Go.  Now.  Read this, right here.

It’s a blog post from “Cultivating Home”.  I love that blog - she lives on a farm with her husband and 5 kids (the youngest of whom was born shortly after Jack was).  Her photos are always wonderful, but usually on the nicey nice side of life.  But not this post. 

This post shows the more gory side of life on a farm, and proves to us city-raised folks that chickens do not “come from the back aisles of the grocery store”.

I must say, if I would have seen these photos when I was a bit younger, I would have run screaming naked through the night, and pledged myself to vegetarianism forever.  Watching an animal lose it’s life is something I can’t rationalize to my overly emotional self, no matter how much I love me some chicken noodle soup!  I mean, shoot, I was one of those kids that would get angry if someone stepped on an ant.  Never ever could I have stomached seeing a chicken (who was just happily clucking at me 5 minutes prior) hanging upside down on my picnic table, with blood dripping out of it’s decapitated body.

I’d much rather pretend that dead chickens were born that way.  It makes frying the poor things soooo much more easier on my soul.

Ok.  There seems to be a rash of “realness” coming out in many mommy bloggers.  You see, there are a few (and one especially well known) home making blogs where the authors present themselves to be the perfect wife, mom, teacher, homemaker, etc.  In a turning of the tide movement, mommies every where seem to be coming out of the woodworks to show how UNperfect their life really is at certain moments.

And you know what?  It’s a breath of fresh air to see another homemaking blogger let down her pretenses and show what her house is truly like amidst the daily coming and goings of family life.  You see….sometimes, a dedicated stay-at-home mom (or any mom, for that matter!!) can get so caught up in wanting to be a “super-woman” that they feel crushed if they’re are unable to maintain a perfectly clean home and perfectly behaved children.  Reading blogs where other mommies seem to have it ALL together doesn’t help matters any either.  It can make us feel (in worst case scenarios) like jumping in our 3 day old pile of laundry and hiding with our store bought tide.

So with that in mind, I was thinking of something else that I’ve wondered about.  (Brace yourself…I’m gonna “be real”, real quick).

In today’s health concious society, “homemade meals” are all the rage, right?  Cooking at home is purpoted to be the best invention since sliced (homemade) bread.

Now, I’m not sure about you guys, but growing up, “Homemade meals” in my parent’s house meant just that - meals that were made at home.  Whether that meant opening cans, dumping out a quick box of Kraft Mac & Cheese for lunch, or rolling out some pillsbury pie crusts, didn’t matter.  Homemade was anything cooked at home. I never even thought to question this!  Mom would often say “this is cooked from scratch” - and we’d laugh and say “who scratched it??”, to which she’d simply reply “The Jolly Green Giant” or “Campbells”.   And it worked great for us.  The food tasted terrific, it was made with love, and it guided me right on up into a pretty healthy adulthood life.  Therefore, it never occured to me that there was a whole other attitute towards homemade meals….an attitute that scoffed at homemade meals that weren’t completely made from HOME scratch.  I am finding this particular attitude more and more in various books I read or blogs I encounter.  I sometimes even get the impression from many blogs that one should never even buy store bought canned goods!  That was quite a shocker to me when I first started researching on how to fill a home pantry. 

Does anyone out there truly NOT buy canned goods??  Canned goods, to me, are quintessential.  Pork & Beans, french cut string beans, cream corn, canned peaches, cream of mushroom…. most cans cost less than 60 cent per can, so they’re not really that expensive.  And I’m not sure if I’m reading right, but when I look at the ingredients of a can of string beans, all I ever see is “String Beans, Water” (maybe “Salt” on some?).  Nothing funky, right?  I LOVE canned foods, and I’m not sure if I could survive daily cooking without them.  And the occassional can of pineapple is auyummi.

But when I read some homemaking advice books / blogs, I get the impression that I “should” feel inadequate because I’m not growing my own lima beans, preserving my own vine grown tomatoes, shaving the corn off of the cob myself, or chopping my organic farmer’s market mustard greens.  Since when did the cook at home movement become the “cook-only-from-organic-scratch-or-your-family-isn’t-being-well-fed” movement???  

So anyway…what I’m getting at (I can be quite long winded) is this….

Does anyone else besides myself still find “cooking from pure scratch” a novelty that just doesn’t fit into every day life?? What does “Homemade Meals” mean to YOU??

Sometimes I wonder if there are hoards of people out there cooking from scratch and laughing at my Jolly Green Giant loving self, or if these homemaking blogs present only an ideal that really isn’t followed by that many people.  I mean, c’mon people…opening a ready-made can or two for dinner side dish is, to me, a time-saving, awesome modern luxury that is well worth the “less than a buck per can” cost.  I also love me a 33 cent box of Great Value Mac & Cheese with Campbells Tomato Soup on the side once in a while.  (Isn’t that sooo UN-PC??) 

