Organic On A Budget

You may have noticed that I only sometimes specify 'organic' in my recipes.  This is because I only specify organic where I believe it to be essential, even though I try to buy and use as much organic food as possible, and always choose it if the price is reasonable.


My standard for 'essential' when it comes to fruit and vegetables is the "Dirty Dozen."  There's a handy wallet guide you can print out from The Environmental Working Group which also includes "the Clean Fifteen."


The Dirty Dozen are:

• Peaches
• Apples
• Sweet Bell Peppers
• Celery
• Nectarines
• Strawberries
• Cherries
• Pears
• Grapes (Imported)
• Spinach
• Lettuce
• Potatoes

I keep this in my wallet so I can refer to it when in the produce section.  It's hard to remember anything when one's child is repeating "cheese?  Cheese?  Cheese?" with escalating frenzy and backbending from the child seat into the cart basket in an attempt to snag the bag of Veggie Booty.  But I nearly have them memorized.  




Someday.




I also buy only organic milk.  With the amount of milk (and food in general) children consume compared to their body size, it's important to make sure that their food is as pure as possible.  Pesticides can build up in children's rapidly developing bodies at much higher and faster rates than adults.  




Another reason I strive for organic food is because I find genetically modified foods very, very scary.  They are so scary that many countries around the world are banning genetically modified crops and even destroying crops and seeds that are found to be GM.  If a product is certified organic, it does not contain genetically modified ingredients.  However, there are some non-organic foods, like Silk soy milk for example, that are certified non-GMO.  




Even with the tight grocery budget from which I operate, organic is a very high priority.  Here are my tricks for getting the best prices for organic stuff:

• Comb Grocery Outlet first (or seek out your local grocery liquidator).  I often find organic milk, children's snacks, cereal, jam, peanut butter, and natural household goods for a fraction of their regular store prices.  These places don't generally take manufacturer's coupons, but at mine, if you ask someone who works there if they take coupons, sometimes they'll slip you one for $3 off.  There are also coupons for $3 or $5 off your total bill in the Community Shopper booklet that comes in the junk mail, as well as in the Chinook Book.

• Speaking of the Chinook Book, there are a bunch of organic and natural manufacturer's coupons in it, especially on dairy and meats.  Get together with a friend and swap the coupons you don't use in your books.  A Chinook Book is $20.  Bargain.  I keep the grocery store coupons in a little pocket in my purse so I don't have to lug the thing around, but they also have a $10 smart phone version of the book.  I'll get to that level of technology next year.  Maybe.

• Look for manufacturer's coupons at Mambo Sprouts and OrganicDeals.com.  There are Mambo Sprouts booklets and sometimes other manufacturer's coupon books laying around near the front of PCC where their product info and weekly shopping newsletters are kept.

• Become a member at PCC (or seek out your local food co-operative if you are lucky enough to have one in your area).  You'll get a 10% off coupon each month in their mailed newspaper. I save up my other coupons and really put that 10% off to work once a month.  You can use your 10% to buy next year's Chinook Book!

• Buy in bulk.  A well-stocked bulk section that has organic staples can save you a ton of money, especially for things that don't shelve well (like expensive spices) because you can buy only what you need.  Plus, you get bonus karma points for saving the world from unnecessary packaging (bring your own bags).

• If your favorite store doesn't have many organics, or is missing them in the bulk section, ask for them.  Ask over and over again! 

• Work the farmer's markets.  They have the freshest and most amazing produce and it's as close to the farm as you can get without actually owning a plow.  Often the prices are lower than grocery stores (no, really!  You may have seen this article in the Seattle Times) especially on less glamorous items like cabbage and onions.  You can often buy in bulk and get a deal, then split the bounty with a friend or can it all up to eat throughout the year. 

With these tips, I'm able to get organic on our table much of the time.  And even if I have to shell out a little bit more for the good stuff, I am happy to do it because I believe that good food should cost something.  A twenty-five cent box of processed macaroni and cheese is a little scary if you stop to think about it. 

What are your best tips for saving money on "the good stuff"?



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Weekly Menu 2.19.12 Two Experiments

Here's what's been cooking at Ellie Bluebell's House this last week.

A few experiments this week, with mixed results:



Monday:

Our pal Kishin was in town, so we went out for some grilled fish tacos at the always tasty La Carta de Oaxaca.  We had to take him somewhere good as he lives in the Land of Many Amazing Restaurants, also known as Manhattan.  He seemed happy.



