- By 100 Days of Real Food, on April 10th, 2012
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When your day just doesn’t go as planned or you simply don’t feel like cooking up a storm, here are four super easy “real food” dinners that can be whipped up in 15 minutes or less. That’s faster than the pizza delivery man. And most of these meals are made from ingredients with a decent shelf life that don’t have to be defrosted or prepared in advance. So if you pick up some of the suggested “items to have on-hand” the next time you’re at the store then you’ll be all set the next time you suddenly need to whip up a super quick wholesome dinner. Please also feel free to share your easy and fast “real food” dinner ideas in the comments below.
- Spaghetti with Sautéed Onion/Veggies
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Items to have on-hand:
- Dry organic whole-grain noodles – Look for a 1 or 2-ingredient organic pasta product that contains something like “organic whole durum wheat flour” and maybe “water” (avoid “semolina” because that is the refined version of whole durum wheat)
- Jar of organic spaghetti sauce – Eden Organic “no salt added” spaghetti sauce recommended (pictured)
- Olive oil or butter – For sauteing the veggies
- Onion - I always try to have onions in the house…they have a fairly long shelf life and can be used in so many different recipes
- Fresh (or frozen) organic vegetables – Some veggies that would nicely complement this dish are zucchini, yellow squash, bell peppers, and mushrooms
- Optional items – Freshly grated parmesan cheese, fresh or dried herbs for added flavoring of the sauce
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Simple directions:
1. Boil pasta according to package directions. Once the water is boiling most noodles take 7 – 10 minutes.
2. While noodles are boiling dice about a quarter of an onion. Heat a tablespoon of olive oil (or butter) in a large sauté pan over medium-low heat and add the onions. Continue Reading »
- By FoodBabe, on April 6th, 2012
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Today I’d like to introduce my very first “regular contributor” on the blog…Vani Hari a.k.a the Food Babe! Vani, a fellow “real food” blogger here in Charlotte, first caught my eye when I read her blog post entitled “Don’t Believe the Hype – There’s No Euphoria from Yoforia….” She did such a great job investigating the truth behind Yoforia’s claims (FYI – Yoforia has since contacted Vani and asked her to work with them on making product improvements) that I thought everyone would welcome a monthly visit from the “Food Babe” here on this site. So in the coming months expect to find out more than you ever wanted to know about what’s lurking in processed food!
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 When Lisa asked me to be a guest on her blog I jumped out of my seat – thrilled at the chance to reach out to all of you – and immediately knew what I wanted to write about. Hi, my name is Vani, and I share information about organic living, healthy travel and food activism on my blog Food Babe (and on Facebook). The love of real food is just one of the many things Lisa and I have in common, and I’m excited to be here today to share some startling facts about one my favorite foods.
My birthday was last week and I had only one thing on my mind. Can you guess what it was? Nope, it wasn’t thoughts about getting older, or what presents I wanted this year or where I wanted to go on my next vacation. All I could think about was “Where am I going to get my birthday cake from!?!”
This is a dilemma for my family and me every single time there is a birthday on the horizon. We sometimes have knock down, drag out fights about where we buy our cakes…and that’s because not everyone in my family follows the same real food principles as I do. (I’m secretly hoping they will read this post so they’ll think twice about fighting me next time around!)
Growing up we would always get our cake from the local grocery store chain “Harris Teeter.” This was our go-to cake for as long as I can remember. Then in college and in my early twenties I became a Costco member and was thrilled to be able to get such a huge decadent cake for only $14.99 on my college budget. Continue Reading »
- By 100 Days of Real Food, on April 4th, 2012
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If you want to eat local foods in the winter then you better figure out how to eat some big leafy greens like kale. Not to mention kale is packed with all sorts of good stuff for your body so if you can learn to enjoy this veggie then it’s a win-win for everyone.  Also just like apples, wheat and other whole foods there are many different varieties – and therefore flavors – of kale available. We recently picked up some “dinosaur kale” at our farmers’ market because with a name like that who wouldn’t want to at least try it?
It’s taken me a while, but I’ve finally figured out a few ways that our family can easily “eat more kale”….
- Eggs.
Puree kale into an egg dish like scrambled eggs, mini egg casseroles, quiche or egg soufflé. You could also use sautéed kale instead of a layer of meat on your Eggs Benedict this weekend. My husband says he might even like eggs better with kale than without. I am not sure I exactly agree with him on that, but the kale/egg combo is surprisingly good.
Green Eggs Recipe
- Salads.