Other things I hear society “telling us” about eating, but I don’t go for, are….

 ~ “Everything tastes better if homemade”.  I don’t agree.  Little Debbie can make a better swiss roll than I can any day, Starbucks just has some major mojo goin’ on in the coffee arena, homemade tortillas tastes exactly the same irregardless of who makes them, Pillsbury chocolate chip cokies are beyond awesome, and Heinz can ketchup my fries any day.  I know many things contain some supposedly bad-for-you preservatives, but I’d bet my dollar bill that a company who cooks up millions of the exact same foods daily - and sells them - has found a winning recipe that you probably haven’t.  Just because something is “company made” doesn’t make it less tasteworthy than it’s homemade counterpart.

~ “Go Organic, or Die!”   Maybe it’s because I dislike fads, but everyone’s fascination with organic this, and organic that just bugs me.  Or perhaps maybe it’s because my wallet dislikes seeing one product for $3, and the same size product in organic for $6.  So I’m supposed to choose between eating “organic” and thus starving because I can’t afford much…or eating non-organic and dying a slow, miserable death from pesticide poisoning??  I dunno.  I’m just not all that convinced that the non-organic milk I’ve been drinking for 25 years now is suddenly killing me. 

…..which brings me to….

~ ”Choices, choices, for one and all!”   Why, oh why do we have so many choices for anything and everything??  Why can’t flour be flour and sugar be sugar and rice be rice?  Just give me a barrel to tote it out in. 

Anyway.  I’m not suggesting in any way that one should eat nothing but storebought items.  I myself do cook from scratch occassionally, and shop our local farmers market frequently (because it’s cheaper).  It’s just that I view eating and meal preparation like the Greeks suggest….”Do all things in moderation”.

So anywho.

That’s my bit of “realness” for today.  Although I do love cooking “homemade meals”, I rarely scratch them myself because I am a can-buying, non-organic, choice-denying, boxed mac&cheese lover. 

(Would you like fries with that?)

hrmph.

I’ve been pondering all day what to use for this week’s Works for Me Wednesday (Hosted by Shannon, at the Rocks in My Dryer blog) and after American Idol tonight I had a burst of inspiration.  “Bread!” I thought.   “I’ll talk about bread”.

Sounds exciting, right? The life of a stay at home housewife has many thrills.  :) 

Ever since starting my sugar free diet over 3 weeks ago (I’m a gestational diabetic), I’ve had to completely change my way of thinking about the foods I cook and what I eat.  Some of our most favorite (and easiest) dishes at our house include homemade mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, and white flour french bread made in my bread machine  Unfortunately, all of these are starches - and they turn right to sugar!

I have never cared too much for “brown bread” (whole wheat / whole grain) even though I knew it was healthiest for me even without this gestational diabetes thing.  My mom uses the whole grain bread (without high fructose corn syrup) at her house, and I’ve been eating that a little but otherwise bread has been pretty much non-existant in our house for nearly a month now and my poor bread machine has been crying in loneliness locked up in my flour cabinet.  I felt sorry for the poor machine, which has previously given us tremendously yummy french bread - but what could I do?  I like easy recipes that can be completely done in the bread machine (the kind with just a few ingredients) and the only ones I knew were with white flour.  I gave a half hearted attempt a few times to find whole wheat bread, but most recipes call for at least a cup or more of white flour mixed in.  I also read how whole wheat recipes usually come out very hard, thick, and too dense for newbie bread makers to try. 

Finally, last night, I discovered what seemed to be an easy recipe on my favorite recipe site - RecipeZaar.com.  (Here’s the link to the original post on the site!  Try it out and give the cook a review!).

The recipe is for 100% whole wheat bread, made in the bread machine.  Here are the ingredients -

1 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast
3 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 tablespoons white sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons nonfat dry milk powder
1 1/2 tablespoons margarine
1 1/4 cups water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)

It uses ingredients most of us already have (I used Country Crock butter in the tub instead of margarine), doesn’t call for much sugar (I only used 1 tablespoon…you can probably substitute for something else as all it is for is food for the yeast I believe), and was very “set it and forget it”.  Best of all?  No preservatives, I know exactly what’s in it, and there’s no high fructose corn syrup.

