Today we went to the store and saw these:

Taco set

This is a set for people making tacos. Seems innocent enough right?

Except not… this is what is included in the taco set.

taco holders?

Forgive the pic quality please this was taken with my camera phone… but anyways.. taco holders?

Seriously?

How are these necessary? And talk about a uni-tasker!!!   Why do people need little contraptions that hold their tacos up for them? Isn’t that what your hands are for? TWO HANDS for TWO TACOS!

If you see another use for this please email me or drop me a line. Until then I shall keep using my hands to hold up my tacos.

The more I look into living a more ecofriendly lifestyle and the more that I try to infuse my children with the respect and love for the planet, the more that I realize that it is sort of like a religion.

We have what Thoreau called a hypaethral temple of sorts. It really isnt a true temple… and it really isnt a true church… it is just a respect, nurturing, and devotion for the world we live in. We admire what our world has become and we try to preserve it. I am very open with my children about what impact we have on our earth. Saturday morning when discussing animals and their sounds we talked about how the meat that we consume comes from animals. The dairy. The eggs.  We discussed how she should thank the animals involved and understand that they are part of our circle of life. She sees me pump for Calvin so she knows that milk can come from animals so I explained that cows, goats, sheep, etc. have similar breasts and thats how we get milk from them as well. She seems intrigued and we went further. She knows that cooking changes things because she helps me cook so much so we discussed how cooking made food and how veggies and fruits didnt need to be cooked to be eaten.  She had a few minutes where she was amazed at what things come from “moo cows” and I told her that we need to revere animals because they give so much to our life.

I know that this leans to a pantheistic view of life and that it involves worshiping animals and nature.. but I dont believe that it is exclusive of other beliefs that we may have. Maybe because of my own culture, knowing that my family stems from people who lived on ranches and had to work for their food in a way that is completely unfamiliar to most of us… I really want to make sure that my children know what food really is. Revering animals and nature comes naturally to me because I truly understand that the earth makes my life possible. While I dont worship in a church, my way of life does include being thankful for the forces that permit me to live my life the way that I do.  Sometimes that force is the sun. Other times it is the rain.  Our family adores rain. Not just in a “wow it cools down the heat here in the south”… but I allow my kids to play in it. Dance in it. Taste it. My children are not afraid of the rain and the wetness. My husband takes pictures and sits in awe studying the power of what our heavens have provided us.  We are truly thankful for it and watch its effects on our vegitation.

We try to eat locally, from farmers markets or Consumer Supported Agriculure shares… I know the man who grows the animals that end up on our plate. Our veggies arrive to us with dirt still firmly attached and I have been known to shake hands with the person whose hands tilled the soil that they grew in.  Kate knows that our family attemps to search within ourselves and our surroundings for sustenance.

This weekend I made her a toy snake, she asked for a toy snake when I gave her a choice. Instead of buying new filling or using new fabric, she helped me look through old fabric scraps that I had.. she picked out the scraps that she wanted me to use and she watched me sew her snake together by hand. We took an old pillow that was probably going to be retired soon and repurposed the innards of it for our snake. I used some smaller scraps for eyes and a tongue… and her snake was finished. It is made out of some black fabric with red flowers on it. It doesnt really look representative of any snake that you and I have seen.. but she loves it and she knows that we made it together.  We didnt have to buy a new toy at the store and we didnt have to buy anything to make it.

Kate loves yoga and understands peace and quiet time for meditation. We look within ourselves for peace and relaxation… we look at what we have on hand.

My hopes is that through living our life the way that we do our children will have a roadmap that will lead them to a true love for the earth that they live in.

Part of the definition of religion is a faith, a belief system… our religion doesnt involve prayers but it does involve music and art… we dont have scared texts but we do have the history of our earth and rituals and meditation. It doesnt have to do with the supernatural… but it is all about the natural. We give thanks and our practices are governed by our ethics and convictions. We do not have things that are divine, but many things in our world are sacred.

I find it distasteful to try and label ourselves…  but I also find it distateful when people say that to have ethics and beleifs you have to have an organized religion… I obviously dont believe that to be true.  We take what works for us from different systems and incorporate it into our lives. No organization needed. I have found that our family is happiest when it is allowed to grow and change… Michael and I have come a long way from the lives we used to lead and we will continue still to be dynamic in how we manifest our “faith”  but our beliefs remain steadfast.