I actually need to thank some of my blog readers for telling me that you could just eat kale raw in a salad. For a while I had the impression that kale had to be cooked. I will say though if you’re somewhat new to kale it could be overkill to just sit down to a big bowl of it so we started out by just mixing in a little bit of kale with our regular salad greens. The first night we tried this my husband declared, “The kids are NOT going to like this” but I said, “Just don’t say anything and see what happens.” Sure enough they ate it without even noticing the new, darker greens in the mix. (FYI – My kids did not always eat salad…it took a lot of repeated exposure before our 4-year-old learned it would be a “dinner norm” around here.) And I am also not a huge salad person myself so adding just a little bit to our standard lettuce was a good compromise for everyone.
Hint: Remove the center ribs from the kale before eating it raw.
Salad Recipes
- Pesto.
I don’t know about you, but our family LOVES some pesto. It’s great on everything from pasta to pizza to caprese salad to panini sandwiches. Continue Reading »
- By 100 Days of Real Food, on April 2nd, 2012
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I used to think we were fairly adventurous eaters and cooks. And even though I didn’t actually learn to cook until after college, once I did I quickly dabbled in everything from homemade egg rolls to pasta from scratch to my grandmother’s crepes. Nothing could have prepared me though for all the “new foods” that I had to learn about – and now can’t live without – once we made the switch to “real food.” I am constantly amazed at all the items on my regular shopping list that I had never purchased before we decided to cut out processed food…
- Whole-wheat flour
Other real food newbies likely “flirted” with whole-wheat flour on occasion, but no no…not me. I promise you that I had never before purchased or cooked with whole-wheat flour (because I hated anything made with it!) until the start of all this 2 years ago.
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- Oats
We used to eat boxed granola cereal, but it never occurred to me that you could actually make it yourself (and that it would be soooo much better)! The main ingredient in homemade granola is oats and the first time I made it I found myself saying… “Are plain ‘oats’ just oatmeal?” I’ve never been an oatmeal fan myself (and I’m still not, although I’ve since learned that my kids love it) therefore I never bought oats for any reason, but now I buy pounds of it every week and get worried if our supply is low!
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- Honey
Somebody must have bought at least one bottle of honey before our switch to real food because I remember a tiny bear shaped container of it in our pantry that was all crusted over and crystallized from lack of use (LOL). Continue Reading »
- By 100 Days of Real Food, on March 30th, 2012
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Today I’ve asked a fellow “real food” blogger to share her natural Easter egg dye method with us…so please “meet” Christina with Spoonfed (a Jamie Oliver blog of the month)!
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My name is Christina Le Beau, and I write a blog called Spoonfed, which is about raising food-literate children. My goal with Spoonfed (and its companion Facebook page) is to raise awareness of our food system, make kids part of the conversation and, importantly, encourage people to rethink their assumptions about kids and food. One topic I’ve covered frequently is the importance of eliminating petrochemical dyes from our food supply. As Lisa noted in her own recent post on the subject, artificial colors are all risk, no benefit. And who needs that in their Easter basket?
So here’s what we do come Easter time, egg dyeing at its simplest (with recipes inspired by my friend Kris Bordessa of Attainable Sustainable):
1. Hard-boil a bunch of eggs. Doesn’t matter if they’re white or pastel or brown. Each one lends itself to great color variations. (But choose local, pastured eggs if you can. Check out Local Harvest for why that’s important and where you can find good eggs near you.)
 2. On your stove, set out four pots* with two cups of water each.
3. To one pot, add a hefty teaspoon of turmeric powder (that’s your yellow). To another, add a couple handfuls of chopped red beets, either fresh or jarred (that’s pink). To a third, add two cups of frozen blueberries or blackberries (your blue). Bring the pots to boiling, then let them simmer five minutes. Continue Reading »
- By 100 Days of Real Food, on March 23rd, 2012
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One thing we expected to gain from our family’s strict “100 Days of Real Food” pledge was a new perspective. And a new perspective we got. I am convinced that before cutting out all highly processed food – including white flour and sugar – I was going through life completely oblivious to what I was eating and feeding my family. Not only was I ignoring the ingredients on the packaged stuff I was buying, but for some reason the long list of refined grains, artificial additives, and sweeteners wouldn’t have raised a red flag for me anyway.
But more than halfway into our real food pledge things were suddenly different. Thanks to Michael Pollan, we now understood that most of what we used to eat – including pasta made from scratch using white flour – was not the best choice. And after completely making over the way our family shops for food, cooks, and eats I cannot not help but observe what food choices others are making in this processed food world that we live in. Call it nosey, call it judgmental, but regardless - I am incredibly curious about what others are eating.
 I am especially curious about what other parents choose to feed their children. If you hand your kid a bag of chips, sure they are going to eat it and probably enjoy every last bite (I know my kids would). If you hand your kid some Pirate’s Booty or Veggie Straws because for some reason – that you might not be able to explain exactly – you think it’s a “healthier” alternative than chips I am sure they would eat that as well. Continue Reading »
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