Tuesday:

Chipotle-Lime Tempeh Tacos from Peas and Thank You.  Luckily I made them on a night Casey would be gone because they were terrible.  Sorry, Peas.  Is there any good use for tempeh?  Please comment if you know of one, because I really, really want to like it.  But, man.  That stuff is gnarly.  I may not be hippie enough.



Wednesday:

Turkey meatballs, tomato-basil pizza veggie burger for me, secret ingredient marinara, and polenta.  Happy Meatball, everyone!



Thursday:

Black Bean Chilaquile, spicy slaw



Friday:

working on the copious amounts of leftovers this week's menu generated



Saturday:

The only hit of this week's two experiments.  Cheese Ravioli with Browned Butter, Sage and Walnut Pesto.  So good we are having it again in the near future, like tonight.  One outta two ain't bad...




Sunday:

in honor of my darling daddy's birthday, we made oven-roasted salmon, scalloped potatoes, spinach salad, and carrot cake.  I ended up switching the apple tart to carrot cake at the last moment since I made apple pie for Casey's birthday earlier this month.  Plus, I had a ton of carrots to use up!


What have you been cooking this week?  Any successful (or unsuccessful) experiments?


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Spinach Souffle

Our household is comprised of a not-uncommon mix of eaters: one die-hard carnivore (whose freezer was filled with big-game meats harvested by his family when I first met him), one pescetarian (and former calorie counter), and one fairly open-minded not-quite-three-year-old.  We all inhale Spinach Souffle happily.

My childhood was studded with weekly fights with my brother over the last serving of souffle, always baked in a round, white casserole dish.  We would gobble it up, trying to be the first to go back for seconds.

I asked my mom for the recipe (which she got from her friend Linda Daly, whose name I only know because of its frequency on the casserole recipes in my mom's collection.  Someday I must meet this Queen of the Casserole) when I got my first apartment in college and started collecting my own recipes.  Meem also got me my own Corningware French White 2 1/2 quart dish that Christmas, and I've been perfecting my souffle technique in it ever since.

In addition to its tastiness, it's truly a one-dish meal.  Even my usual propensity to veg-up our dinners is squelched by the full 10 ounces of spinach and entire can of diced tomatoes.  Once it goes into the oven, I can turn my attention to something else, as dinner is done.  However, it does take a good long time to cook, one hour in the oven, so planning ahead is crucial - you can't wait till the children (or husband) are whining and tugging on your pants legs to get this one started.


Spinach Souffle

1 15 oz can diced tomatoes, drained (if you really love tomatoes you could even do a 28 oz can)
1 10 oz package frozen organic spinach, thawed, drained and well wrung out
3 beaten eggs
1 pint low-fat cottage cheese
3 T flour
1/4 c buttermilk (I never have this and always substitute an equal amount plain fat free yogurt with a splash of milk)
5 oz cubed sharp cheddar cheese (Tillamook Medium Cheddar is crucial for this recipe)
salt and pepper
1/8 c bread or cracker crumbs
butter


Oven to 350.  Drain tomatoes and layer in the bottom of your souffle dish.  I have often wondered if this would taste the same from a different shape of dish but I am unwilling to experiment.

Thaw spinach in the microwave, then press into the bottom of the colander you just used for the tomatoes.  Wrap spinach up in about 8 paper towels and squeeze out all the water you can.  Get it really well wrung out.  If it's got too much water left in it, your souffle will be watery and that's nasty.  Set aside to cool.

Beat eggs in a medium bowl.  Add cottage cheese and flour, combine with a fork.  Add buttermilk or yogurt/milk mixture, salt and pepper, and cubed cheese and gently combine.  Fold in cooled spinach.

Pour into souffle dish.  Sprinkle with bread crumbs, and dot with butter.

Slide it on into the oven for one hour and clean up the kitchen with a glass of wine while you wait.  Bathe the kids!  Organize your sock drawer!  Do your taxes!

You can broil the top for a minute or two to get it extra browned and crunchy at the end.

Let it sit for a few minutes, then serve in all its one-dish simplicity.

She calls this "foofooflay" and usually reminds me that she doesn't like spinach before chowing down with gusto.

Thumbs up!


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Weekly Menu 2.12.12 and May Thai

Here's what's been cooking at our house this week.

