black beans, corn and garbanzo beans in balsamic vinegar and raw suger
overnight
or just for a couple of hours
add diced fresh cucumber
chill
grind sea salt on the top
enjoy
Yum.
March 22, 2011
snack attack
January 27, 2011
I believe so strongly in good nutrition for my children. If you’ve followed my blog for long, you probably know I believe that, with all things parenting, there must be a balance here. Our MSC* (*Many Small Children) eat their fair share of empty calories. But for the most part, I definitely want their bodies to grow on real** food. Whole food. Not genetically modified chemical food or snacks full of refined sugar or bleached flour.
(**Speaking of real, you may remember a few years ago that I talked often about the raw milk, also known as real milk, we got from a farmer when we lived on a lake closer to The Big City. But then we moved. However, through a string of good fortune newish friendship with a like minded milk drinker and farmer we now have raw milk coursing through our veins once more.)
Sometimes I run out of ideas for healthy, portable, nutritious, delicious, ready to go snacks for our children. In case that sometimes happens to you, too, I thought I’d share some of our current favorites. Here they are, in no particular order.
{logs: peanut/almond butter on celery sticks, sometimes with raisins on top as ants}
{hard boiled eggs: no yolk for Big Mac! I save it for Flurry’s babyfood which I’m already making}
{hunks of cheese: I think this is Gouda}
{pumpkin seeds: toasted and salted}
{mango: dried and sugared}
{avocado: halved and eaten with a spoon or sliced; this will be one of Flurry’s first foods}
{apricots: dried, sweet, easy to transport and often used in rice dishes or salads, too}
{soynuts: crunchy, salty}
We also still do a lot of plain, whole yogurt with honey and flaxseed meal on top, carrots and broccoli in hummus, beans and fresh fruit.
(Note: I cannot take credit for these photographs. They were taken by a sweet, frazzled mom, who gave her five kids snacks and proceeded to, at the same table, bend and prop a piece of white tagboard, shiny side up, against a chair, put various snacks on the tagboard and photograph them for me. Oh, wait. That was me.)
What are your kids snacking on these days? I can always use new ideas!
MckMama’s yogurt
August 7, 2009
I love making my own yogurt.
I also love our free range chickens, pygmy goats, expansive organic garden out back, sewing machine, solar powered dishwasher, and little beeswax soap factory we have in our basement. We’re 100% natural and live a completely self-sustained life.
Um, or not.
As is no secret, I am totally down with all things natural. I love grinding nuts and making hummus. But I am not entirely a do-it-yourself-er. I like to do things naturally and eat organic, but I also take convenient shortcuts along the way as well because I’m, oh what’s the word, lazy.
My husband and I also have four children ages four and under, one with a health condition. So I think I deserve some kind of bye anyway, right?
Right.
So therefore, when I say I love making my own yogurt, I don’t really mean I love making my own yogurt. Nothing I do when I make yogurt involves cooking, cheesecloth or letting yogurt sit and cure. Or ferment. Or rot or age or ripen or whatever real yogurt makers call it.
But I do have my own version of making yogurt for our family that is fun, healthy and (relatively) fresh.
It goes something like this:
MckMama’s yogurt
1 tub plain, organic whole yogurt
1 banana
1/4 c honey
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 cup (frozen or fresh) blueberries
1 1/2 cups (frozen or fresh) strawberries
Blend all ingredients together.
Store in a glass container. Or a plastic one. Or an earthen clay vessel.
But probably not.
And that’s it! Easy as pie.
Whipping up a batch of almond milk and storing it beside the yogurt in an old (clean) applesauce jar is entirely optional. Knitting your own underwear and making bedspreads out of leaves is definitely neither required nor encouraged.
In fact, it’s kind of discouraged.
MckMama’s nut butter
June 7, 2009
Allergy warning: This post may contain photographs that were processed on the same equipment used to photograph nuts. Proceed with caution.
Granola. Crunchy. Earthy. Yes, I am, thankyouverymuch. I’ll have you know, on the off chance that you were wondering, that I do shave my legs, wear makeup and use electricity though.
Indeed, granola munchers have it right when it comes to eating: a dry snack made of oats and nuts and seeds and dehydrated fruit ranks right up there with other nutritional giants.
Why?
Man, I’m so happy you asked.
Well, for one reason, because of the nuts. Did you know what powerhouses these foods are? While the MckFamily is far from a vegetarian family, we do like to get lots of our protein from sources other than animal. And nuts are one of the best plant sources of protein. Remember this exceedingly unique recipe for Groundnut Stew? Plus, nuts are rich in fiber, phytonutrients and antioxidants such as Vitamin E and selenium. Nuts are also high in plant sterols and fat, but thankfully it’s mostly the monounsaturated and polyunsaturated kinds. You know, the good omega 3 fatty acids, which have been shown to lower LDL cholesterol.
