Random Stuff

Sorry for the Silence!

June 24, 2011 By jenniepaige 2 Comments
Thanks for checking back at Pure Homemaking, I hope you make yourself at home!

It has been quiet around here the past few weeks and I apologize! I have had a lot on my plate and have been trying many new things. My oldest daughter Emily is home for the summer now and my focus had been more on what to do with the kids while they are all home. I am trying to enjoy this summer as it is the last one before my second daughter heads into school in the fall-my heart is still sad. So I want to enjoy them while they are still young and help them to create lasting memories of spending summers at home being lazy and also doing things. It is hard coming up with new ideas, so if anyone has any frugal ideas on what to do with kids over the summer I’m all ears.

Last night I went into DC and saw the movie Farmageddon. I must say that it was very moving and really grabbed those emotions. I went with my husband who appreciates and puts up with all of my traditional cooking and grass-fed everything, and he was very touched by it. He is so not the type of person to be an activist about things but he told me this morning that he had a tough time getting to sleep last night because he was thinking about the attack on all the small family farms. It’s a must watch! I highly recommend it! Although it has re-lit the fire under us to get some land and become more self-sufficient-so be warned!

On the cooking front I have immersed myself in all things sourdough! I am loving this stuff! I have made so many new things and even managed to come up with a recipe of my own. Right now there are 4 loaves of bread rising slowly for spelt sandwich bread that turns our great every time!  I made an adaption to my pop-over recipe to incorporate sourdough and it went very well! I cannot believe that I waited so long to get a starter going! It’s so easy!

I have also been tipping my toes in lacto-fermenting veggies. In fact I have 3 quart of veggies pickling now and some yummy gingered carrots and beet kavas in the fridge right now.

I think my next post is going to be a tutorial on making water kefir and pickling! Or maybe peach-rhubarb cobbler, hmmm…

So, that’s what’s going on in my world and why I have been a bit absent lately. But good things will be coming soon so stay tuned! I hope all of you have had a good jump-start to your summer and I would love to hear from you about what’s going on in your world.

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A Tale of Two Sourdough Starters

June 10, 2011 By jenniepaige 7 Comments
3 sourdough starters

Many of you have read the very popular post I wrote a couple of weeks ago about the new information about soaking grains and how it is now recommended to avoid calcium containing soaking mediums. Well, finding out that information caused me to finally stop avoiding sourdough. I thought it would be so hard to get it going and then once I did so, I wasn’t sure how I was going to use it. I had sourdough worked up as being this level of real food cooking that I just wasn’t ready to tackle yet. I was happy with soaking my grains and had found some really great recipes that worked well for my family. I simply didn’t have room in my life for another fermented food project. I was already up to my ears in water and dairy kefir, and kombucha. I was good. Besides, what do you do with sourdough other than make bread right? Boy was I wrong! [Read more...]

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Going Sugar Free-A Personal Experience

June 7, 2011 By jenniepaige 23 Comments
juliebefore

My journey toward becoming sugar-free

by:  Julie Hunter

This post was written by a friend of mine, Julie Hunter.  Over the past several months almost a year she made the personal decision to cut sugar completely out of her diet. The following is her personal story about how and why she made the change. She also shares some of the struggles she has had and also the great payoff that it has made in her health. Julie has shared a very easy home-made sugar free chocolate recipe that I can’t wait to try. I hope you enjoy reading about her journey and find it as inspiring as I have. I made a small change already by cutting out sugar in my morning coffee. If you have any questions I’m sure Julie wouldn’t mind popping over and answering them!

In September of last year, upon the advice of my wonderful doctor (and countless hours of surfing the internet for advice), I made a decision to kick my sugar habit to the curb once and for all. There was no way this was going to be easy, and there was no way I could just “cut back”. It had to be all or nothing, and it had to be right away.  My health was at stake, and I had put it off long enough. [Read more...]

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What is Obama THINKING?

June 2, 2011 By jenniepaige 2 Comments

This article nearly brought tears to my eyes and I don’t cry easily. I feel so upset and almost defeated by this. I will be praying  hard that this doesn’t go through. Please join me.

Obama Deregulates GMO Crops Despite Supreme Court Injunction

Thursday 2 June 2011
by: Robbie Hanna Anderman, Tikkun

Early this spring, while the world was distracted by Egypt’s uprising, President Barack Obama pushed the Secretary of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to deregulate genetically engineered alfalfa and sugar beets in the United States. The USDA came through as he directed, totally deregulating these Monsanto-patented genes in early February.

In so doing, Obama and the USDA have chosen to override and ignore decisions and injunctions made by the U.S. Supreme Court that banned planting of genetically engineered alfalfa and sugar beets without consideration of the Environmental Impact Assessments, which showed high risks to organic and conventional (chemical) farmers.

So how does this affect you and me? Neither of us remembers seeing alfalfa or sugar beets on our breakfast table or even on our Seder table. Or do we?

Sugar beets provide over 50 percent of the sugar Americans use in their coffee, cereals, and desserts. For the moment, let’s not focus on the fact that sugar beets can cross-pollinate with red beets and make our borscht genetically modified.

