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We tend to eat healthy. One of the ways we do this is that we make almost everything from scratch and have almost eliminated processed food. It wasn't always that way, I used to buy marinades and condiments, but one day a few years ago, I was eating some microwave popcorn that was low in fat and salt and I started to feel a little nauseous from the chemical taste. I decided to buy an air popper like my mom had when I was a kid. A few weeks later, I was at a Tastefully Simple party and everyone was raving about the beer bread and I decided to check how to make it. Do you know it's only five ingredients? All of which I am sure you have on hand (beer or soda, flour, sugar, baking powder and salt?) I tried to think of what to order from Tastefully Simple, but I wasn't sure if I would use the marinade (I always bought that stuff when I decided, hey, let's grill chicken...let me marinade it...). Now I find that making my own marinade with a little oil, some crushed garlic, fresh lemon juice, fresh herbs, a little sea salt, crushed pepper works just as well and really is not very hard to make (I don't measure anything; it drives my husband nuts; I eyeball everything).
Jason has been a long time reader and subscriber to Cook's Illustrated, so I started looking in there for marinades and condiments and sauces. Most of them were made from things we had in the house. I could control how much sugar I put in (I always put in less, or none at all...shhh, don't tell Christopher Kimball) and how much fat I add (again I put in half what a recipe calls for or less!). I liked how we didn't have half empty bottles of sticky marinades cluttering the fridge, we only made what we needed. Since then, we even make our own barbecue sauce (did you know some really good bbq sauce recipes have a vinegar base?). Now I find that making my own marinade with a little oil, some crushed garlic, fresh lemon juice, fresh herbs, a little sea salt, crushed pepper works just as well and really is not very hard to make (I don't measure anything; it drives my husband nuts; I eyeball everything).
Having control over what I put in my body helps me to keep my eating disorder in check and making our food from scratch helps me to have more control over what we put in our bodies.
We try to eat and buy organic as much as possible. My kids have had chocolate milk and Swiss Miss hot cocoa and Tastykakes and Twinkies. But none of those are in their regular diet. They can have soda only when we go out to dinner. Since we have been homeschooling it has become easier to give them fruit or popcorn or smoothies (they prefer the fruit & yogurt variety) as a snack. I prefer plain yogurt and have been contemplating getting a yogurt machine (but do I need one more thing to do?).
Here are two recipes I made last week. Each took less than a half hour to make and was COMPLETELY from scratch.
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