Our way of life, or religion if you may… can be simply described as living in a way that shows respect for ourselves, our future, and our world…. and everything that encompasses that. However simple or complicated some may find that. It is us.

A little bit of family history here… my brother wont eat veggies. My father wont eat veggies. My mother would try to force feed us canned green beans and spinach which would promptly make us gag and puke yet we were not allowed to get up from our chairs until it was all off of our plate. So… I grew up hating veggies. One of my youngest memories is of sitting at a table with a plate of green metal smelling goop in front of me that my mother called spinach that I saw her pour out of a can and into our plates, it looked like sludge. I have vivid memories of the juices that my mother would make us with her extractor… all carrot based. I hate carrots.  She would try to trick us by putting apples, pears, and other fruits into it… but it was just a waste of good fruit to us. The carrots killed the yummy fruit flavor, worse when celery was put in it. ICK.

To this day I still believe that this harmed the way that my family views healthy eating. I cook and if the words “healthy” are uttered it is almost like a bad word… yet if I dont tell them what is in it.. they will eat it… and ask for seconds… so I have stopped saying what is in food and we are good to go.

WHen cooking for MIke and the kids I dont have the same struggle. Mike and i eat most veggies and Kate will too, we are starting Calvin on eating everything and hope that we dont have troubles with him. Yet sometimes all kids, even the best eaters…get picky.

There are days when Kate wont eat anything but soy cheese and crackers with maybe two grapes and 4 raisins. I have realized that this is why all kid food is “fortified” and has “100% of the needed supply of vitamins and minerals”.. because you dont know if that is all they are going to eat for the day… so you want to make sure that your food packs a serious punch healthwise.

This explains the allure of books like  The Sneaky Chef,and Deceptively Delicious. They are all mother’s desperate attempts at trying to trick their kids into eating better.

This becomes a real issue for those of us with kids with allergies or who are veg*s. I remember the phone call from my own inlaws that were concerned that Kate wasnt getting enough calcium in her diet because she couldnt eat dairy. I of course dont worry since I know that soy milk, tofu, and other products that we have on hand all have calcium in them. Leafy greens also have that and her diet is balanced enough that we arent concerned about her calcium intake.

I found the Pyramind website that the government has set up has some interesting info on where veg or dietary restricted families can get their nutricion from.

As for us?

I have been known to put turnips, brocolli, and cauliflower into mashed potatoes. I put tomatoes and spinach into breads. I bread meats with oats and whole wheat flour.  Grated zucchini and carrots taste great in cakes.  My family loooves quiches. Some phyllo dough and cream cheese/tofutti is a great device for delivering greens and other veggies into picky eaters.  Raw green beans are crunchy like chips and are well loved, sprinkle some paprika and salt on them for a twist. Or better yet, make your own baked veggie chips. Soups are a staple here. We make our own broths that are boiled down veggies and bones or something similar…  the list goes on and on…

Want some fun drinks for parties?  Here is one from Veg Kitchen:

Sneaky Peppermint!

Makes about 2 to 2 1/2 cups

• 1 cup soy milk
• 1/2 cup brewed, then cooled, peppermint tea (fairly strong)
• 1 cup ice cubes
• Handful of fresh spinach leaves (don’t let anybody see you do this.. it will make the drink green but not interrupt the flavor, adds nutrition)
• Raw sugar to taste, optional

Whirl away until in a food processor or blender until smooth. Pour into glasses to serve.

Teas are a great way to get nourishment into kids too. Red Raspberry Leaf and Nettle Tea which I drank when i was pregnant is a great sources of potassium , iron, and other goodies for your blood. Make a tea of these and make it into a popsciple for kids while sweetened with honey or stevia makes a good treat that they will LOVE to eat…. and they will think that they are getting away with something when they do!

Now I am off to find a way to sneak peas and liver into cream cheese icing. Wish me luck!

Squash is a food that is in season a great deal of the year here, our climate seems to lend itself to it being grown. We have this green which is my fave, a few yellow variaties, and some other round ones that look like little pumpkins.

The name of my dish “Calabazitas” is actually “little pumpkins” in spanish. This is a really great veg*an dish that is easy to make and inexpensive. We have been getting some great squash in our share recently and i had been waiting for the right opportunity to make a good dish out of them. Last night was the night.