Alfalfa reaches our tables within milk, cream, butter, and meat, as it is used as a major animal feed in the dairy industry. It is also used to enrich soils in organic farming.

 

Click on the article link to read the full story. I’d love to start a conversation about this and see what if anything we as consumers can do other than voting with our forks which I always advocate. It is a STRONG vote. But if you read the article you will see that if this is allowed to go through and become 100% legal then the organic farming and meat industry will be wiped out completely. We have to do SOMETHING, but what can be done so late in the game?

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Hot off the press: Dairy is OUT for soaking grains

May 31, 2011 By jenniepaige 34 Comments
grain

I must admit that when the email from Amanda Rose from Rebuild from Depression landed in my inbox about the latest on soaking grains I was perplexed. Upset even. How could this BE? Sally Fallon herself has preached about the need to soak your grains in an acid medium to break down phytic acid. Phytic acid is basically an anti-nutrient and it is mostly found in grains, beans, legumes, nuts and seeds. Nuts have a slightly different make-up than grains and don’t contain a ton of phytic acid but they do contain and enzyme inhibitor that prevents absorption of nutrients so they can benefit from a soak as well (I use a brine solution-4 cups nuts with enough warm water to cover and about 2 tbls. sea salt).  [Read more...]

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What’s on Your Plate Sunday 5/29?

May 29, 2011 By jenniepaige Leave a Comment
Logan showing his strawberry stash

I am EXHAUSTED! I just spent about half the day making about 20 pint-sized jars of strawberry jam. It all started yesterday when I got a call from my friend at about 8am asking if we wanted to go strawberry picking-right away! We said sure because I knew that I had to drive about 45 mins away later to pick up 1/4 hog that I ordered from our local Mennonite farm. I wanted to get the berry picking done before it got to hot out as it’s been getting up to 90 degrees outside already and it’s not even June yet!

[Read more...]

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How to Soak Rolled Oats

May 27, 2011 By jenniepaige 2 Comments
Soaked Granola

If you plan on making granola or granola bars anytime soon, take the few minutes it takes now to properly prepare them to make sure that you are getting the most out of your grains. I have yet to write an in-depth post about the true value of soaking/fermenting/sprouting grains but I will soon-promise! I at least wanted to write a tutorial on the best way to soak your oats so they don’t come out all soggy and damp. Doing it this way will make sure that you get nice and crunchy oats to be able to use them however you wish. I like to make up a big batch every so often to have on hand for things like making granola, granola bars, cookies, etc. Pre-soaking and then drying your oats also makes it easier to follow recipes that don’t have a soaking step involved. [Read more...]

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What’s On Your Plate Sunday? 5/22

May 24, 2011 By jenniepaige Leave a Comment

This is the second week where I am asking everyone what’s on YOUR PLATE tonight. (This was last weeks post) I want to know what everyone is cooking up over the weekend, so please share! And if you have a recipe you would like to share, they are very welcomed as well.

I wasn’t feeling all that well yesterday (yes even real foodies do get sick sometimes) so we didn’t get to do our big grill out that we had planned. So today I am feeling better and still want to grill up those yummy grass-fed steaks that are staring at me from the fridge. To accompany our steaks I am going to steam my hubby’s favorite vegetable, which is asparagus, and top it with an easy blender hollandaise sauce. We will serve it with either a potato dish or jasmine rice-not sure yet!

I have the makings for vanilla ice cream that are happily chilling in the fridge right now and plan to make a delicious chocolate sauce to top it all off. We also have a couple of Kefir water sodas that should be about done with their secondary ferment that will go nicely with dinner. I am making “ginger-ail” this time. I need to do a post on kefir soda soon! It’s SO much fun and ridiculously easy, you wouldn’t believe it. Plus it’s amazingly good for you! You can’t beat it. Kids love it AND adults love which makes it a win-win for me!

Oh and I will get up recipe’s for the sauce and ice cream this week. I finally figured how to make the best basic ice cream without having to make the vanilla into a custard which is fantastic but it does take a while. This method can be whipped up in about 7 minutes (not including the chilling time and the actual 15 mins. or so it takes in the ice cream maker)

I lost the comments when I transferred over to my new site! Sorry guys!

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Thoughts on Marriage

May 20, 2011 By jenniepaige 2 Comments

As you may have come to understand by now I am a lover of good, pure, REAL food. But I didn’t start off that way, and that’s not all there is to me either.  I was 20 years old when I got married and was ill prepared for a world of marriage, adulthood, and motherhood that was soon to follow. The early years of our marriage were tough; I’m not going to lie.  [Read more...]

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Three Day Mom Marathon!

May 18, 2011 By jenniepaige Leave a Comment
moms

I feel like I just ran a three-day Mom Marathon! I have been cooking up a storm in the kitchen (details to follow) and dealing with a sick three-year old, who I might add pretty much never gets sick (thank you Jesus), as well as the day-to-day life stuff. I have only left my house to do short errands and oh yea today I also went to get a consult about getting my wisdom teeth removed. Joy of all joys. [Read more...]

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