So, at 9:00 pm last night, I excitedly dragged my trusty $2.00 electric bread machine down (Goodwill second hand shop is great…my bread machine retails for $100 brand new).  Then I opened the first pack of whole wheat flour I’ve ever purchased and started dumping my ingredients into my bread machine pan.  The instructions say you can set it on “Whole Wheat” (if your machine has that setting) or “Basic Bread”.   I set mine on Whole Wheat and chose a light crust (I always choose light crust).   Then I turned it on and crossed my fingers.

The whole wheat setting on my bread machine takes 3 hours and 20 minutes - which means my bread wasn’t finished until 12:20 am.  I could have put it on a delayed cycle but I was so excited that I didn’t want to wait to try it out.  And honestly, I didn’t think it would do well - so I had low expectations anyway and figured I could just dump it out before my hubby awoke and found out I’d bombed a new recipe (I like for him to stay under the spell that I’m a natural whiz in the kitchen).

By midnight, the aroma of this bread made my whole house smell like a bakery.  It was honestly the best smelling bread I had ever..well…smelled!  And I was famished.

I hoped and prayed to God (literally) that my pregnant belly wouldn’t be dissapointed.  The faint trickling thought that “Hey, I hate whole wheat bread” crossed my mind a few times, but I quickly dismissed it in hopes that it would taste as good as it smelled.

Ok - so 12:20 hits and my dinger goes off to let me know the bread is done.  Using my trusty little blue flowered oven mitt, I pulled the pan handle up and lifted the bread pan out of the machine.  I tried to dump the loaf out on a plate, but it was  a wee bit stuck so I had to trace around the edges of the bread with a butter knife to loosen it from the pan and POP…out it came.  And out came my trusty bread knife ($8.95 from Walmart..yay!).

The first bite was absolutely heavenly.  The loaf sliced easily, didn’t crumble and wasn’t too dense.  I cut 3 thick slices (I love my homemade bread slices to be realllllyyyy thick) and couldn’t resist putting a small dab of honey on the first slice (although my 2nd & 3rd stayed au natural).   Paired with a glass of ice water, I must confess that this was absolutely the best wheat bread I’d ever tasted in my life.  It was a gazillion times better than loaf wheat bread from the grocery store.

After finishing off my 3 slices I went to bed a happy camper.  Then for lunch today, I ate 3 more slices (it’s addicting) and gave my mom and dad each a slice to test when they came over to visit. 

For dinner tonight, I cooked turkey, homemade mashed potatoes (for my hubby, Kevin…I, sadly, can’t eat them), and peas.  I cut 2 thick slices of the bread for Kevin - and quartered them, then slathered on cream cheese.  He used them as little bisquit cakes (and complained when he learned there was none left!).  For myself, since I couldn’t eat the potatoes, I made a turkey sandwhich with some lettuce and a bit of mustard spread on 2 sandwhich style slices of the bread.  It made a fabulous sandwhich - held together well, was very filling, looked pretty, and tasted better than any deli sandwhich I’ve had.  Needless to say, I am very very pleased with my newest discovery!

I would have taken pictures of the bread, but, well, I’ve already eaten it all - and didn’t think of using it for this week’s WFMW until American Idol went off and I realized it was time to think of a good WFMW topic.

For more great tips on tried and true things that really work for other ladies, head over to this week’s Works for Me Wednesday list.

Using some left over homemade flour tortillas, cut into triangle wedges with a pizza roller.  Sprinkle with salt, pepper, cheese or any other seasoning you like and bake at 375F for 15-20 minutes.  

Keep an eye on them so they don’t burn or turn brown!

Heat a flat skillet or frying pan to medium heat. 

Using 2 slices of bread, spread mayonaise on one piece, place a piece of slice cheese on top and cover with the other piece of bread to form a sandwhich. 

Spread butter onto the outside (both sides!) of the sandwhich and place in the skillet.  Using a spatula, flatten the grilled cheese while it’s cooking.   Let it cook until it’s barely brown, then flip and repeat on other side. 

Remove from heat and eat!

Cut up washed potatoes into large manageable chunks. Feel free to keep skins on! (Red potatoes make especially pretty dishes). Boil in salted water for about 20 minutes until fork tender. Drain, smash with potato masher, add optional ingredients, and transfer to serving dish.

Options: boil with garlic cloves; add caramelized onions, butter, milk, mayonnaise, cheese, sour cream, chives, shredded cheese, or even bacon. Add any or as much as you want to taste!

The other day, my goood friend Ebonie sent me a link to a really cool article about doing Baby Laundry.  As a new mom, I thought it was very informative!  It was actually a funny coincidence because just the night before I had finished up a batch of 6 gallons of homemade laundry detergent and I had been wondering if the ingredients would be fine to use when Little Jack came along.  In the article, it gave a list of natural laundry supplies that are typically healthy and easy on baby and the ingredients I used were in there!

