Yogurt

One of my favorite breakfasts is yogurt and granola. It’s up there with oatmeal with pumpkin, brown sugar, cinnamon and raisins. Or with fried eggs on toast. It’s simple, but so delicious.

Unfortunately, HFCS has invaded many mainstream brands. Even in brands that don’t use it in vanilla yogurt, it shows up in fruity flavors. Other problems for people with animal cruelty concerns are the source of the milk and that much yogurt contains gelatin. What’s a health-conscious vegetarian girl to do?

One day I wondered, “Could I make yogurt in a crockpot?” I did a google search and found the. best. website. ever. Maybe not ever, but it’s awesosme. It’s got step-by-step yogurt-in-your-crockpot instructions, as well as a ton of gluten-free crockpot recipes.

LR tried making yogurt using the instructions on this website before I did. I bought my milk before she did, but I let it expire in my refrigerator. She inspired me to get serious about trying it.

The awesome thing about this yogurt? I did it wrong, and it still came out as yummy yogurt. Instead of cooking the milk in my crockpot for 2.5 hours on low, I cooked mine on high for 1.5 hours and on low for 2 hours. (I have a problem where I read directions, but not very well.) It came out fine, with only a few bits of milk skin that didn’t stir back into the milk. This is incredibly easy to do. The hardest part for me was to find a time when I’d be home at the key points, since the process takes so long.

I sweetened the batch with honey (lightly whisked it in so the yogurt wouldn’t get too runny) and ate it with granola every day. I will make this again and again. Next time I make it, I’m going to do the math and figure out how much it costs per 6 ounce serving.

The Crock Pot Lady suggested starting out with whole milk until you get the hang of it because lower fat milks may produce runnier yogurt. She suggested adding gelatin to thicken it up. In her post about making jam, she used pectin (plant-based) as a thickener. I plan to experiment to see if this helps runny yogurt.

I haven’t tried making granola yet. Does anyone know if it really ends up being cheaper than buying? Nuts and dried fruit can be expensive, so I’m wary. Also, the other day, Walmart had some Cascadian Farms granola with “$1 off if you buy 2” coupons stuck to them. Also, the banana and date flavors of Sunbelt’s granola cereals are PHO and HFCS free. (These sell for $2.50/box at Walmart and a little more at HyVee). Their other two granola flavors are polluted. I was so mad when I read the nutrition facts, I’m thinking about writing a letter.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

I saw this book at Barnes and Noble last month, and, in a moment of profound logic and self-control, decided to check it out at the library. I even remembered to renew it before being fined.

You probably already know that I love food. I love reading about it in stories and watching stories unfold around it in movies. Animal, Vegetable, Mineral: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver with Steven L. Hopp (husband) and Camille Kingsolver (daughter) proved to be the brilliant marriage of a good, food-based, true story with a plethora of thought-provoking information about food and the food industry. Be forewarned—Barbara Kingsolver has been named seventy-fourth on a list of one-hundred people who are destroying America.

The book takes you through Kingsolver’s family’s journey to eat only home- or locally-grown food for one year. They move to their farm in Appalachia one January, start their experiment in March, cultivate an enormous garden, harvest and preserve, and survive through the following Spring true to their challenge. They buy flour from local mills, make their own bread, yogurt, and cheese (I SO want to try this), frequent local farmers markets, and raise their own chickens and turkeys for eggs and meat. Each member of the family gets one item to cheat with on the condition that they could learn a way to obtain it that benefits the grower and the land where it grows. Kingsolver writes, “We hoped to establish that a normal-ish American family could be content on the fruits of our local foodshed.”

Kingsolver scatters humorous details throughout the book that assure the reader that things are absurd enough to be real life. For instance, she plans to make mayonnaise from a recipe she received in her high school French class that instructs one to “whip heartily for two minutes while holding only pleasant thoughts in mind” (33). She also hearkens the person who helps Thanksgiving turkeys (which are bred too stupid to reproduce on their own) reproduce as a job to add to the list of “unsavory jobs” (90) to threaten your children that they’ll be stuck with if they ditch school.

The book had a prominent serious tone at times, discussing the environmental and social issues related to conventional farming. I knew that buying local food is good for the local economy and that many local farmers grow food organically, even if they’re not certified, which is good for the environment. I’d never considered that buying locally grown food is good for the environment because of the fossil fuels that aren’t used to transport them. In one of his mini-essays, which usually appear in each chapter, Hopp tries to explain away the higher cost of local and organic foods, referencing the petroleum subsidies (paid through our taxes) that support the growing, processing, and shipping of industrial grown food. This comes to a total of about $725 per household per year. If we make the decision to buy locally, it seems that we are only paying more: subsidies through our tax dollars, plus higher priced produce. Perhaps if we begin to support local food with our pocket books, we will make enough of an impact to communicate to our legislators that this is not how we want to spend our hard earned dollars.

Kingsolver also had some interesting things to say about vegetarianism. She writes, “I find myself fundamentally allied with a vegetarian position in every way except one: however selectively, I eat meat. I’m unimpressed by arguments that condemn animal harvest while ignoring, wholesale, the animal killing that underwrites vegetal foods. Uncountable deaths by pesticide and habitat removal—the beetles and bunnies that die collaterally for our bread and veggie-burgers—are lives plumb wasted” (222). She points out that vegetarians often cite that an acre that grows crops will feed more people than an acre used to raise animals—that their choice is helping the cause of world hunger—as a reason for abstaining from meat. However, for some families, having a goat to supplement their small farm in an area where farming is difficult allows them to turn food that grows naturally in their area that is inedible to them but edible for their animal into human-edible milk and meat.