Nuts are high in calories, meaning that you and I don’t need to go nuts too much every day. But dense, healthy, rich foods that are extremely nutritious, portable, and kid friendly are high on the list of what Prince Charming and I like to nourish the MHM (Many Hungry Mouths) in our house with.
Because I am crunchy and granola, because I love concoctions, hate paying full price for prepared items, adore experimenting in the kitchen, but dislike recipes, because I hate seeing stuff go to waste and love being inventive, I came up with smashingly nutritious, downright delicious recipe for nut butter the other day.
And because I like you all so much, I’m going to share it with you. My recipe, that is. Not my nut butter. I don’t really like to share. But I’m working on that.
MckMama’s Nut Butter
1 c sunflower seeds
3 c raw nuts, any type. I used what we had on hand which was: cashews, almonds, walnuts and macadamia nuts.
1 leftover partially full jar of half-eaten peanut butter. Was that terribly redundant?
2 full jars of unopened peanut butter, any kind if your choosing
1/3 jar of almond butter, and whatever other leftover nut butters you have sitting around your house. I think you get the idea.
honey
1/4 c tahini, that’s sesame seed paste. It has a very strong flavor and is used, with garbanzo beans, in making hummus.
3 T Nutella, or however much is left over in your jar of the chocolate/hazelnut delicacy. Which isn’t usually much at our house.
Put all the nuts and seeds in a blender or food processor.
Mix until very well chopped, but before the mixture gets too pasty, chewy and gooey.
Completely random aside:
If you want, keep some of the chopped nut/seed mixture in a separate little bowl. I kept about a half cup of it and added that to a cup and a half of uncooked steel cut oats last night. I then added about 4 parts water to the oats/nuts and cooked it on low in my mini crockpot all night long. You’ll have to toy around with the amounts, based on your liking and on your crockpot. But 4:1 water to oats works well for us. Add more water the next time if your oatmeal is too dry or burnt in the morning, less water if it’s too soupy or pudding like.
Back to my nut butter recipe:
Put the premade nut butters, Nutella, tahini and a drizzle of honey in a large mixing bowl with the newly chopped nut/seed mixture.
Combine well with a wooden spoon. Or a metal one. Heck, just go ahead and use plastic if you want to live on the edge.
When well mixed, spoon the mixture into the now empty peanut butter jars. You’ll have lots of nut butter, so once you’ve filled those, put the rest in an empty mason jar.
Ahem. Do note that I said empty, as adding MckMama’s nut butter to a mason jar that is filled with, say, pickled herring, homemade jam, honey butter or stewed tomatoes will not be an easy, or appetizing, task.
After you photograph a jar of it on your countertop, put the nut butter in the refrigerator. Or, you know, put it in your cupboard.
It’s your life.
Spread some of the nut butter into pita bread halves. Eat it yourself and serve as well to your voracious, swimsuited children with strawberries and water for lunch.
Sit back and marvel at how unbelievably healthy you’ve become. And hide your Diet Dr. Pepper so that no ones sees it.
Congratulating me on coming up with a recipe that did not include flaxmeal is altogether optional.
11
September 14, 2008
I hate to cook.
That is one reason why I typically feed my family in an a la carte fashion…for nearly every snack and meal of the day. Another reason is that a variety of fresh food is healthier than–say–one big hamburger casserole. Yet another benefit to offering such meals is that my children, inherently picky eaters like most children, are empowered with choices. I don’t have to make them eat healthy. I simply only offer them healthy choices. They will get hungry, they will eat, and when they do, they will get to choose what they want to eat. Children love choices. And letting them choose things in their little lives is so empowering! Since all I offer them (I mean, usually.) are healthy choices, then–Voila!–they eat healthy food. It’s really that simple. I can’t take credit for the idea to feed my children in this manner, however. It was a learned behavior. This is exactly how my mother fed my sister and I when we were growing up. Except, you know, on older plates.
Anyway, I keep lots of quick, easy, nutritious tidbits on hand, and then throw together meals consisting of many choices for my children that look like this:
I served the boys 11 things for lunch yesterday. With only the help of this portion of a photograph, can you guess what all 11 things were? I will post a full photograph of the two identically portioned plates later. But for now, let’s see how your guess the a la carte MckMama meal items skills are.
First person to guess all 11 things correctly wins!
Ready. Steady. Go!