I chopped some red onion. I like using red in this because it is sweeter. I let it sweat for a bit… I didnt want it brown but just translucent and soft. You know what I mean.  I love onion when it is soft and sweet. It adds depts to the party.

After this I added the chopped squash. I like it in squares or strips. I dont know the fancy schamncy name for that… I didnt go to culinary school folks. I just know that small means it cooks faster and I dont have patience or time. So small it is. I let those sweat for a bit and then I add a can of diced tomatoes and raise the heat a bit. At this time you can add corn, cooked and drained beans, and maybe a little veggie broth.  For spices I like cumin (duh), garlic, salt, pepper, maybe some red pepper or chipotle powder… but only if you can handle it. This dish has some great flavors on its own so it doesnt need much. Dont over do it. Cover and let it simmer for a while.

It tastes great right off of the oven but it also tastes good cold…I dont know why it actually tastes better the next day right out of the fridge like a cold soup.

This is a pretty typical mexican dish that I inherited from my mom. It is savory but subtle and easy for kids to eat because it is in small-ish chunks. I tell my kids that the tomato is ketchup. That helps a ton too.

Since Mike has been out of town I know that he has not been eating well so I made a salad for dinner to help his body recover from the evil crap food that he has been eating in Austin.

I used the fruits from our CSA share this week and veggies. It has beet greens, apples, citrus, and more.

I put some honey covered walnuts in it and make a citrus and apple cider vinegar dressing.

The bad:

I made baked fudge.

I baked it in some ceramic loaf pans that i have. One for me, one for Mike.

Mike had his in a nice glass container. With ice cream.  He is civilized… that cannot be expected from me.

I ate mine right out of the pan

Baked Fudge

2 eggs
1 cup sugar
2 heaping tablespoons cocoa
2 tablespoons flour
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 300 to 325 degrees.
Beat eggs until light in color. Beat in sugar until just combined.
Add cocoa, flour, melted butter, and vanilla extract. Mix gently until well combined.
Pour batter into four large ramekins or 1 8-inch square baking dish.
Set ramekins or pan into a larger pan halfway full of water.
Bake 40 to 50 minutes, or until upper crust is crispy and the rest of the batter is firm but not set. Toothpick should come out…not clean, but mixture should not be overly runny.

I ate mine with ice cream, you can make a whipped cream topping for it.

I shamlessly stole this from Pioneer Woman. Bless her soul.

It is called Industry Country Market it has solar and wind energy and they have classes about green living. They are also a little store and a quaint looking building.

This has been my dream todo for years. I want a little restaurant/store outside of the city.Where i grow my food and serve it to others.  Mike had even thought about putting an alien ship stuck on the land and give tours.

Someone already did this and it makes me sad because now if we do it, we will just seems like copycats. Oh well.

I have been cooking up a storm recently. Above is the banana bread that I made today.

After picking up my co-op share this week I was enthralled that we got greens and cauliflower. Today I made cauliflower curry with coconut milk for dinner. I veganized it (just like the banana bread above) because the cream does not go well with Kate.

Michael was in Austin this week for a few days and I dont realize how much I love him until he is gone… so when he got back I was so happy and now all I want to do is stare at him and make sure he never leaves my sight again. SO of course I cook a lot because I figure that if I cook good food he will never leave again right?

To celebrate we made home-made pizzas. Since she cant eat dairy her pizzas were with soy cheese of course. She loved making them. She stood up next to me and spread the cheese and sauce then counted out twenty pieces of pepperoni to put down on her pie. We got pictures but I havent uploaded them yet so you will have to wait for that… In this post I am going to discuss our last cooking experience with Kate. Making tamales.

Tamales are a very old dish that comes from Mexico. It is basically corn masa with spices, filled with meats and other random things. I usually make two or three types of tamales. One set of savory and one set of sweet. I love sweet tamales because I put in raisins, vanilla, cinammon, and whtever else i want to add to the mixture. Savory ones are a great way to use the leftovers from the week, just stuff them in the tamales and you are done.

There are as many different tamale recipes as there are tamale makers. There is no real super skeekrit and special tamale recipe out there that is better than all of the rest.. it really is a case of “i make what my mother taught me to make” or.. in my case since my mother couldnt make tamales to save her life… I make what people in real life and the internet have told me works and I mix all of the recipes up and make my own and it works for my family. Very scientific. I know. Be jealous of my accurate and exact measurements here.

