Sustainable Kitchen Project

Posted on April 19th, 2008 in food by Kelby

When I decided to work at home most days, a major MAJOR factor was having more time to make good for my family. I wanted to use more fresh ingredients, and make more things from scratch. Oh, in my mind, I would be the uber foodie mom, baking and creating and freezing and canning and doing various fun things. I should totally have a sustainable kitchen.

In my kitchen, I have gadgets for making yogurt, juice, pasta, even sausage. I have a bread maker missing just one piece. Besides that, I have the knowledge (or the ability to Google and find out) to make any number of things from scratch. I have plenty of land to grow my own stuff, and I live in Asheville, NC where it is super easy to find cool locally grown produce.

Yet, my gadgets and cookbooks are gathering dust. I still hit the Super-Walmart so I can super consume. I spend $200-plus at least once a week on groceries. And I do still, sometimes (although definitely less and less often as I am at home more), give my children processed, packaged crap. OK, I said it. I may be a foodie mom, but I am a real mom. I am buying things in extra packaging for extra money and being totally non-green when I could just make and store things at home. Criticize away, if you must.

I blame life and having lots of work and having three kids and all of that. But when my twins were babies, I was working full-time and making homemade baby and pumping milk for them to have at daycare. It wasn’t easy, and I was pretty much psychotically exhausted. But it should be even easier now, much easier. So I clearly CAN do it.

So I’ve decided I will create this public as a way to motivate myself, to keep myself honest, to connect with other moms who want a more self-sustaining kitchen, and to track my progress. I’ve already started in a few ways, and I’ll post about these very soon. For example, we are starting an organic vegetable garden. Here is a lettuce seedling I’ve started:

Seedling for lettuce started as part of my personal Sustainable Kitchen Project

And I made orange juice this week:

Do-it-yourself orange juice

Here are just some of the things I want to do as part of my . Hey, are there some I am not thinking to list? Let me know…

  • Grow herbs, vegetables and fruit
  • Make juices, teas and sodas
  • Make yogurt
  • Make pasta
  • Bake breads
  • Start a compost
  • Buy more local produce and products
  • Learn to preserve items when they are local and fresh with freezing, canning, etc.
  • Make jams and other condiments
  • Make butter
  • Make beer and wine
  • Make cheese (can that be done at home? that would be coool!)

I know I’m forgetting some. I’ll also keep track of the grocery bill, and any other side effects and impacts of the project.

Wish me luck with my self-sustaining kitchen!

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Review of Amy’s Organic Kids Meals

Posted on April 16th, 2008 in food by Kelby

The odds were stacked pretty well against Amy’s Kitchen before I even opened the first box of the company’s new organic frozen kids meals. For one thing, two out of three of my kids have a distinct distrust of new foods. Those two girls also have an uncanny sense for knowing when something is organic or healthy, just so they can sneer at it. Personally, I am not a fan of frozen meals. I also had never tasted a frozen mac and cheese I would recommend. Despite the tough crowd, the three kids meals we tested performed admirably.

Read the rest of my post at Kids Cuisine

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