Monday - bratwurst for Casey and Natalie, Field Roast apple and sage sausages for me, oven fries, carrots, peas, and corn

Tuesday - dinner date

Wednesday - leftovers from dinner date

Thursday - macaroni & cheese, Harvard beets, broccoli and carrots

Friday - Taco Time

Saturday - homemade pizza, tomato and avocado salad

Sunday - broiled steelhead, cranberry walnut quinoa, glazed carrots, rolls


Some weeks I don't get the entire week's meals planned out ahead of time, and roll with things as the week goes on.  That happened this week, when I was blindsided by an urgent craving for Taco Time on Friday evening, so chilaquile is getting pushed ahead to next week.

Valentine's Day meant a delicious dinner out at May Thai.  After my friends Alli and Brookeli (who have both spent some time in Thailand) told me to seek it out, I was thrilled to see green papaya salad (Som Tum) on their menu.  Too bad I had to share it with Casey!  As I was eating it, I was already planning my return trip to obtain more one day soon - sweet, salty, sour, crunchy and satisfying.

Next Friday's dinner better watch out: it could very well be replaced at the last minute by May Thai Som Tum takeout if papaya salad sounds good!


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Weekly Menu 1.29.12 (a little late)

I always want to know what everyone else is cooking to get ideas for my own menus, so I thought I'd start posting our weekly menu every Sunday.  Yes, I'm really late on that this week, but in the future I will be posting it on Sunday.

Or maybe Monday.

Early-in-the-week-ish, how about that?

Making a weekly menu is something I always wanted to do, but never actually did until I stopped working outside the home, and also created a place to post the menu.  Many people who come to Ellie Bluebell's House ask where I got our wall calendar/menu board.  The answer is, of course, Etsy, from a wonderful shop called Simple Shapes.

Here it is for the week of 1.29.12 through 2.4.12.

Just in case you can't read it (better camera work will be included in all future posts, I promise)...

Mon - crab cakes, sweet potato tots, salad
Tues - miso mushroom noodle bowls, edamame fried rice
Weds - roasted vegetable lasagne, citrus avocado spinach salad
Thurs - leftovers
Fri - spinach souffle, breadsticks
Sat - pizza, salad
Sun - steelhead, crusty puffs (yukon gold potatoes), broccoli

Post coming soon about Spinach Souffle!


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5th Annual Trunk Show

This year was really the best trunk show we have had so far!  The Ellie Bluebell Designs Holiday Trunk Show is my way of gathering a group of awesome artists, and creating a great place for friends and family to shop local, small businesses... while having adult beverages and snacks.

It was awesome, if I do say so myself (and I do).

Ellie Bluebell herself reigned over the party, at the same time doing an excellent job of Swiffering up each and every crumb of cookie that fell to the ground.

We were joined by my loyal artist friends Carolyn Buss Jewelry, Gabriel's Aunt, the Julie Ann Collection and Valentina Vitols.  New to the party this year were Modern Little Ones (finally, baby stuff at the Trunk Show!) and Crowandiris.

And most importantly, here's all the food I baked!

Chocolate chunk cookies, Cranberry Thumbprints (from Nov 2010 Sunset), Lavender Shortbread, Parmesan Rosemary Shortbread, smoked salmon spread with creme fraiche (caught and smoked by Casey), and homemade Chex Mix.  Also served, but not made by me, were Cranberry Bliss Bars (by my aunt, from the Jr League's Celebrate the Rain cookbook).  I had an assist on the cookies from the cookie fairy, Tiffany... God bless her.

We drank Garnet Mimosas made with Ellie Blue's Lavender Sugar.  We drank a lot of them.

My card collection is getting revamped - out with the slow sellers and in with the crowd pleasers.  New this year: the Bathing Beauties!  These cards feature sassified 1930's pin up ladies with parasols and lots of bling.  They are named after some of the founders of my sorority, Pi Beta Phi (Fanny, Libby, Clara, Ada, Inez, Rosa, Margaret, and Nancy).  By the way they're selling, they'll be sticking around a while.

Meet Fanny and Inez.

The Ellie Bluebell Smells' line is also evolving.  The Lavender Shortbread I made exclusively for last year's Trunk Show were so wildly popular that I made more this year (a lot more) and also added Parmesan Rosemary Shortbread, made with my Ballard-grown rosemary.

Ellie Bluebell fans have spoken, and they love cookies.  I hope to have these available in my Etsy store very soon.