Tamales a la Webb

The first thing you need to do is make the fillings. For my filling I started a few days before.

I made a pot roast that I didnt like, so I then cut it up and cooked it with potatoes and turned it into a beef stew. After a milion hours of being cooked (3 in the oven and 1 on the stove) the meat was falling apart and tender. We ate it alone on Saturday and it was to die for but we had tons of left overs which ended up in my tamales the next day. We also had some left over chicken from Friday’s dinner which was just roasted with some jalapeño and honey glaze. Again very tasty. The key to a good tamale recipe is making sure that the fillings are very tasty, maybe a little tastier than you would normally make a dish.. why? Well it’s simple. You only get a tablespoon or so of filling in each tamale, so it is diluted greatly within the masa that surrounds it. You want every little bit to count so make it tasty and worth it. This is a similar idea if you are making perogis, won tons, etc.

So this is what I started with.

Beef for filling

I first roasted it in the oven with some veggies and spices for around 3 hours, then I cooked it on the stovetop with fingerling potatoes and…

• chili powder to taste – i like mine spicy
• cumin – to taste, i like mine smokey
• garlic- to taste, I like to ward off vampires
• tomato sauce not too much or else it gets too watery and you dont want a watery tamale filling
• salt and pepper to taste
• chicken bouillon with water or chicken stock, enough for all of your meat to simmer in for a good long while. around an hour or so. until it falls apart and tastes like delishousness (yes that is a word, well in my mind it is)

As you can see in the picture, my meat was already cut into cubes. This makes it cook faster and easier when you are going to stuff your tamales.

You can let this sit overnight in the fridge if you wish, I would recommend if you did because it makes it all taste better after the flavors have been allowed to intermingle.

The next day, you get up bright and early… you feed the chickens (or children), you make yourself a pot of coffee or cocoa.. or water like me. And you get ready for a long process ahead of you. The work starts now.

You will need:

• a steamer – I have something like this.

steamer

This picture is from coking mexican recipes.com, which I think is a great website really… take a look. A lot of it is more “Tex-Mex” than “Mexican” for my tastes but I have been know to be a big purist… so this might be why.

If you dont have a steamer like this you dont need to go out and buy one. Some empty pie plates with holes cut in them on top of an inverted bowl will work fine really. I do use this for more than tamales. It makes exiting hot pasta faster and easier, and i do steam alot of things so this works for me.  This is definately not a uni-tasker in my book.

You will also need:

• tongs for picking up the hot tamales and
• large spoon or spreader. Yes an item exists that works PURELY to spread tamales but it is useless in my book. I also like using my hands alot so I did most of the spreading with my two favorite kitchen tools. My right hand and my left hand.
• Last but not least, the husks.

Corn husks are exactly what you think they are… dried husks of the corn plant. Please use the real ones. Please.

Before you start anything you have to take these husks and give them a good rise. Then put warm/hot water in a pot and submerge them in it while you are getting everything else ready. They need to get malleable and wet so that you can use them, they are of no use to you dry.

Drowned Husks

Next comes the masa preparation. If you are lucky enough to live in an area of town that has premade tamale masa, you can use that. If not it isnt that hard. Regular masa is what it starts off with. Just like you would use for making tortillas.

Then you add:

 paprika – for color
Salt to taste, at least a couple table spoons and remember this is going into the masa so here is NOT the time to skimp on the salt
Cumin – to taste s well
Chili flakes and chili powder, this depends on how hot you want it.. taste it and see. Some people take dried chiles like ancho chile and grind them into a powder and that gives it a little more flavor. that can be done as well. just use what you normally would use if you were making chili con carne stew. please dont use an awful powder that is nothing but salt and cumin. You know what? Just make your own.. seriously. it’s worth it and it lasts for a while. There is no reason to not use good chili powder. No excuses!!
Garlic powder- this depends on your tastes as well

To all of this you add some melted lard, butter, or corn oil. I have seen people use all three.  It is said that if you dont use lard they dont taste the same… well they are right. But I wont use lard in mine. Sorry. The amount of oil used isnt scientific to me.. you just use as much as you need so that it is the consistensy of a smooth peanut butter.  for this i use my hands. it is easier to tell when you have enough oil in it and to make sure you got it all.

