Meet "Wheatballs!"

Want to cut down on eating red meat and also get more whole grains in your diet?  (Not to mention cutting food costs!)  Get some whole wheat kernels.  Crack them (grind coarsely) in a hand grinder or coffee mill.  Or you can buy it already cracked.  

Cook 1 C. cracked wheat in 1 3/4 C. water about 15 minutes, stirring now and then. 

 Add 1/4 C. minced red onion

          2 T. Braggs Liquid Aminos (or use soy sauce, but Braggs is better)

          1/2 C. whole wheat flour

          1/2 C. rolled oats 

          Spices:  1 1/2  t. cumin, 2 t. dried basil, 1/2 t. coriander; dash of cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves.

 Shape into meatballs, about an inch in diameter, and brown in skillet.  I use a little coconut oil, even in a no-stick skillet.  Serve with spaghetti sauce (I use my home-canned) over pasta, mashed potatoes, or polenta.  You can also use this wheatball recipe to make patties instead and use them in place of hambergers.    

Dilly Garlic Toasted Rolls with Veggie Spaghetti

I used the spaghetti sauce that I had made in the crock pot with basil and red onion (See previous recipe.) on whole wheat spaghetti noodles.  Then on top I sprinkled some nutritional yeast and chopped yellow tomatoes, a dash of almond "parmesan" and added a drizzle of olive oil. I served it with this split, toasted whole wheat roll which was buttered, then sprinkled with a little garlic powder and dried dill weed.  Good eating!

Crockpot Spaghetti/Pizza Sauce

We have had several half-ripe tomatoes with bad spots, so resourcefully speaking, I had to do something so that they would not become a total compost. (I do love the red-yellow-green color combination of these heirloom tomatoes.)  There has not been an abundance of tomatoes this year to warrant a big production of canning.

I cut up the good parts of the (washed) tomatoes, threw them in three smallish crock pots, chunked up about 1 medium red onion, and a handful of basil leaves from the garden for each crock pot. That's it!  I did not even take off the tomato skins.  I let it cook all night on high, no lid, so that the moisture would decrease.  I did not even add salt.  Next morning I turned the crock pots down to low for a couple of hours, then turned them off and let them cool down.  I saw that the volume had gone down to about half and the mixture was getting thick enough to make good sauce.  Then I just put the contents into the blender.  It tastes wonderful!  Sweet, thick, and just right.  I have made several batches--canned some of it, ate some on our mud-oven pizza (more about that later), and had some on spaghetti.  It could easily be frozen.  Great sauce, very little work, using up what is available.

Resourceful Decorating

Ok, so this is not food!  But it does reflect my resourceful nature.  The thrift store finds here are the coverlet, pillowcases,  bedskirt, and red pillow cover that I made from a thrift-store sweater.  The treasure hunts were such fun, and I spent not more than $14 total.  My form of guilt-free recreation!

The hens

In an effort to be more self-sustaining we acquired 5 hens about a month ago after Bob built them a beautiful A-frame chicken tractor.  This provides them a movable spot of ground in the yard every day.  They roost and lay eggs in their upstairs quarters, and spend most of the day pecking and scratching for food downstairs.

They live on laying pellets, water, and grain as well as table scraps we give them often.  They squawk if they see me outside and I do not bring them a treat.  We have 3 Black Astralorpes and 2 Buff Orpingtons.   Their pecking order is really something to behold.  The largest black hen is the boss, Sargeant.  The other 2 black hens, Lizzy and Lucy, are next in line, and the 2 tan hens, Fanny and Blondie, are at the bottom.  Fanny and Blondie are very easily intimidated by Sargeant.

They all lay light brown eggs and are really pretty low-maintenance.  The grandchildren love to find the eggs in the nests.  We pull the ramp up at night to keep out the predators, in case they decide to burrow underneath and have a chicken dinner.  Then we move the tractor to a different spot in the yard.

It is nice to know that the eggs you are eating are hormone/antibiotic free and come from happy and well- nourished hens.  It is pretty cool to gather your own food, right here in the city.  

Quinoa, (keen-wa) the versatile grain

I decided to make my own food for 5 days of cabin camping this summer.  I wanted to try to come up with menus that I could prepare quickly that would be healthy.  I learned about this grain called quinoa, high in protein and lightweight.  Its' blandness lends well to being adaptable to just about any flavor.  Available from the health food store, it can be breakfast, lunch, or dinner, depending on what you put with it.

I used vegetables from my garden which I had washed and bagged ahead of time, nuts, dried fruit (some of it I dried myself at home)  and spices to flavor the quinoa.  We really never got tired of it. I cooked for my husband and myself and gave out a lot of samples to other campers.

Quinoa is cooked with twice as much water as grain.  It takes about 20 to 30 minutes.  I used 1 C. quinoa for a meal for both of us, which was plenty.  The greens I added at the end of the cooking time.  I just turned off the heat and added them, and put the lid back on.

Spices added to lunch and dinner were used interchangably--mainly just cumin, dried basil, and curry since I was travelling lightly.  Redmond salt was also added sparingly.  I brought along a small chopping board and a pocket knife which I used to chop the vegetables.  Rugged, huh!

Here are my menus.

Monday:  (Breakfast was at home.)
                Lunch:  quinoa with almonds, kale, onions, fresh basil, and fresh tomato
                Dinner:  quinoa with carrots, walnuts, spiced with curry.
                Snacks:  dried bananas with peanuts; orange; apple

Tuesday:  Breakfast:  quinoa with raisins, pecans, nutmeg (grated fresh), honeybutter, and cinnamon
                Lunch:  quinoa with beet greens, onions, basil, and fresh tomato
                Dinner:  quinoa with pizza sauce (canned, homemade), green beans I canned last summer, cumin as a spice, and peanuts
                Snacks:  dried blueberries with almonds; apple; orange

Wednesday:  Breakfast:  quinoa with apple, pecans, grated natural coconut, cinnamon, and honeybutter
                     Lunch:  quinoa with green onions, almonds, and broccoli raab, curry and cumin
                     Dinner:  quinoa with green beans, carrots, walnuts, fresh tomato, basil as a spice
                     Snacks:  dried banans with peanuts; apple; orange

Thursday:  Breakfast:  Quinoa with banana and peanuts, honeybutter, and freshly grated nutmeg
                 Lunch:  quinoa with celery (chopped fine), nutritional yeast, ground flax seeds, almonds, raisins
                 Dinner:  quinoa with garbanzo beans, green onion, and pizza sauce
                 Snacks:  raisins and pecans, apple, orange

Friday:  Breakfast:  quinoa with dried blueberrys, almonds, and honeybutter
             Lunch:  quinoa with walnuts, beet greens, ground flaxseed, and nutritional yeast
             Dinner:  quinoa with coconut, green onions, carrots, and pecans
             Snacks:  peanuts and dried bananas, orange, apple

Saturday:  Breakfast:  applesauce and granola bars (no time to cook!)