They also love adult beverages, because they report that the savory shortbread are great with rose, hard cider, Alaskan Amber, and sparkling wine - blanc de blancs in particular.

We ate, we drank, we shopped!  And on top of all that, we collected three great big bags of food for the Ballard Food Bank.  Thank you so much to the friends and family who came and helped make it a festive success.

Happy Meatball everyone!

Hippies Are Smarter Than They Look

Having gone to college in Eugene, Oregon, I have a healthy appreciation for hippies.  They add color, levity and usually music to any outdoor gathering, and outdoor is really key when one is dealing with hippies since they are such great water conservators, unselfishly forgoing showers.

My parents, swept along by the trends of the times, were a little bit hippy themselves when I was a small child.  There was wheat germ in the fridge, home farming and canning manuals on the bookshelves, we shopped at the first PCC in Kirkland, and we went to a lot of outdoor events.  However, I would like it to be known that all of us were very clean and I must say we smelled great.

I remember stumbling upon my mom's copy of Diet for a Small Planet by Frances Moore Lappe when I was in high school.  One of my teachers (Mr. Bryan Reinhardt) had been talking a lot about food choices and how they affect our planet and even the corporate structure of America.  I was intrigued, and surprised when my mom said I could have this amazing book.

I still have it, and its message about getting off the top of the food chain is still an important one, if not more important as our planet becomes more populated by the minute.

The reason I dug it out was when I started wondering if the food I'm feeding Natalie is good enough.  Is she getting enough protein?  Carbs?  Minerals?  And I had no more glimpsed the cover than I remembered complete proteins, the vegetarian's BFF.  Rice and beans it is!

I poured myself a glass of carrot juice, dressed Natalie in some tie dye (hand me down from friends in Eugene), and decided it was just going to be a hippy kind of day at Ellie Bluebell's House.

After my trip down memory lane with DFASP, I turned to Super Baby Food to see if there were any baby-specific notes on this combo.  Only the gassiness beans can cause, so to avoid frightening diaper situations, I opted to use dried split green peas, which is technically a legume but slightly better in the gas department. AND they don't have to be soaked overnight (lentils also share this virtue).  So brown rice and peas it is!

Viva la bulk foods section!

I wasn't looking forward to cooking both these things up separately, in two pots, ugh.  I mean, I've got stuff to do!  And I hate washing pots.  Also I only have one that's big enough currently, so there's that.

And then.... I found a paragraph in SBF describing how to cook them together all at once.  Sweet!  Now we're talking.  Truly helpful info for a busy mama.  Here's how you do it.

One cup of dry split peas needs to cook with three cups of water.  A half cup of brown rice needs to cook with one cup of water.  Sooooo (and this took my tired brain a minute, I will confess) I put four cups of water on to boil, and readied a cup of split peas and a half cup of brown rice.

(I have had that Brita pitcher since freshman year of college!  And they say we live in a throwaway society)

I had no idea how much this was going to yield, and I hoped my pot was big enough.

In the fridge was some organic celery, red pepper, and a bit of onion, so I thought I'd chop those guys up to the mix, too.  About a half cup of celery, half cup of pepper, and a quarter cup of onion (again, we have to think of the little ones' tummies).

Once the water was boiling, I added the peas and rice.  Looking good so far.

Super Baby Food says to turn the heat down to a simmer and cook for 45 minutes.  It doesn't say covered or uncovered, so I went with covered because of the rice and so I could turn it way down and conserve energy (see?  I told you I'm part hippy).

This is what it looked like about 30 minutes later.  Time to add in our colorful veggies, an Ellie Bluebell Smells bay leaf, and keep cooking.

15 minutes later it was looking promising, and our prescribed cooking time from the recipe was up.  I took out the bay leaf, added about a 1/2 teaspoon of Italian seasoning, and a tablespoon of Dr Bragg's Liquid Aminos.  These taste a little like soy sauce and are helpful if you aren't eating much meat.  We are getting seriously hippified now!

I cooked it about ten minutes longer, since I wanted it to get a little mushy.  Natalie likes mushy.

Mission accomplished!  I ate some for lunch along with her, and it was really tasty.  Definitely not much to look at, but neither are some hippies.

(This freezes great!  I used my silicone Beaba portion tray as well as filled up some empty baby food jars for the freezer.  An ice cube tray or silicone muffin pan work well, too)


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