Natural Laundry Supplies
If you prefer not to use chemicals on baby’s clothes, try these natural options suggested by Annie Berthold-Bond in “Clean and Green” (Ceres Press, 1994). Be sure to rinse the clothes thoroughly. Keep these and all household products out of the reach of children.

Baking Soda
An effective cleaner, deodorizer, and fabric softener. Mix with water to form a paste, and use on stains to absorb odors; or add to water when presoaking new clothes to eliminate residue.

Borax
A water-soluble mineral with antiseptic, antibacterial, water-softening, and whitening properties. Makes mild soap more effective (add 1/2 cup to wash). Also a good diaper presoak.

Sodium Perborate
A natural alternative to chlorine bleach that’s made of borax and hydrogen peroxide. Add 3 tablespoons to wash water to fight stains. (Available by mail-order from chemical-supply companies.)

Washing Soda
Also known as sodium carbonate, a mineral with strong cleaning and degreasing properties. Add 2 tablespoons to laundry soap to make it more effective, or make it into a paste to remove greasy stains.

White Vinegar
A naturally acidic pantry staple that cuts grease, softens water, and can lighten dingy and gray laundry. Add 1/4 cup to wash.

When we first got married, we tried everything we could think of to cut costs. Making homemade laundry detergent (as opposed to my usual $12 bottle of Tide) seemed like an easy quick fix. I found a tried-and-true recipe online and purchased the bulk ingredients for pretty cheap through www.soapsgonebuy.com.   ….and then I set out making the recipe!

It’s actually really easy.    here is how I do it -

 INSTRUCTIONS FOR 2 GALLONS OF DETERGENT:

3 Pints of Water

1/3 Bar Grated Soap

½ Cup Borax

½ Cup Washing Soda

2 Gallon Bucket

1 Quart Hot Water

Melt the grated soap in 3 pints of water.  Pour in the borax and washing soda, and stir until thickened a bit.  Pour 1 quart hot water in 2 gallon bucket, then pour the mixture into the bucket.  Fill the remaining space with hot water.  Close, shake, and let sit for 24 hours to gel up.

Add commercial laundry detergent during last step or essential fragrance oils for your smell of choice!

…I usually add whatever fragrance I have on hand or mix the rest of a tide bottle with it (about a 1:6 ratio).   The recipe above is for a 2 gallon batch.   I use to make it pretty frequently when money was tight, but this year we did pretty well so I went back to being a Tide loyaltist.   In fact, the 6 gallons I made the other night was the first batch I had made in over a year!   Now with a baby on the way, we’re tightening our money strings back up somewhat.   A $12 bottle of Tide just doesn’t compare right now with being able to use that money towards the baby. 

Some people laugh at the thought of a modern woman slaving over a hot stove, making her own detergent.  hehe….I guess if I was in someone else’s position (someone with more money than I!) I would laugh at home-grown liquid detergent too.   But it’s ok though.  I actually prefer commercial detergent (c’mon - I NEVER did my own laundry when I was living with mom and dad) because of the ease of use.   Back at home I never thought of how much it cost my parents to buy the detergent.  Sometimes though we just have to swallow our “wants” (ok, not literally…I never swallowed Tide) in order to work out whats best for your own family in the money area. 

And for us, homemade detergent works great.  :)   And it saves a ton too!

Boil 6 teabags in a 6 cup pot of water, approximately 5 - 10 minutes. Remove from heat, cover, and let steep for 15 minutes. Put one cup sugar in pitcher. Pour half of the tea in pitcher and stir to dissolve sugar. Pour remaining tea in pitcher. Repeat until full. Cover & refrigerate!

2 ½ Cups Flour
3/4 Cups Milk
1/3 Cup Shortening
Seasonings of Choice
Toppings

Combine the dry ingredients, blend in shortening and add enough milk to form a soft pliable dough.  Add italian seasonings, salt & pepper in dough if you’d like.  Pat out dough onto a greased 12 inch circle pizza pan and top as desired. Bake in a 375F to 400F oven 20-30 minutes or until cheese melted and bottom crust lightly browned. Cool somewhat and slice!

Cut up onions, place in a crock pot. Sprinkle on salt and sugar (optional). Pour melted butter over onions, cover, and cook on low for 8-10 hours. Five medium onions yields 2 cups of caramelized onions. Store in freezer for future use.

USES:   These delicious, buttery onions for soups, stews, toppings on polish sausage dogs, mixing with mashed pototatoes, with sauteed mushrooms and as a side with steak!