Before

This is the masa with spices on it, before mixing.. you can see that it is crumbly.

After

This is what it looks like after you have mixed it all together. I noticed that it was still a little crumbly but not too much. If you pick some up with your hand and squeeze it, it should stick to itself and spread easily.  This needed some more oil so I added a smidge.

Finally

Here it is, ready to be used.. and smooth like peanut butter.

Now you are ready to spread. With your spoon or spreader (or hands) scoop up some of the masa and put it inside of the tamale.

tamale beginnings

Spread it out so that it is in the middle of the husk in a thin layer, then put meat or other filling in the middle.

Tamale Middle

You roll them up lengthwise and tuck in the tail. Putting them in the steamer one at a time with the open ends facing up. I did mine laying down this time because Kate was helping me.

Tamale Final

Now steam them for around 45-55 minutes. The house will start to small like tamales around the time that they are done. To test them pull one out and pull the husk open, if the tamale is solid and doesnt stay stuck on the husk then you are done. If not.. just send it back for a little while longer. Let them cool a little bit before eating them of course. that makes the masa firm up a tad more.

This is really easy to make, but labor intensive. Tamales are usually a group event… a few familes get together and make them because it takes so long that you want to be chatting with someone while making it. I made them with Kate. Here she is rolling up her tamales.

Kate be rollin'

Here she is squshing the masa into a husk

Kate be squishing

here are her little hands helping me out

Little hands

I hope you all make your own tamales. Let me know how they turn out!! This is a great activity for the kids so have them join in the fun.

Ouchie

Making this beauty…

Tortilla Espanola

Tortilla espanola is essentially the national dish of Spain. You can eat it as a tapa, for breakfast, in a bocadillo (sandwich), or for dinner with salad and a bit of jamon. Basically anytime, anywhere.

• 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 1-1/4 pounds waxy potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced (i used the cheese grater for this, which ensued in the pain shown above)
• 1 medium onion, thinly sliced
• 8 extra-large eggs
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

1. Heat the oil in a large cast-iron or nonstick skillet over medium-high until very hot but not smoking. Add the potatoes and onion, season with salt and pepper, reduce the heat to medium, and cook, stirring occasionally and adjusting the heat if necessary so that the vegetables do not brown, until the potatoes are tender when pierced with the tip of a parking knife, 15 to 20 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, beat the eggs with salt and pepper to taste in a large bowl. Add the potatoes to the eggs, then pour into the skillet, spreading the potatoes evenly in the pan. Cook for about 1 minute, just to set the bottom of the egg mixture. Reduce the heat to medium-low and cook for 20 minutes, or until almost set through. Carefully flip the tortilla over (invert it onto a plate if you must, then slide it back into the pan, bottom side up) and cook for 5 minutes longer, until set. Flip out onto a clean plate and allow to rest for 5 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.

I added some left over spiral sliced ham with a nice sweet flavor to it. Also I added some leftover asparaguses from my fun edible centerpiece for Devin’s blessingway. It was a delishous concoction that I finished off in a different way than the recipe states. I stuffed it in the oven for 45 minutes at 300 and it cooked nice and even.

It got great reviews from the chiltlins and urban cowboy.

You want proof?

Do you like See-food?

I do not like buying meat at the grocery store. I actually hate most grocery stores. I avoid them most of the time by getting my products from other places if I can, i still have not found a great place to get everything but I am working on it and I found the perfect place to get my meatz… Paidom Meats.

Moo Cow Parts

Every couple of months I get an email from the meat monger.  “We are coming your way Houston!!” and the orders get placed.  We wait with anticipation for the day to come, the day that we go to the parking lot of whatever establishment they tell us they will be at and we pick up our box of frozen meatz and go home. The tension builds and the saliva drips. We are ready for the arrival of the big guns.

From my meat monger I get grass fed organic beef, free range organic chickens, lamb, goat, eggs, etc.  The products are exquisite and I get comments on my food all of the time. The beef is better for you and leaner, the chicken tastes… well… like chicken. Not like a wet sock.  Apart from the food being healthier, it is cheaper than getting quality meat at the grocery store. I also get the benefit of helping out our local economy because this is a Texas farm with hardworking people who care about the environment and about our world’s future.

Want to learn more about eating local and having sustainable foods in your home?

Eat Wild

Sustainable Table

Local Harvest

Eat Well Guide