These pages didn’t contain any information so compelling that I’ve become a strict locavore (Kingsolver’s term for local-food-only-eater) or to begin eating meat responsibly again, but it did provide surprising new information that I will use as I make my food-buying decisions in the future. I will make it a priority to buy some local food and free-range or grass-finished meat may end up on my husband’s plate every once in a while. But, I’m not quite ready to stop going to the grocery store or to give up bananas altogether.

If you’ve read this book, what did you think? If not, what sources have impacted your food buying choices the most?

Are you a turnip eater?

I didn't grow up eating a wide variety of vegetables. Potatoes, corn, green beans, and raw carrots were the staples. I learned to love broccoli, to my mother's chagrin, at my grandma's house, and am currently making strides with tomatoes.


Every once in a while, I'll remember a vegetable mentioned in a book I read as a child or have seen at the grocery store, and realize that I've never eaten it and possibly have never talked to a real live person who regularly eats that vegetable. (I recommend reading The Pea Patch Jig by Thacher Hurd in order to instill vegetable curiosity in your children.)

I don't know where my imaginary connection to turnips is coming from. I'm wondering if Rabbit grew turnips in his garden in Winnie the Pooh. Or maybe Frances refused to eat them in Bread and Jam for Frances. Did Molly eat turnips on the first page of an American Girls book that I've never read? Either way, I've had turnips and parsnips on the brain and decided to buy a bag of turnips for experimentation.

My first turnip attempt was roasting. I love other vegetables roasted and thought it would be a sure fire way to get myself to love turnips. That was a flop. My first mistake: roasting them alongside potatoes. Roasted potatoes are just too simple, comforting, and delicious to allow other vegetables to shine at all. My second mistake: roasting turnips in the first place. They turned out mushy and bitter.

I almost gave up hope but didn't want to throw away my four remaining turnips. I threw one into Sarah's potato soup and it was completely masked by the soup's creamy delightfulness.

I'm about to try my wildcard turnip recipe, which I found at allrecipes.com. If you go to the HC house church, on Sunday, along with a delicious chana masala and a tantalizing chicken Indian dish, you'll be experiencing Kashmiri-Style Kidney Beans with Turnips. Brace your taste buds, folks. This is going to be interesting.

While I've been doing all this experimenting, I've started to wonder if eating turnips is even important. Maybe it's one of those vegetables that tricks you in to thinking you need to eat it because it's a vegetable, when really it has little nutritional value. What I've found out is that turnips have fiber and Vitamin C. Turnip greens, which had been removed from my turnips, contain large amounts of Vitamin A and lutein, which can prevent cataracts and cardiovascular disease.

I don't know that turnips will become a staple on our household menu, but I'm glad to have experienced turnip week. I'm still curious, however, if and how other people eat their turnips.

Vegetarian Thanksgiving

I am one of four vegetarians (all ranging in degrees of commitment and strictness) who will be at my family's Thanksgiving celebration this year. I want to bring a vegetarian main-dish that can also be a side for the meat eaters. I've looked at a few websites but haven't found anything too fantastic. Any suggestions?

Half-ass vegetarianism

Excuse the title of this post. I tried to think of something more savory to all ears, but this was the most accurate wording.

Over the past few months, I've been going back and forth about our decision to go vegetarian. I've never had any doubt that given a little extra time, we'll be able to easily come up with lots of vegetarian meals that we love. Dexter's as strongly convinced about our change as I am...and sometimes even more than I am. I'm not even really concerned about wanting to eat meat, although that has entered my head a few times.

Mostly, I'm concerned about offending, distancing, or inconveniencing from other people. What if our neighbors in Hawkeye Court want to share a traditional Korean/Chinese/Romanian/something meal with us that has meat in it? What if we go visit Korea when our friends return home and their sweet Korean mothers fix us a delicious but beefy meal? What about house church meals? (If we made every dish so that everyone could eat them, we would be a no dairy, no gluten, no meat house church. What a challenge!) What about people we see and eat with a lot, like my parents, who are still scrambling to feed my sister meat-free meals when she's home.

One possible compromise we're considering is being "at-home vegetarians." Basically, food we make or choose to eat at restaurants would be vegetarian. And, in settings where meat can be avoided without stepping on any toes, we'd choose extra meat-free side dishes in lieu of a meaty main dish. But, we wouldn't feel pressure to abstain when there was pressure to eat, like with new friends or in non-vegetarian friendly environments.

Part of me likes this solution because I think moderation is good. And I know that I'm compromising on so many other levels that I feel like the occasional meat-eating would fall under the category of buying milk from farms I don't know anything about, or buying products from brands like Johnson & Johnson, Colgate, or Suave (all of which test on animals). It really bothers me that I can't afford to switch to using entirely cruelty-free products, but I've been telling myself I have to draw the line somewhere.

However, the other part of me doesn't want to be a half-ass vegetarian. The vegetarian fad really irritates me. I've definitely seen people say, "I never eat meat!" while shoveling their faces with it. I don't feel like I could really call myself a vegetarian if I was okay with it sometimes, but I don't know how I'd explain my mostly meat-free lifestyle very easily if I totally avoided the terminology.

Whatever compromise we land with, at least at home we'll be lacto-ovo-style vegetarians. But, we'll try to eat cage-free/free-range eggs at home and be picky about our milk (although the milk may end up being frighteningly expensive in itself). No meat-based broths, gelatin, or sneaky bits of meat in convenience foods either. The plan is to start soon, and I've actually been cooking mostly vegetarian meals the past few weeks, but I feel like I can't commit till I've decided about where to draw the line.