing things.  For example, one morning I ate a ton of potato, egg, and meat casserole for breakfast and lunch. I was a raving, starving lunatic the rest of the day. Clearly I found that I cannot eat very many potatoes in the morning. At dinner I can eat a bit, but I try to limit the amount of potatoes I eat.

I had to stop trying to eat "breakfast foods" for breakfast. I try to eat a hamburger with veggies most mornings. Cost = $.80 and I don't get hungry for HOURS, therefore I don't need to buy and eat snacks anymore.

Random Question
What's the difference between paleo and primal? Ummmm...I think the paleo group doesn't include dairy in their diet? Don't really care much what the name of the diet is, I just know that it works for me.

I would love to hear if you have had any success with any diet that you've done. By success, I mean long term success (feel great, good body weight/body fat, energy!) I think several people have had success with eating the "Nourishing Traditions" way.

Recipe - Carbonara

Phew! It took me a while to find this recipe, but I found it at Liberal Simplicity (formerly budgetconfessions.blogspot.com). Read her blog for more directions - I'm basically listing what I do.

Ingredients:

• Meat (strongly suggest bacon!) and veggies
• 1/2 c heavy cream (may need more depending on how much meat you use - sometimes I add whole milk if I don't have enough cream on hand).
• garlic
• 2 lightly beaten eggs
• salt and pepper
• bit o' crushed red pepper

This recipe is so versatile! Last time I made this I used 1 pound ground beef, bacon and zucchini.

Directions:
Saute garlic (I used 3 cloves) in some bacon grease over low heat for one minute (don't let it get brown). Add salt, pepper and red pepper. Add cream and cook for three minutes until sauce starts to boil. If you are me, you'll totally forget about the sauce and let it come to a complete boil. OOPS!

Take the sauce off the burner and SLOWLY pour beaten eggs into the sauce whisking continuously. Add meat (bacon, chicken, sausage, burger, whatever leftover meat you have).

Now for the fun part: Take this recipe and make it yours! Per the original recipe, in the past I've added fresh spinach in at the very end and it was tasty even though I don't usually care for cooked spinach. Fresh tomatoes and onions were awesome in this recipe as well. Some day I may try canned tomatoes in this. The recipe calls for parmesan cheese which I'm sure would be excellent.

This is one of our family favorites (I left out the pasta even though it's traditionally a pasta dish).

Home making - The Husband

Do you SHOW your husband that you respect him? I can't find it right now, but a while back I read that husbands know they are loved if you show that you respect them.

The definition of respect says this from dictionary.com:

to show regard or consideration for

One way I totally disrespect my husband is by not listening to him - either interrupting him, ignoring him or pretending that I'm listening when I'm really not.

Unfortunately, it seems to happen most when I get really busy. When I get busy he helps out around the house a ton - I repay his help by not listening to him. Not sure why I noticed this, but just thought I'd pass along the info - what can you do today to make your marriage stronger?

Homemaking - Take Care of Yourself

When is the last time you did something for yourself?

Taking care of yourself is NOT selfish. It will make you a better wife and mother. I'm sure you've heard that before! Whether you take 5 minutes to BE or a whole bon bon day, your family will be better off.

When my kids were little, Monday night was my night. I'd go downstairs and scrapbook for a few hours. We trained them that they couldn't bother mom during that time. I had to train myself to stay downstairs and take a break.

Remember: "being a mother, is enough."

Healthy Eating - Fructose Malabsorption

Picture Credit

Does an apple a day REALLY keep the doctor away? NOPE, not always. Read my post over at Healthy Eating to find out why.